THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THE HOLY BLACK DRESS | 2004-04-17

Back when the Supreme Court was all male, I used to say, "The United States Supreme Court consists of nine lawyers who had enough political pull to get themselves made judges. They were just nine human lawyers before they went on the court, and they are nine lawyers now."

I would then add, "But because these nine guys now wear black dresses, they are supposed to be The Constitution of the United States. If they wore mascara and high heels, would they be the Bible, too?"

What kind of superstitious peasant could possibly believe that something called the Law is somehow something godlike and superhuman? What kind of retard could believe that a man has the right to be a dictator because he wears a black dress?

Judges today are, in fact, dictators. Here is what I said in the Introduction to my 1982 anthology for St. Martin's press, "The New Right Papers:"

"Several papers in this book deal, in one way or another, with the restoration of popular rule."

" Professor William A Stanmeyer's discussion of the imperial judiciary explains, from the point o"f view of a legal scholar, the steady erosion of the power of elected officials, and the increasing use of the Constitution as an excuse for, rather than as a source of, judicial decisions. Behind such decisions ranges the full power of the United States Government. A situation where one man's personal judgment is law has a name, and it is not democracy."