The Men in Black
Posted by Rey
Besides weirdisms, X-Files was known for its intricate conspiracy theories. How many times did we sit there, hanging on Mulder’s next word as he ranted about a multi-governmental unelected agency of individuals actually running the world (of which FEMA was a façade). And it was scary.
I mean, a group of people bent on power holding sway over the countries of the world without the people having much of a say in the matter was freakishly scary. Making decisions for the benefit of some minority group (in numbers not so much race or power) while the rest of the world has to capitulate just makes a person shiver.
Like what would we do if we had a group of unelected people who had more power than most, could overrule laws and define what the laws really mean? What would we do if we had our own, living, breathing Men in Black?
Oh wait, we do: The Supreme Court.
“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
—Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277
The Supreme Court Legislating:
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856)
- Lochner v. New York (1905)
- Adkins v. Childrens Hospital (1917)
- Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
- Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)
- Roe v. Wade (1973)
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