Recently, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) had this to say regarding the Judiciary Committee's vote to recommend approval of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court:

This is the vote of a generation. If confirmed, this nominee will have an enormous impact on our basic rights and liberties for years and even decades to come....

After all, the Supreme Court is the guardian of our most cherished rights and freedoms. They are protected by the most solemn promises of the Constitution and symbolized in four eloquent words inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law."

Those words are meant to guarantee that our courts will be an independent check against abuses of power by the other two branches of government. It is a commitment that our courts will always be a place where the poor and the powerless and the underprivileged can stand on equal footing with the wealthy and the powerful and the privileged.

Let's consider these words in light of some Supreme Court decisions:

Kelo vs. New London (Property Rights)

If you're not familiar with last year's case, Kelo vs. New London, you should be. Fifteen property owners (out of 115 lots) did not want to sell their property to the New London Development Corporation, who wanted to build a hotel and new residences on the site. So the city of New London used the power of eminent domain to condemn the property, and turn it over to the private developer.

This is a clear and obvious violation of the fifth amendment, which limits the power of eminent domain for "public use" only. This has always been considered for direct use by the public -- things like roads, bridges, schools, and government buildings. But in this case, the term "public use" was expanded by judicial fiat to include "economic development." The government forcibly takes property from one individual, and puts it in the hands of a private development company, for new residences, hotels, etc. If there was ever a clear violation of the Constitution, this is it. But the liberal wing of the Supreme Court voted in favor of New London.

Who dissented in this case? The dissent consisted of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, along with the justices most feared by liberal Senators such as Kennedy -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Clarence Thomas. The conservative wing of the court wanted to protect the explicit promise of the Constitution -- that the government does not have the power to take your property, except for public use. But the liberal wing of the court simply gave the government a free pass, and effectively removed the last phrase of the fifth amendment from the Constitution. As O'Connor wrote, "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Kennedy doesn't seem to be too worried about how the "poor and the powerless" fared under the Supreme Court in the Kelo case, where the liberal wing of the court sided with the "powerful and privileged."

McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission (Freedom of Speech)

If you're not familiar with the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance bill, you should be concerned about it as well. It was challenged in the Supreme Court in 2003 (the bill passed in 2002). In the case, McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission, McConnell argued that the bill amounted to an unconstitutional infringement on first amendment speech. The Supreme Court upheld the legislation.

Liberals have already been pushing to apply McCain-Feingold to political talk radio and Internet blogs (I'm sure mine would apply). As Brian C. Anderson wrote in his recent column, Shut Up, They Explained, "the Founders would have seen in the reformers' utopian schemes, in which the power of government makes all equally weak, the embodiment of tyranny." Of course, liberals have little to worry about, because McCain-Feingold gives the traditional media (which are overwhelmingly liberal) a free pass.

Who dissented in this case? The dissent consisted of Justice John Paul Stevens, along with the justices most feared by liberal Senators such as Kennedy -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas wrote that this was the "most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the Civil War."

The reality is that every campaign finance reform passed in the last 30 years has benefited incumbents. Those challenging incumbents need to spend money to mount an effective campaign. The McCain-Feingold bill makes it more difficult for challengers to unseat incumbents.

How can liberals claim to want to protect "our most cherished rights and freedoms," and not be outraged at the eroding of our freedoms in terms of property rights and freedom of speech?

While liberal senators like to claim that the recent judicial appointments would turn back the clock on things like civil rights for minorities, it is rights such as freedom of speech and peaceable assembly that opened the door for figures like Dr. Martin Luther King to have the ability to impact the country the way they did. These are the freedoms we should hold the most dear. Democracy cannot survive without them.

Roe vs. Wade (Abortion)

For some reason, liberal Senators like Kennedy are more worried about imagined rights than they are about actual ones. If they have any indication, whatsoever, that a candidate to the Supreme Court (or any court, for that matter) might not hold the belief that abortion is a "right" they will oppose that candidate to no end. As Ann Coulter puts it, liberals believe abortion is an absolute right "up until the moment the baby's head is through the birth canal." But the very candidates they champion, that are sitting on the court, are eroding rights that are specified in the Constitution. Property rights? Big deal. Freedom of speech? Who cares? But abortion? Don't mess with it!

The fact is that Democrats have been consistently on the wrong side of every major moral issue that's ever faced this country. It was a Republican president who had the courage to sign, and enforce, the Emancipation Proclamation, while Democrats were split over how to maintain slavery in Southern states. It was Democratic senators who attempted all-night filibusters (when filibusters actually required constant debate), trying to prevent civil rights legislation from passing. (And for those of you who don't know, one of the most famous orators fighting against civil rights legislation was Robert Byrd from West Virginia, who is still in the Senate!) It is Democratic senators who continue to wail and moan over any possible restrictions on abortion. They've been consistently wrong in the past, and they will continue to be wrong.

Abraham Lincoln said that you can "repeal the Declaration of Independence -- repeal all past history -- you still cannot repeal human nature. It will still be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak." Replace the words "slavery extension" with "abortion", and it wouldn't be any less true. Those who frame every debate, every judicial nomination, and every issue around their requirement of supporting unrestricted access to abortion, only make their own moral depravity more and more clear as they continue. And as they support those who would erode our basic Constitutional rights, and reject those who would uphold our basic Constitutional rights, they only reveal their own hypocrisy.

Further...

I haven't even touched on the freedom to bear arms or the freedom of religion, both rights that liberals do not champion. Liberals would be more than happy to take away everyone's guns, and have repeatedly pressured to have religion taken completely out of the public arena.

Kennedy is correct in saying that "the Supreme Court is the guardian of our most cherished rights and freedoms. They are protected by the most solemn promises of the Constitution." The problem with liberals is that they don't know what "cherished rights and freedoms" are actually guaranteed by the Consistution. They ignore the ones that are explicitly stated, and invent others out of thin air.

Labels: politics