States to Ignore Federal Courts?

[Truthseeker]

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams

The government is essentially an institution that society allows the "right" to use force or chicanery, so that a majority of power has "rightful" sovereignty over the rest of the people. Eminent domain is a good example. I question whether a moral and religious people would allow government.

In an earlier exchange of posts between you and me, it seems as though you believe our government or any other should aim to achieve the best possible world ("greatest good"). A problem is, we have no way outside religion to discern what the best possible world would be. I question in particular whether a nation composed of no one but Christians would tolerate government such as what we have now. Perhaps we can have kritarchy as in the time of Judges (in the Bible), though.

[KingsGambit]

I question in particular whether a nation composed of no one but Christians would tolerate government such as what we have now. Perhaps we can have kritarchy as in the time of Judges (in the Bible), though.

In theory they shouldn't have to. I'm reminded of 1 Corinthians, where Paul basically calls out the church by saying they shouldn't be suing each other in secular courts; shouldn't they be handling things themselves? I fear this will only remain an ideal.

[Teallaura]

Yes, we know you are.

[Teallaura]

And in fairness, Jaecp is right; I did walk back my earlier statement because it is a reasonable point that ignoring the Supreme Court is more dangerous than other branches of government because the court has no enforcement mechanism.

Um, okay - don't recall that being the point. It was mostly 'but it's about courts' thing.

But on point, you're mistaken - none of the above have actual enforcement powers over the states. Federal mandates are usually tied to funding - carrot, not stick. States often cooperate on enforcement of Federal laws - but they have no obligation to provide enforcement (and the current admin is arguing that they have no right - which gets really funny after a point). The Federal government has no mandate power over the states - it has power in certain areas that the states are excluded from (currency, making treaties, et al) but no power to tell states what to do. That includes all three branches.

Supreme court rulings are enforced by the Executive, where enforcement is an issue (a lot of rulings merely govern other rulings and enforcement is a non-issue for them, by and large). The kicker is that those rulings can only be enforced where the Fed has power to do so, which is where things get interesting.

It's actually at the Congressional level that you should be concerned. A lot of the time, where the power isn't enumerated, if there's going to be an enforcement power, it will come from Congress (and be way over complicated... They're legislators, it's what they do).