The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been a leftist playground for decades. In the 1970s, the yawn-inducing-but-dangerous-to-freedom President Jimmy Carter expanded the number of judges on it, and by 1980, he had appointed fifteen of the 23 on the bench.
No surprise, they've left a trail of anti-freedom and unconstitutional rulings along the way.
Among some of their stellar and fantastical rulings have been a determination that there isn’t a constitutionally protected right to sell a firearm, and the dismissal of a suit by Jaycee Dugard against the government of California for failing to protect her from a sex-offender-parolee who kidnapped her in her teens and held her prisoner for eighteen years. But…
Now, we’ve got more.
Just in from Leslie Katz, writing for CNet, the court recently has begun the flip, dismissive practice of mentioning the HBO television series “Game of Thrones” in some of its rulings.
This is not a joke.
In the opinion filed July 5, Judge John B. Owens writes that the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit won't discard a prior legal precedent ‘the way that Game of Thrones rendered the entire Night King storyline meaningless in its final season.’
Is that supposed to be fresh? Cute? Remotely humorous?
If so, the judges need new writers. And they need to get a clue as to their roles as adjudicators.
As Katz observes, this isn’t the first time the vaunted Ninth Circuit has referred to the royal fantasy series.
Owens mentions the supreme leader of the White Walkers in the context of two prior cases, Chadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Dabit… The defendant "would like us to read Dabit without considering its clarification in Troice. But we will not render Troice meaningless the way that Game of Thrones rendered the entire Night King storyline meaningless in its final season," reads page 15 of the opinion.
And in another case, they served this childish nonsense:
In the 9th Circuit case Flores v. City of San Gabriel, Owens noted that the appeals court's interpretation of a particular point was coming 'very close to a qyburnian resurrection of [a rejected case law] standard (emphasis added).'
Qyburn is a necromancer and mystic in the “Game of Thrones” series.
If only we could resurrect the spirit of liberty and see some of these judges actually abide by the Constitution. It appears as if they admire George R.R. Martin’s television series more than the so-called rules of the US government, and, perhaps, that they trend towards authoritarianism more than individualism – much like many of the adversaries did in the novels and on the show.
Liberty-minded observers of the Ninth Circuit already know that the majority of the judges on the court show utter contempt and disdain for the Constitution and Natural Rights. So we shouldn’t be surprised when they pull stunts like this.
Still, it’s illustrative and educational. The power they wield is nearly incalculable. They can put people in prison, take away their savings, destroy their businesses, split families, and crush the inherent rights to life we all are supposed to possess.
Yet they toss around references to a pop television series in their rulings, even as they get paid to do it – paid through expropriation of tax cash from the people over whom they rule.
Perhaps Martin’s novels and the “Game of Thrones” series weren’t too far from the mark. They showed how dangerous political power is.
Don’t count on the judges of the Ninth Circuit mentioning that any time soon.