Regrettably, the modern court has lost its compass. No longer does the Supreme Court exercise restraint. In fact, for the past 75 years the Supreme Court has been the Supreme Amender to the Constitution—not by the way in which the initial 27 amendments were added, but by judicial fiat. The Court has accomplished through the back door what the states and the Congress could not have accomplished through the prescribed amendment process, leading to a severe erosion of many of the most basic constitutional principles.