Pre-clearance Struck Down and 'Doing What is Right' | Eastern North Carolina Now

    In case you are living in a vacuum, this Monday morning, June 25, 2013, the United States Supreme Court turned back the hands of time , and may have forever changed, as we know it, the way we elect our public policy decision makers. The Supreme Court, by the slimmest of a 5 to 4 margin, struck down articles 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which gutted its enforcement provisions of that historic 1965 piece of legislation. It is the intent of the majority of these justices to send this legislation back to congress for a bit of an intrinsic overhaul.

    The supreme irony in the Supreme Court's action of re-engaging congress is that congress is now a legislative symbiotic organism of that aforementioned legislation, a pure dichotomy of multiple gerrymandered congressional districts, which may be too polarized, and may not possess the collective intellectual wherewithal to enact formidable legislation that will pass muster with future Supreme Courts' tightened bar of approval.

    Yesterday's decision, ironically, may have been the watershed event that will thrust America into a national debate on race and voting, which will ultimately, and hopefully, transcend to a national adherence to a color-blind approach to selecting our leaders. Leaders, who must be capable of engaging in original thought, and problem solving to correct the many bad decisions of the last 4 decades. In this one possible succeeding action, we may finally find that we can judge people and politicians as was the lasting hope of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. to live, "in a nation where they (his children as a metaphor for generations of Americans) will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"

    Alternatively, Mr. Barack Obama, commented that he was, "Supremely disappointed" in the Supreme Court's decision.

    Former ACLU lead counsel, and President Clinton's appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginberg, wrote in her minority opinion, "The Conservative Justices displayed 'hubris' while demolishing the voting rights act"

    Other Liberals, many in the world renowned 'lapdog media', amid much hand-wringing and vociferously clucking of their Liberal tongues: universally begged the question, "Why are we moving backwards to a 'Jim Crow' South where voting will be, once again, suppressed among minorities. Why not be progressive in our attitudes, and move forward to do what is right for all people."

    Ironically, "what is right for all people" is at the heart of this decision by this Supreme Court, and by that aforementioned 5 to 4 majority decision, has communicated that the racially charged atmosphere of the times that necessitated this original legislation has long passed, as signified by the immutable evidence of these times. By gutting articles 4 and 5 of this legislation, the Supreme Court has removed the Justice Department's carte blanche pre-clearance manifesto, which effectively took congress's oversight out of the voting rights equation, and put it in the hands of bureaucrats, thereby diminishing the most fundamental tenants of States' rights - the right to elect officials as each state sees fit, providing that each state is not in violation of the United States Constitution.

    Furthermore, the majority saw that there was no longer a fundamental need for an imposed federal bureaucracy - the United States Justice Department - having pre-clearance authority to effect minority voting rights protection, over some whole (these 10 states shown below) states and certain counties in 5 other states (of which North Carolina is one), while having no jurisdiction over the other 35 states, in whole or in part. In this one factor lies much of the basis for the majority's decision. It is an issue of fairness as was intended by our Founders.
Click the image above to view an enlarged map of the states that under the previous jurisdiction of the justice department. Look closely and you will see that Beaufort County is under that jurisdiction of Eric Holder's Justice Department: Above.
    'Doing what is right', for principled and knowledgeable Americans, is to adhere to the constitution at government's most fundamental levels (local and state governments), while Liberals, who are generally unprincipled fundamentally and often without certain fundamental knowledge, would suggest and demand otherwise. Liberals would fundamentally rather depend on their friends in the unelected bureaucracy, like the aforementioned Justice Department, to 'do the right thing', rather than their elected officials as dictated by their constitution. This is a fundamental schism between Liberals and Conservatives, and yesterday, the Supreme Court finally set this right in favor of the U.S. Constitution, and those with a fundamental knowledge of such.

    It will be interesting as to how the People's congress constructs possible legislation to guide future elections that are fundamentally constitutional throughout these states united.