Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America 
asked by vegaswinner on November 20, 2006 8:53 AM
Conservative talk radio host, lawyer, and frequent National Review contributor Mark R. Levin comes out firing against the United States Supreme Court in Men in Black, accusing the institution of corrupting the ideals of America's founding fathers. The court, in Levin's estimation, pursues an ideology-based activist agenda that oversteps its authority within the government. Levin examines several decisions in the court's history to illustrate his point, beginning with the landmark Marbury v. Madison case, wherein the court granted itself the power to declare acts of the other branches of government unconstitutional. He devotes later chapters to other key cases culminating in modern issues such as same-sex marriage and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Like effective attorneys do, Levin packs in copious research material and delivers his points with tremendous vigor, excoriating the justices for instances where he feels strict const! itutional constructivism gave way to biased interpretation. But Levin's definition of "activism" seems inconsistent. In the case of McCain-Feingold, the court declined to rule on a bill already passed by congress and signed by the president, but Levin, who thinks the bill violates the First Amendment, still accuses them of activism even when they were actually passive. To his talk-radio listeners, Levin's hard-charging style and dire warnings of the court's direction will strike a resonant tone of alarm, though the hyperbole may be a bit off-putting to the uninitiated. As an attack on the vagaries of decisions rendered by the Supreme Court and on some current justices, Men in Black scores points and will likely lead sympathetic juries to conviction. --John Moe
Reviews
0%
0%
Mark Levin makes some really good points on how the Supreme Court has "dictated social policy" and "legislated from the bench". The Constitution has defined a limited role for the Federal Judiciary, yet it has supplanted the powers of the Executive and Legislative branches by reviewing Constitutional cases based on their desired partisan outcome rather than what the Constitution actually states. This book is a must read for anyone that believes in the preservation of the United States Constitution!
reviewed by benzdrives on November 28, 2006 3:51 AM
0%
0%
Mark Levin's book falls into some of the usual pitfalls that almost all biased political argumentation today falls into--evidence is often stretched and recontextualized to fit certain predisposed conclusions. The book is clearly well researched, and Levin is no doubt quite knowledgeable about legal process and the language of the US Constitution, but his conclusions are often stretched to a degree that no longer fits the evidence. I would hesitate comparing his method to a smokescreen, for I am not entirely sure if Levin is purposefully making exaggerated claims that he doesn't support but artfully disguises in the ethos of research, but at the core of many of his ideas are assumptions or basic contradictions that he just can't back up.
For example, Levin is trying to show with this book that there is a long-term conspiracy of liberalism that has been slowly forging opportunities for itself in the process of applying the Constitution to the cases before it so that there would be precedent to back what Levin calls unConstitutional decisions like in Roe vs. Wade. Levin pushes a good case to look further (personally) into the basis of that and other decisions and if they do have Constitutional basis, but Levin instead goes into a history lesson of the decisions that predicated decisions like Roe vs. Wade with the assumption that every opportunity opened in previous decisions regarding things like the right to privacy was in fact the doing of a long-term liberal plan to open the doors of power for an activist court. Certainly, legal cases are often made on the grounds of precedent, but instead of revealing the focus on precedent rather than the Constitution as a problem in the deliberations of the Supreme Court, Levin tries to turn the problem into an unsupportable conspiracy that comes across on the edge of paranoia rather than sound, unbiased reason. And when Levin starts out the book stating that the justices should be treated as humans rather than gods, he wants to convey the idea that their actions may be questioned, but will not acknowledge himself that the history of precedents may also be the mistakes of the same human beings whom he does not want us to deify.
Levin also breaks his guise of the the reasonable viewer of history when he tries to establish the intents of the founding fathers, equating Jefferson's participation in prayer services at Congress as a direct negation of his over-used mention of the wall of separation. Clearly, Levin cannot see no possible correlation between the two, and thus the questioning of the validity of prayer in schools must be a moot argument. Just to make sure that his bias is clear, he throws in a little slippery scare tactic of suggesting a future where religious observance is also banned in the home.
