“I think that you know me well enough, Watson,
to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time,
it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger
when it is close upon you.” -- Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem
I
do not fancy myself a nervous man. Still, as Holmes observed,
to recognize danger is the beginning of wisdom in a threatening world. In the midst of the tumult of history, a small thing may prove more
dangerous to the United States than all the military might of the
Soviet Union. We are seeing the conjunction of Judicial Activism,
One World Government, and American Apathy. While a large number
of commentators lament these individual aspects (for instance, seethis excellent piece by Lisa Fabrizio), few people seem to connect
the dots. Together, these three trends could conceivably form
a sum greater and more dangerous than the whole of their parts. America, like Holmes, needs to recognize the threat.
For
years the U.N. has complained about U.S. intransigence and independent
spirit. Still, before now it has lacked the military or economic
wherewithal to enforce its will, and so had to content itself to clogging
the streets of New York City and annoying its citizens. The
emergence of a Russia-China-EU alliance completely aside for a moment,
the U.N. has now found a friend in our own Supreme Court. The
Court, long ago having abandoned the Constitution as a legal precedent,
has begun to turn to international treaties—agreements that the United
States has not ratified—and general international opinion for their
guiding light. (Consider the dissenting opinion in the recent Roper
v. Simmons and Leah Farish’s excellent commentary) These guidelines
are not based on what is best for the country. In fact, many
of them are anti-American, designed primarily to benefit foreign powers
and ideologies at our expense.
This means that while previously
America had the option of ignoring the U.N., it now finds itself in
a completely different situation. If the Supreme Court continues
to use international treaties and declarations as its guide, having
assumed a position of practical absolute authority, the United States
will have foreign authority foisted upon it through the back door.
Since any issue could end up before the Court and given that many
Americans treat the Court’s decisions with the same deference they
do legislative law, it would defacto give the world its long coveted
veto over American life and morality. It would not involve a
war or even economic sanctions, simply the good will of a mere five
justices.
What is even more disturbing is that if the court does indeed assume that international law must trump American jurisprudence, the American people are left with no recourse. There is no court in our land that could overturn international opinion or treaties we have not signed; it could only choose to follow or ignore them. If the court lacks the will or wisdom for the latter, we are left with the former by default.
This bears specific implications
for conservative Americans on issues like abortion on demand. If the
court turns to exterior sources for their opinions, and does not search
out either the ultimate truth of the matter or even the wants of the
American people, we will find ourselves bound by a radical feminist
agenda that we have not even voted on: An immoral imperative
from someone else’s country enforced by a panel of non-representative
judges who in practice have never been held accountable for their
decisions. Anyone who thinks this is far fetched need only review
the items above, and this one from the new U.N. conference on women’s
equality.
The third and final aspect is of course American Apathy. As the early colonists knew much better than many today, the time to oppose such moves is now, before they have become a reality. If the British had actually collected a tax, and people accepted it, the patriot cause would have been lost before it begun. When the U.N. mandate and Judicial Activism have married themselves into a successful social-political convention and the offspring of that unholy union has been accepted in practice, it will be virtually impossible to turn back the clock. In a way, this makes the comfortable chair I’m sitting in as deadly a threat to my freedom as the U.S.S.R. ever was, even at the height of the Cold War.
Now, bear in mind
that I am not predicting anything, and I am certainly not implying
that there is any sort of conscious conspiracy between the U.N. and
the Supreme Court. That’s just silly. And yet freedoms
lost through thoughtless actions are often no more recoverable than
those lost to outright conspiracies. The pieces are in place.
It only remains to be seen whether or not we let them move freely.
About
the Writer: Brian Melton is an assistant professor of history at Liberty
University and is a regular contributor to ChronWatch.com. He can
be reached at bmelton@liberty.edu.
