Skeptic, I'm shocked at you.
The rule of law is winning here. The Florida judges, as well as SCOTUS, have repeated and correctly ruled that they either have no jurisdiction, or that it has been made clear what Terri would have wanted.
But I didn't SAY anything about the courts or their decision. I explicitly, for example, said that I do not consider her husband evil--surely I would not consider the courts, who merely cuncurred with his decision, worse than him?
My criticism is not of Mr. Schiavo or the courts. My criticism of those who consider this decision--whatever its legal status--as a good thing, the morally (as opposed to legal) thing to do.
I'm disappointed in those GOP lawmakers who attempted an "end-run" around the Constitution and existing law.
I'm not so sure I agree with you here. There is a balance of power: all three branches can under certain conditions "upend" the other two. A court can rule a law unconstitional. A governor or president can veto a law. The legistlature can change the law to overcome such executive and judicial objections.
In many cases, while the rationale for each one of the cases is given in "legalese", that branch is making a moral point. For example, when the SC ruled segregation unconstitutional, it was in reality a moral point it was making in banning it--when all precedent, of course, agreed that segregation is legal. That was the right thing to do. Presidents often vetoes bills they considered immoral or just against their worldview.
The legistlature has the same right--if enough of the legistlature feel it is a moral outrage that a certain outcome would be legal (to repeat I am not blaming the court for deciding this way--it has every right to change the law to try and cause a different outcome.
It would be a defeat for the rule of law if the legistlature (or governor), say, had refused to obey the courts EVEN AFTER the new legistlature didn't cause the desired outcome. But this is not the case. Neither president, nor governor, Bush will send troops to re-insert Schiavo's tube, for example.
I find it very odd that the excercise of its balance-of-power rights is seens as "bad" or even "illegal" when done by the legistlature, while the opposite--the courts ruling a law unconstitutional--is considered wise and wondeful in most cases. Surely both can be either right or wrong depending on the circumstances. In this case I think the legistlature did the right thing. Since it was acting perfectly legally, it had not done any harm to the rule of law; it merely disagreed with the courts.
It seems to me that for many people, "the rule of law" means "agreeing and not doing anything against what the courts say". That is OFTEN the case, i.e. it is the case for private individuals, but the legistlature and executive branch are given legal ways to disagree and overturn the courts' decisions precisely because they are not private individuals, but part of the two other branches of government.
I suspect--although I cannot prove--that this excessive deference to the courts, verging on the desire to have "government by judges" in the case of some people, is due to the belief that the judges (unlike those uncoth, silly members of Congress) are by nature intellectual, progressive, and therefore more likely to make the "correct" (i.e., liberal) decisions on which laws are consitutional and which are not.
This is a gross oversimplification of the SC's record and its purpose, of course, but that doesn't stop it from being a popular belief.
