Fabulous letter to the editor recently in Florida’s Gainesville Sun in defense of our Constitution and judicial review.
Who would be willing to allow the police to beat confessions out of us or allow us to be tried for crimes without the benefit of legal counsel? Who would vote to return to a day when people of different races could not intermarry, were forced to go to different schools, drink from different fountains and sit separately in public arenas?
The change in such practices has usually come from court decisions before the majority of our country fell in line. Times change and values change, or we would still have slavery.
Our Constitution was adopted to protect the minority because the majority has never needed protection. To the extent that the court system may be considered activist because it does not always vote with the majority of our population as represented by Congress or state legislatures, it is in fact carrying out its mandate from the spirit, if not the precise letter of the Constitution.
The letter was signed by George L. Barnett of Micanopy, which, everyone knows, is the town where the Michael J. Fox film “Doc Hollywood” was filmed. Good going, George!
