Over at Q and O, Dale Franks has an excellent piece which tackles an issue which I addressed last week on America's rulers -- the imperial judiciary.

We have given great deference to judges in the past giving them wide latitude to rule on practically every issue under the sun. With that power and deference, judges owe it to the country to be restrained in their decisions, to resist the temptation to legislate from the bench, and to accord the appropriate deference due to both state governments, and to the other two branches of the national government.

The court has unbridled authority, but not unbridled power. Judges seem, in many cases to have conflated the two. But, court rulings are obeyed because we wish to obey them, not because the courts have, at the end of the day, any power to compel us to obey them. As Andrew Jackson once said of a Supreme Court Ruling he disliked, "Justice Marshal has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." We obey because we respect the rule of law, and because we presume judges to be impartial arbiters of it. When judges, through the unbridled use of judicial power, are no longer perceived in this light, it is then the judges who have invited disrespect of the rule of law, contempt for their desisons, and an increasing unwillingness to be bound by their decisions. [emphasis in original]

I encourage you to read the entire article.

The judiciary is increasingly out of control. Here's to hoping that the legislative and executive branches start taking their Constitutional duties seriously and make sure that the judiciary realizes that they are a co-equal branch of government -- no the superior branch.