March 22, 2006

Usually not shocked by the intellectual and moral vacuousness so frequently exhibited by Liberals, I was nevertheless sent reeling by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's suggestion that death threats against her and former justice Sandra Day O'Connor were prompted by Republican-sponsored resolutions opposing the use of foreign law in judicial interpretations of the Constitution.  

Not yet recovered from that astonishing charge, I was staggered once again by Ginsburg's "not-so-small concern [that the resolutions] fuel the irrational fringe" and by the silence with which Liberal scholars and commentators as well as Democratic politicians reacted to her ridiculous and dangerous language.  

Yes, from the flock who plume themselves about their superior devotion to learning, civil liberties, and separation of powers, we hear nary a word uttered against an anti-intellectual, ugly non sequitur nor witness a single act of Liberal hand-wringing about the "chilling effect" the Justice's comments might impose upon the legislative process.  

As soon as I recovered from my shock, I vowed to discover the depth of the Liberal propensity to associate ideas with which Liberals disagree, no matter how mainstream those ideas have been and are, with an insidious "irrational fringe." But first, a look at the exact language of the "Sense of the Senate" offered by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the author of the resolution that sent Justice Ginsburg wallowing into the ugly muck of baseless accusation and ugly name calling:  

". . . it is the sense of the Senate that judicial interpretations regarding the meaning of the Constitution of the United States should not be based in whole or in part on judgments, laws, or pronouncements of foreign institutions unless such foreign judgments, laws, or pronouncements inform an understanding of the original meaning of the Constitution of the United States."  

Now, if that resolution represents the stuff which identifies a person as a bona fide member of the irrational fringe, Liberals must regard the vast majority of Americans as psychopathic maniacs. But lest I be accused of leaping to a hasty generalization by describing Liberals as elitists who can't stand democracy when it stands in their way, I should gather more evidence (though millions of thoughtful Americans will argue that not a bit more is needed).  

So it is that I ask Justice Ginsburg and Friends to tell us honestly how much of the violently dangerous irrational fringe they find in the following opinions and suggestions made at various times during American history.  

Statement 1: "The original error [of the Constitution was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which . . . can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend . . ."   [For daring to suggest that the Constitution errs in making the judiciary "independent" of the people and for its "inappropriate" metaphor, Liberals will likely smear the author as a Constitution-hating, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later cowboy.]  

Statement 2:  "We require a majority of one house and two-thirds of the other [to remove a judge] -- a . . . practice [that] has been and ever will be found impossible . . . Impeachment, therefore, is a bugbear which they [judges] fear not at all."   [Aware of political realities, most Americans will agree with the writer's common sense insight about the fecklessness of impeachment. Liberals, however, will denounce the author as a dangerous demagogue -- of course, with not a mention of how FDR associated himself with the real irrational fringe when he tried to pack the Supreme Court.]

Statement 3: ". . .  [the Federal judiciary] are in the habit of going out of the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead and grapple further hold for future advances of power. They are then in fact the corps of sappers and miners, steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States and to consolidate all power in the hands of [the Federal] government . . ."   

[This statement clearly applies to Liberalism's beloved theory of Liberal judicial activism, labeling its adherents as a treacherous group of "sappers and miners" and goes on to invoke the notion of "the independent rights of the States." Therefore, Liberal judges, scholars, and politicians will feel compelled to denounce the author as the worst kind of "irrational fringe extremist," perhaps making their smear all the more filthy by adding "fascist," that favorite of Liberal epithets.]

Statement 4: "The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them."

[This comment echoes the idea found in the previous statement, but how will Liberals resist adding "paranoiac" to their condemnations of its author?]

Statement 5: "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."

[The author also believes that one democratic method for resolving disputes that occur when the three branches of government disagree about a constitutional question is to have the opinion of two of the three branches prevail while another is having the decision of the majority of the states prevail. I will not attempt to guess the invective that Liberals will use in attacking him as the worst imaginable member of the "irrational fringe."]

Of course, neither I nor the rest of Americans would have to guess about anything if Justice Ginsburg and Friends were to react to the statements above with the same ferocity they direct to judicial nominees, scholars, and politicians with whose judicial philosophy they disagree. Perhaps, however, the millions of Americans I spoke of earlier are correct that these reactions would merely add to what we already know.

After all, for decades the decisions of Liberal judges and the words of Liberal politicians and scholars have made it clear that Liberals have as much in common with persons such as Justice Antonin Scalia, who recently reiterated his condemnation of the "judge-moralist" and his faith in "Joe Sixpack" as the best guarantor of freedom, as they do with Thomas Jefferson, the author of all five quotations presented above and the man who wrote, "I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich [or any other group], are our dependence for continued freedom. The people . . . are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."  

[Readers who would like to review the quotations used in this piece and thousands of others by Jefferson will find the University of Virginia's Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive enormously helpful. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/.]

Copyright by A.J. DiCintio

This article was first published by MichNews.com on March 22, 2006, and is reposted here with the kind permission of the author.