One should think about a judicial-activist judge like you would your mother-in-law when she tells your plumber how to do his job. What?!
Let me explain: People hire a plumber when they have a plumbing issue, not because they “feel” like it, but because a plumber knows how to do plumbing better than your mother-in-law. In fact, I bet a whole dollar – I am in a risky mood – that no one reading this would even let their mother-in-law give their plumber advice on how he should do his job.
Yet, people do not apply this common sense idea to activist judges. That is, we elect representatives because most would – or at least should – agree that a democracy usually does a better job at governing than an oligarchy. Therefore, logic says that we follow this obvious fact and disallow an oligarchy from giving advice to – let alone, ordering – the elected representatives on how to do their job. The sad part is, this perfectly labels what activist judges do, and we let them; some even celebrate them. These “wise” judges tell the democratically-elected representatives that they must take certain actions – not because of something written in the Constitution – but because of these judges’ personal views on a subject. Why are people not screaming in the streets opposing this assault on democracy?
Examples of this would take me a lifetime to list. But possibly the most egregious is found where the courts forbid the democracy from putting to death the most vile among us. To do so, they invoke the constitution. Yet, any intellectually honest assessment must conclude that the constitution has nothing to do with their decision. Indeed, it is beyond me how a document that explicitly allows for the death penalty can be seen by the courts as having implicitly evolved into a document that disallows it.
I must admit, however, much of what the left does is beyond me. I sometimes feel like I live in a cartoonish world called “Backwards Land,” where up is down, false is true, and irrationally is a judgment handed down by our highest court. Oh well.