Today the Supreme Court ruled that a California law which banned children from buying mature video games was unconstitutional. While most people do not really care about this, because most parents are actually quite good at ensuring that their children do not buy mature video games, it really demonstrates to me just how far gone our country really is.
The Supreme Court and the Inferior Courts were established to settle disputes between sovereign States or between the States and the Federal government, although the United States Constitution never explicitly stated that they get the final say on these matters. In fact, many Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson never considered that the court system at the Federal level was a good option for handling the tyranny of the Federal government itself. They believed that the States had a right to nullify unconstitutional law and, if necessary, succeed from the United States. In other words, the original design of our government was really just a contract between the sovereign States that established a Federalist system where checks and balances were maintained on the three branches as well as at the different levels of government.
I personally disagreed with this law that was passed in California. In my opinion, it violated free-market principles and it outsourced parenting to the State. At best, the law was nothing more than the moral grandstanding of some glory-seeking politician hoping to get a seat in the United States Congress. At worst, it represents the State’s need to take control over every little detail of our lives.
However, I do not believe that the Supreme Court should have taken up this case at all. In fact, the State of California’s own higher court had overturned the law two years ago. So really, the bad law was gone and since this law did not even affect interstate commerce, since there were no tariffs placed on video games imported from other States, there was no need to take up the case. Instead, the arrogant, self-serving Supreme Court Justices decided that they had to determine, yet again, what freedoms you and I can enjoy.
It infuriates me that we the people have to go to the government court system in order to beg and plead for freedoms we are suppose to have under natural law. We should be allowed to engage in voluntary exchanges of goods and services without government interference, except maybe in the case of fraud. Even then, the government need not interfere because a true free-market does have self-correcting methods of dealing with perpetrators of fraud (reputation is everything in the free-market).
Now we are held in bondage having to go to our masters who presume to know more than we do about matters of liberty in order to ask for more freedom. We are told that the government knows best and that among those who know best, there is none better than the Supreme Justices. Everyone who has any say in anything that happens within government in this country almost never questions that premise and instead simply accepts it.
And no, this was not a First Amendment issue. There is no political message in buying a video game, so there was expression against the government, and therefore there nothing here that falls anywhere close to freedom of speech. Besides, when a child buys a violent video game, what message is he or she sending to the government?
The fact is, this is just one more example of the Supreme Court assuming that it has the authority to grant freedom to the individual, despite no authority given to them by anyone but themselves. When Justice Sonya Sotomayor said that they determine the laws of the nation, she was not lying, even though she may have had an over-inflated sense of what her job is.
The only way we are going to rid ourselves of such overlords is to start ignoring them and going our own way. If California passed a law that banned children from buying violent video games, what they are saying is that if you sell children violent video games, they will kill you. This is because if you sold them one, you would be fined. When you refused to pay the fine, your property would be seized. If you protected your property from the government goons hired to take it from you, you would be killed. Such is the nature of the laws that are passed. The path of absolute resistance will lead to your death.
But that only works out that way if someone reports you. If everyone ignored the vast majority of laws, of which there are more than God Himself ever handed down, then the power of the various government entities like the Supreme Court would be rendered moot.
It is high time that we tell the Supreme Court that we are tired of being told what we are allowed to do by them. It is high time we stated that as long as live an honest and peaceful life, we should be free from government in all its forms. I know what is good for me. Some stuffy bureaucrat, lying politician, or self-serving judge does not.