"Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever." - William Howard Taft

When I was in law school, what gave me the impetus to become a civil-liberties attorney was seeing firsthand how much good could be done through the justice system. Those were the years of the Warren Court (1953-1969), when Earl Warren helmed the U.S. Supreme Court as chief justice, alongside such luminaries as William J. Brennan Jr., William O. Douglas, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and Thurgood Marshall.

The Warren Court handed down rulings that were instrumental in shoring up critical legal safeguards against government abuse and discrimination. Without the Warren Court, there would be no Miranda warnings, no desegregation of the schools, and no civil-rights protections for indigents. Yet more than any single ruling, what Warren and his colleagues did best was embody what the Supreme Court should always be - an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds.

That is no longer the case. In recent years, especially under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism, and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been de-prioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests - a trend that has not gone unnoticed by the American people. In fact, a recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing, while 75 percent say the justices' decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views.

Economists and pundits alike are going wild over the United Kingdom's recent "double dip" recession. The 2008-9 recession prompted the election of a conservative coalition led by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron decided the best path for economic recovery was "austerity," a program of reduced government spending and smaller government debt. The new coalition - with the aid of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne - sought to drastically slash the government budget. With the addition of increased taxes, the plan was dubbed "Tax & Axe."

Two years later, the United Kingdom is back in recession. Keynesian economists are enjoying a savory "I told you so" moment, as many pointed out the dangers of austerity during troubled times. The logic runs as follows: When businesses, households, and governments all try to pay back their debts at the same time, they spend less; as they spend less, national income falls, leading to even less spending; this sets off a cycle of decreased spending and economic collapse.

The Keynesian solution is government spending. It goes like this: Governments can increase spending during recessions to keep national income up, preventing the spending collapse. In short, more stimulus is the answer.

In turn, many progressives in the United States are arguing that any similar austerity here (such as Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan) would have equally bad results: another recession.

Unfortunately, this reasoning is based on a faulty premise. Here is the reality: There is no austerity in the United Kingdom.

In a devastating 5-4 ruling that not only condones an overreach of state power but legitimizes what is essentially state-sponsored humiliation and visual rape, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 2 declared that any person who is arrested and processed at a jail house can be subjected to a strip search. The severity of the offense is irrelevant - they can be guilty of nothing more than a minor traffic offense - and police or jail officials don't need to have a reasonable suspicion that an arrestee is carrying a weapon or contraband. The five-man majority rationalized their ruling as being necessary for safety, security, and efficiency - the government's overused and all-too-convenient justifications for its steady erosion of our freedoms since 9/11.

Living in a representative democratic republic such as ours means that each person has the right to stand outside the halls of government and express his or her opinion on matters of state without fear of arrest. That's what the First Amendment is all about.

It gives every American the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." It ensures, as Adam Newton and Ronald K.L. Collins report for the Five Freedoms Project, "that our leaders hear, even if they don't listen to, the electorate. Though public officials may be indifferent, contrary, or silent participants in democratic discourse, at least the First Amendment commands their audience."

As Newton and Collins elaborate: "'Petitioning' has come to signify any nonviolent, legal means of encouraging or disapproving government action, whether directed to the judicial, executive, or legislative branch. Lobbying, letter-writing, e-mail campaigns, testifying before tribunals, filing lawsuits, supporting referenda, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives, peaceful protests, and picketing: All public articulation of issues, complaints, and interests designed to spur government action qualifies under the petition clause, even if the activities partake of other First Amendment freedoms."

Unfortunately, through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps, our government officials - both elected and appointed - have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials. In the process, government officials have succeeded in insulating themselves from their constituents, making it increasingly difficult for average Americans to make themselves seen or heard by those who most need to hear what "we the people" have to say.