Levin makes the same kind of rhetorical blunders when he suggests that Blackmun may have turned 'left' under the influence of his wife (while giving a little shot in the arm to Richard Nixon for having the foresight of wanting to base a Supreme Court nomination partly on the quality of a man's wife). When discussing the famous argument over the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, Levin focuses more on how much the plaintiff's daughter actually wanted to say the phrase, which is of course moot when considering the actual legitimacy of requiring the phrase in a patriotic statement.
In the end, this book comes across as yet another argument of bias in what has clearly become a divisive popular culture--evidently, a book isn't commercially viable unless it has a line to hold, no matter which side.
For example, Levin is trying to show with this book that there is a long-term conspiracy of liberalism that has been slowly forging opportunities for itself in the process of applying the Constitution to the cases before it so that there would be precedent to back what Levin calls unConstitutional decisions like in Roe vs. Wade. Levin pushes a good case to look further (personally) into the basis of that and other decisions and if they do have Constitutional basis, but Levin instead goes into a history lesson of the decisions that predicated decisions like Roe vs. Wade with the assumption that every opportunity opened in previous decisions regarding things like the right to privacy was in fact the doing of a long-term liberal plan to open the doors of power for an activist court. Certainly, legal cases are often made on the grounds of precedent, but instead of revealing the focus on precedent rather than the Constitution as a problem in the deliberations of the Supreme Court, Levin tries to turn the problem into an unsupportable conspiracy that comes across on the edge of paranoia rather than sound, unbiased reason. And when Levin starts out the book stating that the justices should be treated as humans rather than gods, he wants to convey the idea that their actions may be questioned, but will not acknowledge himself that the history of precedents may also be the mistakes of the same human beings whom he does not want us to deify.
Levin also breaks his guise of the the reasonable viewer of history when he tries to establish the intents of the founding fathers, equating Jefferson's participation in prayer services at Congress as a direct negation of his over-used mention of the wall of separation. Clearly, Levin cannot see no possible correlation between the two, and thus the questioning of the validity of prayer in schools must be a moot argument. Just to make sure that his bias is clear, he throws in a little slippery scare tactic of suggesting a future where religious observance is also banned in the home.
Levin makes the same kind of rhetorical blunders when he suggests that Blackmun may have turned 'left' under the influence of his wife (while giving a little shot in the arm to Richard Nixon for having the foresight of wanting to base a Supreme Court nomination partly on the quality of a man's wife). When discussing the famous argument over the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, Levin focuses more on how much the plaintiff's daughter actually wanted to say the phrase, which is of course moot when considering the actual legitimacy of requiring the phrase in a patriotic statement.
In the end, this book comes across as yet another argument of bias in what has clearly become a divisive popular culture--evidently, a book isn't commercially viable unless it has a line to hold, no matter which side.
reviewed by 78704 on November 29, 2006 7:13 AM
0%
0%
Overall, Americans tend to pay little attention to politics. When they do, the vast majority of that attention is focused on the Executive and Legislative Branches. As a result, the judicial branch has almost no accountability and becomes the weak link in the chain of Democracy. Levin shows that it is through this weak link that liberals are able to get their agendas voted in to law (bypassing the Congress, the President and the American people) simply by having a liberal judge impose their personal opinion on us under the guise of a "ruling". This is clearly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
reviewed by glassysurf on November 29, 2006 6:14 PM
0%
0%
Probably one of the best books you will find out there at this time on the Constitution and the tyrannical judiciary system. Of course this was a few months ago now. Make sure to read Constitutional Chaos by Judge Andrew Napolitano. The supreme court is turning the Constitution on it's head by making law instead of faithfully interpreting it as it was written.
"The Constitution was never meant to prevent people from praying; it's declared purpose was to protect their freedom to pray."
"Our nationwide policy of obortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislatures-not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy."
Ronald Reagan
Maybe it is our Democratic form of government slowly but surely eroding our Republic foundation.
"The Constitution was never meant to prevent people from praying; it's declared purpose was to protect their freedom to pray."
"Our nationwide policy of obortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislatures-not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy."
Ronald Reagan
Maybe it is our Democratic form of government slowly but surely eroding our Republic foundation.
reviewed by allnet on November 29, 2006 7:06 PM