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I'm Judge Andrew Napolitano and I'm happy to have landed in the Gulch. Ask Me Anything.

Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago to Books
284 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

I'm Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News Channel, and New York Times best selling author. I was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey and I'll be here today from 1PM to 2PM ET to take your questions and to talk about my new book "Suicide Pact" (http://suicidepactbook.com/), a book exposing the alarming history of presidential power grabs performed in the name of national security.

Today through Wednesday, when you buy "Suicide Pact", you'll be eligible to get another one of my books, "The Freedom Answer Book", for free. Find details here: http://suicidepactbook.com/bookbomb.php

Gulch Producers get a third book of mine, "Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom", for free as well. Find details here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/1a...

Alex will be helping me out with my today by reading me the questions over the phone and typing my responses. I look forward to your questions and comments. I'll be back at 1PM ET.

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EDIT 1: 12.08.14 1PM: The Judge is here. Here we go.

EDIT 2: 12.08.14 2PM: The Judge has left the building! Check out his farewell comment here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/1b...

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PROOF: https://twitter.com/Judgenap/status/5419...

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BUY THE BOOK: "Suicide Pact" http://suicidepactbook.com/

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FROM SCOTT: The Judge will be here at 1PM ET. Post your questions here now as comments below. If you have multiple questions, please post them individually. Try and keep the questions brief so the Judge can get through as many as possible. Also, make sure to vote on the questions (and this post) as the best will rise to the the top of the list.

After 1PM ET, refresh this page with your browser to see the Judge's replies as they come in.

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NOT YET A GULCH PRODUCER?
- Create a new Galt's Gulch Account: https://galtsgulchonline.appspot.com/acc...
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All Comments

Previous comments...   You are currently on page 5.
  • Posted by drellenr 9 years, 5 months ago
    Judge, my hero!...I want to know how to neuter the mainstream media that reports only what it wants to report. The current ROLLING STONES case is an opportunity, it seems to me, to require fair and balanced reporting or close their doors. Is there a realistic way to do this??
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thank you, Judge.
    I am familiar with all but G.K. Chesterton. You have provided a new avenue for study.
    Best Regards,
    O.A.
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  • 11
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh my. I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know that I’m the right person to be answering that if you’re talking about bringing about the kind of responsive behavior that came about in the novel. I’m not a titan of industry. I don’t employ a great deal of people. I’m not super wealthy. I realize I am a loud, strong, and consistent voice for the privacy of the individual over the state but I would think you would need people higher up the food chain than I am to bring about the change you’re asking about.
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  • Posted by TheRealBill 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The constitution doesn't specify how the electors within a state are to vote other than (by amendment 12) they are to vote for POTUS and VPOTUS specifically.
    Because it is silent on that subject, however the state or it's electors decide to vote is entirely up to them.

    Indeed, the Constitution doesn't specify how to choose electors: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct...".

    In essence the "popular vote" is merely a tool we sue to try to bring a sense of "we did this" to the process. In truth the electors are, by U.S. constitution, allowed to vote for whomever they want. Frankly, if a state wanted to have their Governor appoint the electors that would not be in opposition to the rules of the U.S. constitution, so long as the appointment was done on election day.

    Wouldn't that be fun, though? If one or more states decided to do that?
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  • 16
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not in the kind you run for. But if someone in the White House were to say we need you in a certain court not far from the White House, I would think seriously about changing my day job.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 5 months ago
    Hi, judge, whenever I see you on Fox News TV, I turn up the sound and listen.
    Do you think it will every be possible to get rid of the IRS and replace it with something better?
    Would you favor a flat tax or a consumption tax?
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  • 14
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My political philosophy has been influenced the most by John Locke. Ayn Rand has influenced my economic philosophy. Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises have influenced both my political and economic philosophy.

    My attitude towards Natural Law has been prominently influenced by St Thomas Aquinas.

    The British author G.K. Chesterton has influenced my social views.
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  • 13
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I haven’t read Mark Levin’s work but I’m generally familiar with it. I think it's generally well thought out and would effectively return liberty to individuals. This will become easy to do when more and more people, quite frankly, have had enough. When it becomes the popular thing to do.

