On the other hand, the liberals, or Judicial Activists, believe that the founding fathers recognized that standards of their time wouldn’t apply to the future, so therefore left the constitution broadly based and available for contemporary interpretation. In my opinion, as in many others, Judicial Activism is just an excuse for justices to rule based on personal opinion. The judicial branch of the government needs to show judicial restraint because of the variety of the cases they receive. They need to make sure that the rulings they enact are rulings that follow the constitution and not their own personal beliefs as they have been doing for some time now. In my opinion, the most important example of judicial restraint being in need in American history occurred on May 20, 1940.
The principle was adopted by the Founding Fathers due to their fear of totalitarianism. Montesquieu argued for separation of powers in his book L’Esprit de Lois, where he stated that separation of powers will avoid tyranny ‘When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person…there can be no liberty.’ On the contrary to the US, the UK’s powers are fused; the Prime Minister is both the executive and part of the legislature. In the US system there is also a separation of personnel, this means that no person can be a member of more than one branch at the same time. When Senator Al Gore was elected vice-president in 1992, he had to resign from the Senate. Similarly, in 2008, Barack Obama too had to resign from the Senate.
Therefore, during the 1961 British Guiana elections, Kennedy was determined to deny Jagan power. John F. Kennedy did not make a good choice by carrying out a coup in the British Guiana to overthrow Jagan. Although Cheddi Jagan was a declared communist, he posed no threat to the United States. The British Guiana was an insignificant colony for the Western Hemisphere; however, Kennedy was unwilling to let any country become communist. Besides that Cheddi Jagan was a communist, John F. Kennedy did not have a valid reason to overthrow the British Guiana government.
Why has the United States paid lip service to the 14th & 15th Amendments while it venerates Amendments 1-10? Amendments 1-10 are known as the Bill of Rights and guarantee individual freedoms and protections from the intrusion of the federal government. Perhaps the most important and critical amendment is the first Amendment:“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” This amendment details the freedoms the founders were seeking to give the people; for with these rights they guaranteed that we can assert our views of religion, of speech, that we can protest and change unfair practices. Three Amendments are called the Reconstruction Amendments for the period following the Civil War called Reconstruction 1865-1877. The concept was that the defeated southern states would be rehabilitated and brought back to normal standing as citizens of the united states during this reconstruction period.
He believed that his first obligation was not to the government, but to do what he felt was right. To obey a law he was not in agreement with was to go against his conscience. He refused to pay taxes to support the war on
From today as mine by right.” Creon also now believes that as he is now king he is infallible and believes that his own laws should come above the laws of the gods. “But I am the law” Creon`s own attitude towards his own rule seems very autocratic, his opinion that a king does not need to listen to the people and make judgements he believes are the most beneficial to the state. “ I have never based my political principles on the opinions of people in the streets” “And I will act according to my own convictions” Creon believes that his actions to deny the burial of Polynices are justified because he believes that the gods will support his actions as Polynices was a traitor and Creon sees no reason as to why the gods would honour a traitor. “No, he must be left unburied, his corpse carrion for the birds and dogs to tear, an obscenity for citizens to behold! These are my principles.
However on the other hand a separation of powers undermines the idea of political sovereignty, because even though they have gain legitimate power, they are not able to run the country as they wish in terms of financial and economic policies. Flexibility is big problem also as an uncodified constitution allows the government to change the constitution and allows them to amend it to suit the needs of the party instead of the party in office working within the framework of the constitution, this can lead to a dictatorship also and pretty much removes the importance of a constitution, as it does not limit the government, whereas a codified constitution would most likely entrench these laws, meaning they would only be changed in an extraordinary circumstance . Regardless of this it could be argued that due to the ever evolving philosophy, it
The reliability of source 15 can be questioned, although the primary source is a statement by Lintlithglow. One could argue that Linlithglow was perhaps always going to exaggerate the divisions within India to make the British seem right in keeping control of the divided country, but then on the other hand would Linlinthglow need to exaggerate the divisions within India? This source states that, “His Majesty’s Government could not contemplate transfer of their present responsibilities for the peace and welfare of India to any system of Government”. This suggests that the British couldn’t even imagine giving any real power to India. This means the British are withholding peace within India.
As said in class people who wrote the constitution were both for and against slavery. So what can they have possibly decided would be the right thing to do? Well, although the laws are written straightforward without using any key words we know that slaves were not known as citizens. They weren’t citizens because slaves were considered property of the owner and basically nothing to the United States.
They wrote the restrictive forces of the Constitution on something far more predictable, the meaning of freedom. They understood that times would change, and that breakthroughs would come in many forms and on many levels. They therefore constructed the Constitution on one thing that they knew would not change, and that is human nature. So when people say that our constitution is not relevant at all because of its age, most of our rights are declared on it and still is followed today. Therefore, these are rights that can’t be taken away or unalienable, unalienable rights are rights that are unable to be alienated, given up, or transferred to someone else.