Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws

5 Responses to “Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws”

1. C. M. Logan says:

   April 17, 2010 at 3:20 am

   Why should we listen to some mid-level judge from New Jersey,who has no expertise to speak of when it comes to federal and constitutional law. Fox news is touting him around as if he where supreme court judge. After reading his recent NYT op-ed on Lynne Stewart, I have lost nearly all respect for this man’s insight. His posistion is either fully coming from a moronic standpoint, or he is just tryingt to sell his book. He is no federal officially authorized practiced, or a constitutional scholar. DO NOT HEED THIS MAN.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
2. RONALD AMON says:

   April 17, 2010 at 5:25 am

   Perhaps if you skip the introduction, Napolitano has something of merit that may make reading his first book worthwhile. But, under Napolitano’s notion of Natural Law, in confusing the notion of “innocent life” with “murder”, Napolitano betrays any attempt at objectivity. By his concern that “if Congress (for example) made it unlawful to speak out against abortion…..” or “if people can be stopped from worshiping” (??). On the surface he may appear to be ridiculous, but he’s calling disruptive demonstrations “speech” and portends to favor the rights of some people, but not others. You cannnot have selective enforcement. Napolitano obsesses with the notion of “taking an innocent life is permanently incorrect” and again fulminates his anti-abortion quagmire. If it is “permanently incorrect” then this most likely is a commonly held assumpton that is rhetorical and does not need to be stated. But, Napolitano would place the reader to judge that it is ok or atleast to some extent ok to take a life that he would judge as non-innocent or fulfilling his notion of sin? He insults the intelligence of even the casual reader. A more scholarly piece worthy of any reader’s time and fitting that of a judge, would simply have stated “taking a life” because notions of “innocence” are subjective, emotionally charged, and detract from any intent to impart objective officially authorized opinion. Like beauty, they are in the eyes of the beholder.

   Napolitano wades into the murky waters of the First Amendment’s establishment and free-exercise clauses stating that this controversial section “clearly implies” what Napolitano wants it to say. Napolitano states, “The First Amendment, thus, is not a grant of rights of the people, but a restriction on government, preventing it from infringing on the rights the people already have.” (Oh, really??) Mean ole’ government. Permanently terrible? We could just as easily Blame it on the Bossa Nova. If you want real chaos, one reason America was customary was due to oppressive religion abroad. The First Amendment reflects that dread by preventing any one renegade religion from stupifying its blind sheep into placing it into power as the national religion–ostensibly by the “will of the people,” of course.

   The only saving grace of this book is the leader’s recognition of due process. But, when this is contingent on Napolitano’s notion of Natural Law which, for Napolitano, essentially transmogrifies into religious law–where are we as a free nation with a effective, living, Constitution? One may infer that Napolitano does not admit a living Constitution with interpretive applications to point issues. As a replacement for, it becomes a literal mass of stagnation of what any individual may forever (want to) judge. We see this in Napolitano’s claims to be a strong and fervent believer in Natural Law, stating that only valid laws are “grounded in a pursuit of goodness.” Sounds fantastic, but the problem arises in who defines “goodness” and what agenda is at stake.

   Napolitano also states that he does not judge in “the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people”…..and considers this a threat to America? Rather, he thinks each person should obey his own free will and conscience. Psychopaths (sociopaths) have no conscience. Would a course in Forensic Psychiatry clear Napolitano’s thinking? Probably not. But, shouldn’t all sitting judges be required to take such a course? In reading the book’s intro, the reader gets the notion that Napolitano’s opinion is inflexible and well entrenched.

   Only in Napolitano’s last sentence, “if we wish to survive the near future with out rights intact, we need to know the size and scope of the threat,” can there be universal agreement. But, the threat is not the government or at least not lacking the grandiose Trojan Horse that infiltrates our government and imposes its will through government intervention and the fake notion of “will of the people” building a mockery of the free election process.

   If you read his introduction before you buy, you will save your money. The critics? Bill O’Reilly thinks Napolitano is “nonideological.” Rush Limbaugh speaks of valuing “limited government.” And the cow jumped over the moon. –Ronald Amon (Virginia)
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
3. 'an impartial judge' says:

   April 17, 2010 at 6:21 am

   The fame and chance of Fox TV has gotten to this guy’s head. He is no greta Van Susteren nor Nancy Grace. Not that these two are judicial paradigms, they at least atempt to project an essence of objectivity. Whereas napolitano was ostensibly objective when he first entered media, it may have been a result of his dread and trepidation. He has evolved into a pompous know-it-all who appears to have one agenda–his own. From an initial apparent conservative/libertarian personna this chameleon has become a spokesman for the liberal left. This book reflects this southpaw’s liberal leanings and he has become a disgrace to the network and the judicial system.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
4. Ignatius Reilly says:

   April 17, 2010 at 6:27 am

   Judge Napolitano regrettably suffers from “the practiced’s disease” — his narrow, specialized point-of-view has blinded him to the legitimate concerns of the community at large. Like many people who have made a career in the law, he has become obsesses with the minutiae of “rights” and “process.” He has lost touch with the deep concern of ordinary people that actual ~justice~ be the result of the officially authorized process, not just a examination record that is lacking flaws from the perspective of a constitutional scholar. And many of the constitutional “rights” that he so zealously defends are recently minted by liberal jurits, not place into the constitution by the framers. If you, like the judge, reflect that the country’s huge problem in criminal justice is carelessness with defendants’ rights rather than the absurd officially authorized obstacles that obstruct prosecutions, then you may delight in this book. I didn’t.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
5. Bill Rummel says:

   April 17, 2010 at 8:53 am

   To blame the post-Civil War American South for gun control which ’spread to New York’ is absurd, and says much about Napolitano’s ignorance or intentional distortion of history. He gives no mention that the American southern negro was impelled to violence especially upon his fellow negro by northern carpetbagger governments installed ‘at the point of a bayonet’ by the Radical Republican national government from Washington. Furthermore, Napolitano’s theme that the Civil War was over slavery was the knockout punch for me, and his neocon book went right in the trashcan.

   Prospective buyers of Napolitano’s book should perish the thought & get a copy of The Tragic Era by Claude Bowers for a truthful and accurate account of life in the Reconstructed South after The War for Southern Independence.

   We know that the victors write the history books, and Constitutional Chaos is penned under that standard of disinformation.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5