Vast Overreach of Power By US Courts

Nationwide Injunctions Are a Threat to America's Constitutional Order

By Jeff Sessions
United States Attorney General
National Review Online

Using nationwide injunctions to shut down elected officials from carrying out our laws effectively silences the people who voted for them.

[Editor’s Note: This essay is adapted from a speech given to the Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium on March 10, 2018.]

Under our Constitution, Congress writes our laws, the executive branch carries out our laws, and the judiciary applies those laws to cases and controversies.

These branches are coequal. The courts are not superior. On matters of policy, the branches that are directly accountable to the people must be given proper respect. That’s why it’s so alarming that judges are increasingly issuing nationwide injunctions — orders that block the entire federal government from enforcing an executive-branch policy or executing a statute. These injunctions block the government from carrying out a law — not just in one district or to one person, but anywhere in America.

Scholars have not found a single example of any judge issuing that type of extreme remedy in the first 175 years of the Republic. In just over one year in office, President Trump has been hit with 22, more than any other president in our history.

Unlimited State Power

Secular Prayer Offers No Limit on State Power

Bruce Logan
Director of Maxim Institute
NZ Herald

Parliament's Speaker, Trevor Mallard, in a unilateral fit of secular hubris, got rid of the reference to Jesus and prays the parliamentary prayer in Maori. Secular hubris? What's that?

Although now in danger of slipping away, one of the great achievements of our political tradition is its grasp on freedom. After much trial and error, we managed to separate the role of priest from the role of king. It took a while to put into practice what Jesus had said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's."

For the Romans that was radical; the emperor was divine. There was no authority above the state. It didn't matter that many Romans might not have accepted the emperor's divinity, it was how it spun out in law.

The early Christians, refusing to accept the supreme authority of the divine emperor, were called "atheists", haters of mankind. It is not without irony that these hating and hateful atheists gave the West its insight into political freedom.

For most of my lifetime, the state was not absolute. There was an authority both the citizen and the government were expected to acknowledge. Certainly, the government could make laws, but even those laws were prescribed by a belief in an authority above the state.

Sometimes that division of powers is called separation of church and state. It is more than that. Secularists like Mr Mallard might find it unpalatable, but the limitation on state power is entirely the consequence of a belief in monotheism.

Repeated Folly

Men Rising Above Their God-Ordained Station

Myanmar, or Burma, has drawn the attention of the world's media in recent days with a largely free election and a staggering majority for Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy.  This has occurred under military rule--a rule which has persisted in Myanmar for over fifty years.  It remains to be seen where it will all lead.  We hope it leads to a much greater good for that country.

Burma was a former British colony; its economy was largely shattered as a result of the Japanese invasion in 1943 and the resulting land war throughout the country.  Eventually Japan was defeated and driven out by the Allies.

The leader of the Burmese army at the time, Ne Win seized power from the post-war elected civilian government, and the resulting military regime was welcomed by the populace.  Emma Larkin [Finding George Orwell in Burma (New York: The Penguin Group, 2011)] describes what developed from there:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow (About Totalitolerance)

Curling Up Under the Blanket

By Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

We live in a generation that is totalitarian in principle, having accepted all the basic totalitarian premises. Denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ drives you to those premises — for if Jesus is not Lord, then there is a vacancy that men will always want to fill. Without an exhaustive rule through the predestinating love of the Father, unbelieving men will always see a job opening. They will want to fill that gap. They mimic the Father’s omnipotence, which is where we get the totalitarian part. They also try to mimic His love, which is how we get the tolerance farce. And so it is that we find ourselves suffocating under this totalitolerance.


Examples pour in daily, but here is a fresh one. Gov. Brown of California has signed a bill requiring private pro-life counseling centers to distribute abortion information. Anyone who can look at the news without seeing how everything is coming to a grotesque and convulsive head is simply not paying attention.

Secularism is simply not capable of sustaining limited government.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Three Coyotes and a Sheep 

Culture and Politics - Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 03 July 2012

When I say that the Bible requires limited government -- because a claim to unlimited government by mortals is a spurious claim to Deity -- I do not mean that Christians may not find themselves living under despotic regimes from time to time. Our understanding of these things (given by grace) does not automatically transfer to those despots who do not know and understand that God is the only God.

What I do mean to say is that believers and despots are always, necessarily, on a collision course.