Category Archives: rights

“Radical-Right” and the Left

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The Washington Post ran a panic-mongering op-ed about the Supreme Court last week.

Last month, the new conservative majority—being driven by Justices Neil M Gorsuch and Brett M Kavanaugh—signaled that this change is coming. In overruling a 40-year-old precedent governing how state governments can be sued, the new court majority, all of whom pledged reverence for precedent during their Senate confirmation hearings—sang a different song: “stare decisis is ‘not an inexorable command,’ … and is ‘at its weakest’ when interpreting the Constitution.” This was the second time in less than a year that the conservative majority has tossed aside decades-old precedent.

Thus screamed the WaPo in its terror.  Never mind that reverence for precedent is not blind adherence to it, no matter how wrong the precedent.  The Brown example the paper so piously cited elsewhere in its op-ed was itself an overturning of an 80-year-old precedent, that of Plessy.  Never mind, more importantly, that as Justice Clarence Thomas has said on many occasions, the primary precedent in all of American jurisprudence is the text of our Constitution.

And this “fear:”

….race-conscious programs in employment and admissions that are now pervasive could be forbidden.

The op-ed’s author wrote that with no trace of irony.

“Race-conscious” programs are by definition racist; that they’re pervasive just means that the evil is far too ubiquitous.  They should be forbidden, and the sooner and louder the better.

And this:

The past decade has seen a conservative court slow further social progress….

That’s entirely appropriate, it’s regrettable that this was even necessary, and it’s further regrettable that court-imposed “social progress” was only slowed and not halted altogether.  Social progress—whatever that is—is a political matter, to be furthered or opposed only by the political arms of our government.  Courts have no legitimate role in political matters; this is made clear in that primary precedent’s Article I, Section 1.

The paper headlined its op-ed thusly:

We need to prepare for a complete reversal of the role the Supreme Court plays in our lives

I certainly hope the Court reverses course; I certainly hope the Court goes back to applying the Constitution and the laws as they’re written, instead of in accordance with the “philosophies” of the likes of Thurgood Marshall—”I make my ruling and expect the law to catch up”—and Ruth Bader Ginsburg of living Constitution, amend it from the bench according to a judge’s personal view of society, ideology.  I certainly hope the Court reverses its role in our political lives and absents itself from it.

It’s illustrative of how dangerously far left the Left has gone when simple adherence to the Constitution is radical-right.

Socialism

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It seems Amazon has teamed with another company to create and issue a credit card that would be issuable to Amazon’s Prime members. It doesn’t matter what the purpose and parameters of the card are—they’re legal under existing law.

But none of that matters.  Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I, VT) and his trophy BFF, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), object to the card because it doesn’t suit their requirements.  And since they object, they’ve vowed to destroy the card, should Sanders be elected President.

It doesn’t matter what their objections are; Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez intend to use Government power to destroy a private enterprise’s product because that product wouldn’t fit their government’s purpose for private enterprise products.

Sanders pretends his ideology, his policy, is democratic socialism.  No, this example of his is straight up socialism.  In particular, it’s the fascism subset of socialism, since Sanders would presume to have government impose its production policy on a private enterprise.

The sad—and dangerous—thing is, Sanders knows this distinction full well, even if Ocasio-Cortez might not.

Appeals to Courts Vice Voters Vice….

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Wisconsin’s Progressive-Democrats failed at the polls, for all that they won the Governor’s and Attorney General’s chairs in 2018, so they tried to get the courts to impose their policies by judicial fiat.  That failed, too, so now what?  How can these Know Betters get their plans imposed on the unwashed citizenry?

It seems that the duly elected State legislature and duly elected State governor had passed a number of laws that limited the power of the Governor and the State Attorney General.  The fact that these laws were enacted after those 2018 elections and before the new Governor and Attorney General took office was somehow supposed to delegitimize those laws.  Or so the Progressive-Democrat Governor and AG insisted.  The people were still speaking, but they should not be listened to.

Therefore, these Progressive-Democrats went into court to get the people’s will, as expressed through their elected representatives, tossed out.  The people’s will, after all, is only and precisely what their Know Betters tell them it is.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said, no, duly enacted law is still law, no matter how inconvenient that might be for this or that political party.

Here’s Ben Wikler, Progressive-Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s chairman, on that outcome:

Power grabs set a dangerous precedent, and anyone concerned about the health of a democracy should be working to fight against it[.]

No trace of irony there.

Wisconsin’s Democratic leaders are pondering their next steps…. Here’s a thought: accept the politically expressed will of your employers, even though you think yourselves better than they.  Leave the courts out of political matters.

A Misunderstanding

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…and why a Labour Party government would be a disaster for Great Britain (and not just because of Jeremy Corbyn’s blatant socialism bent).  In a Deutsche Welle piece about Boris Johnson’s move to replace Theresa May as party head (and presumably as Prime Minister, at least until the next general election), the news outlet quoted Labour Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer:

The debate on Brexit in the Tory leadership contest…[n]one of the likely candidates for the top job has a credible plan for how to break the deadlock before the end of October.

Therein lies Labour’s lack of understanding of the situation. The deadlock is Brussels’ manufacture, not Great Britain’s, and certainly not that of their combined effort. It’s on Brussels to offer solutions to its deadlock.

The clearer understanding is illustrated by Johnson.  He’s

not aiming for a no-deal outcome but it is only responsible to prepare vigorously and seriously for no-deal. Indeed, it is astonishing that anyone could suggest dispensing with that vital tool in the negotiation.

Great Britain needs to leave the EU with no further delay.  Delay only increases uncertainty, and uncertainty damages the British economy and harms the British people and their enterprises who must operate within it.  A smoothly done departure would be optimal, but given what the EU has on offer, a no-deal departure is better.

Keep in mind: for all the argument over border control and immigration and the force of European Union regulations within Great Britain, what’s at the core is that the Brits voted for their own economy and their sovereignty, not the continent’s.

Flip Flops

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The Wall Street Journal concerned itself with Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s flip flop surrender on the question of abortion rights and the Hyde Amendment.  I have some thoughts on that.

Joe Biden’s best claim to the Democratic presidential nomination is that he’s a moderate liberal who can pull centrist votes from Donald Trump.

?? Biden himself has never made this claim during the present campaign. He led off his campaign by saying he was the most Progressive of all his fellow candidates.

That’s a non sequitur [the premise abortion rights are dependent on zip code]. The existence of a right doesn’t assume the government’s obligation to pay for it.

The second is WSJ‘s own non sequitur. Government doesn’t pay for anything; us taxpayers do. Government only brokers the deal. However, the WSJ‘s sentiment is on track, sort of: we taxpayers aren’t obligated to pay for anyone’s abortion, either.

Biden’s about-face…underscores how far left the Democratic Party’s activist base has moved.

This raises the more important and more general question. As the Progressive-Democrat candidates race each other to the far left to pander to the Progressive-Democratic Party’s base, what will the winner do in the general election?

Will that candidate betray the Party’s base in an effort to appeal to the center and to Independents, or will he betray the center and those Independents in order to stay with Party base?  In either event, how can he be believed by any voter?