August 25, 2003 In light of current events, it appears that during this summer, the Taliban is back in action, busy destroying religious monuments, but this time in America.
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And no, despite everything the Berkley researchers or your college professors postulate about conservatives this year, it was not the Christian right burning the latest Harry Potter book or Hillary Clinton's Living History. Instead, America's courts received that honor when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Myron Thompson's earlier ruling that the Ten Commandments monument displayed by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore was unconstitutional and the Supreme Court refused to consider his petition for an appeal. The granite marker is only the most recent casualty in the war for political and moral dominance that America's courts have been fighting since the Warren Court in the 1950s. The removal of Moore's monument serves to maintain the authority of the federal courts, similarly, to how the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha statues reinforced the Taliban's power. In early 2001, the world denounced the Taliban when it destroyed the two statues that had graced the fabled Silk Road since the 3rd century. Although the Taliban had previously stated it would preserve Afghanistan's cultural heritage, Mullah Muhammad Omar ordered the statues' destruction while describing them as "idolatrous" and "false idols." Despite the religious connotations, the Taliban had several politically motivated reasons to destroy the statues. Strategically located along the east-west road, Bamiyan provided a base of opposition for Northern Alliance rebel forces. Annually in the spring, the opposition led by deposed President Borhanuddin Rabbani would attack Taliban troops; by destroying the pre-Islamic Buddhas, the Taliban would be in a prime location to quell any hostility. In addition, the demolition would help detour some opposition through sheer intimidation and humiliation to insure political dominance, at least for a season, in a region rife with strife. Similarly, removal of the Ten Commandments monument preserves the power the federal courts posses by intimidating the lower courts and states. The U.S. District and Appellate Courts voiced their opposition to any states' right argument that Roy Moore might make. Behind this caveat lies the implicit affirmation that states and their power, when left to the natural bounds of as defined by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, threaten the federal government and the increasing power they have accrued since the Civil War. Now, conflicting laws and precedents present a problem: a state's constitution acknowledges a God and has not yet been declared unconstitutional, and a court order that refuses to allow a state institution to acknowledge a Creator. Either the state's constitution and the right for a state institution to recognize a divine being will be upheld, in which case the state will retain its right, or the courts' earlier ruling will be sustained, thus increasing the ever-burgeoning powers of the courts to make and decide laws. And although the Supreme Court refused to consider the case as of this week, Moore plans on redrafting his petition and placing it again for consideration. Until the Supreme Court rules in either direction, states' rights and judicial power will remain in limbo. Furthermore, the current tradition of judicial activism, which has become the method federal judges use to legislate, would be compromised if the courts make a decision based upon the actual intent of the Founders and the written words of the Constitution instead of their own interpretation of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers created the Constitution with a horizontal distribution of powers, disseminating different functions of government to the different branches power: Congress creates law, the President executes the law, and the judicial system interprets law. This distribution allows for no particular branch of government to become too strong. When the Judicial branch oversteps its bounds by making laws based on private interpretation, it becomes more powerful at an added expense to the other branches. This, in turn, creates the mechanism to harass other institutions of power, like the state and common people, within the government that, perhaps, are not as influential as the judicial system that can both interpret and legislate. Because an outcome of this case in favor of Moore and his monument has such tremendous consequences to the power-hungry judicial system's law-making capabilities, the federal courts will do anything to protect itself. With this in mind, we see how, like the Taliban when it destroyed the giant Buddha statues, the American courts are trying to protect its power by removing a threat and establishing itself as supreme law of the land. But Moore and his monument struggle against not only flesh and blood; and likewise, the Taliban fought a religious war as well as a political one. CNN reported the UN's confirmation of a Taliban statement that condemned the Bamiyan statues as offensive to Islam. The statues conflict with fundamental Islam's religious influence and any moral diktats issued by the Taliban. And although not explicitly stated, the courts seem to be removing anything that might challenge their ability to decide on moral issues. Primarily, the law, generally symbolized by the Commandments, is the knowledge of sin showing that man needs a savior. By removing the Commandments from the public spectrum, you get rid of an absolute authority by which we realize we sin. Instead, what we have is a situation in which man can decide what is good, what is evil: everything relevant to man's personal decisions. Like Eve being presented with the fruit by the serpent, the U.S. District and Appellate Courts, when the American Civil Liberties Union brought their case against Moore before them, were tempted with the offer of being like the gods, knowing good and evil. They held in their hand the power to get rid of an absolute authority, the power to replace that authority with their own judgments. In short, they were faced with the same decision Eve was faced. History does seem to repeat itself; they swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. Removal of the Ten Commandments eliminates the necessity for acknowledgement of God, his holy word, and Christ Jesus, thus leaving a vacuum to be filled. As in Luke 11, as soon as we, as a nation, stop acknowledging God as our source of well-being, of our moral code, we will replace it with something else; we are already on the path of replacing it with the chief justices and their rulings. And although some extreme differences exist between the Taliban of Afghanistan and the judiciary of America, their desire to maintain political power as well as moral supremacy create a reasonable link between the two. This struggle for moral and political power serves only one purpose; Justice Moore pinpointed that when he said, "Not only does Judge Thompson put himself above the law, but above God as well." |