    If it's not the popular thing to do then it takes a very, very, determined, almost radical, aspect of the population to move the rest of the population.

    For example, there were no polls at the time of the American Revolution but it is the general understanding of most serious historians that about 1/3 of Americans were willing to tolerate life under the King and the Parliament, about 1/3 of Americans were willing to sacrifice their lives, liberty, and property to get rid of the King and Parliament, and about 1/3 didn’t care and would go either way.

    This means that a determined band of about 1/3 was able to move the other 2/3. I think that that could happen today. I think the longer we wait the easier it will be because the more out of control the federal government will become.

    Ideally you would want the federal government to be reformed in almost the way the old Soviet Union was - where even its servants and agents dropped their guns and shed their uniforms and ran into the welcoming arms of the rebels because they knew the government was unsustainable.

    Given the fact that the government just keeps taxing more, printing more cash, regulating more personal liberty, and fighting more wars, it gets less and less sustainable with each tick of the clock.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Judge, as a follow-up: those who argue the ACA overrides these privacy statutes seem to argue for an abrogation principle in American law. That is, if any law conflicts with an earlier law, it overrides it automatically. I did not know that any such abrogation or automatic override principle existed in American law. Or did I miss something in my civics class?
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If he can post a question here about asking a question, then why not?
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  • 18
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There’s no specific Constitutional reference, but there are numerous federal statutes that prohibit federal agencies from exchanging information about you. The government would argue those statutes are overridden by the ACA.

    There is Supreme Court case law that would indicate that the ACA is unconstitutional where it interferes with constitutionally protected privacy. Constitutionally protected privacy has been articulated in several supreme court opinions, but in the 4th Amendment it applies to persons, papers, houses, and effects - so clearly documents that you send to your doctor’s office could not be shared with the IRS or with DEA even if the doctor is forced to share them with Health and Human Services.

    So your fear is a valid and legitimate one.

    These particular issues have not yet been litigated by federal courts because no one has complained about them yet, as far as I know, and I generally monitor this type of litigation but I suspect we will be hearing about it soon.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, to be honest, by voluntarily subjecting yourself to same, that would be tantamount to "ratification" even if a specific vote weren't taken.
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  • Posted by $ dballing 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, as part of admission to the US, states agree to abide by the Constitution, essentially doing the same thing as ratifying it. None of the later admitted states do any such thing regarding the Declaration.
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  • Posted by europa3962 9 years, 5 months ago
    Judge

    Do you think that the US Federal Government has lost the consent of the governed?
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  • Posted by jetgraphics 9 years, 5 months ago
    How can we end the perpetual "temporary" State of Emergency?

    STATE OF EMERGENCY
    Senate Report 93-549
    War and Emergency Powers Acts
    "A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years (as of the report 1933-1973), freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency."

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  • 18
    Posted by JudgeNap 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The Declaration of Independence says that when the government violates the basic rights of the people, it is their right and their duty to amend or abolish it. There is obviously no language about that in the Constitution.

    Surely if there were enough of a consensus, one could amend the Constitution to change the Presidency radically to remove its imperial aspects or limit the scope of the federal government precisely to the 16 delegated powers given to it.

    There is no rule of thumb of when you can resort to violence.

    There is an old phrase from a British poet, “Treason never prospers and what’s the reason? For if it prospers none dare call it treason.”

    The essence of this one liner is if you are attempting to oust the government by violence, and you succeed, you’re a hero and if you loose you’re a traitor and you’ll suffer egregiously for it. I would think that one would have a moral obligation to try all legitimate reasonable moral practical means to change the government before one could resort to violence.

    I mean violence denotes the destruction of innocence and destruction of property - all of which would be condemned except in the most egregious of circumstances, but it is contemplated by the inclusion of the second amendment which of course was not written to protect the right to shoot deer but to protect the right to shoot tyrants when they take over the government.

    Do not misunderstand what I’m saying as advocating violence - but theoretically, the basis for its exercise is there in the two documents.
    Reply | Permalink  

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