The Federalist Society is in the news again because Mukasey collapsed at one of their functions, so this is as good a time as any to discuss exactly what a "Federalist Society" is.
DISCLAIMER:
This post is not meant to minimize Attorney General Mukasey's illness. Nor is it in any way to be interpreted as a slight against him, his well-being or his loved ones.
The OP wishes no harm toward him or his family and hopes he gets the very best medical care available under his government health plan.
What is the Federalist Society ?Instead of linking directly to their official website, let's see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society">what Wikip*dia has to say about them:
"... the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and libertarians seeking reform of the current American legal system in accordance with an originalist interpretation of the constitution. The Federalist Society began at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School in 1982 as a student organization that challenged what its members perceived as the orthodox American liberal ideology found in most law schools. The Society "is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be."
The Society currently has chapters at over 180 United States law schools and claims a membership of over 20,000 practicing attorneys (organized as "alumni chapters" within the Society's "Lawyers Division") in sixty cities. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, the Federalist Society provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, law students, and academics."
Five things about the Wikip*dia article jump out immediately (emphasis added):
1.
"... organization of conservatives and libertarians seeking reform of the current American legal system ..."
2.
"... in accordance with an originalist interpretation of the constitution."
3.
"... that challenged what its members perceived as the orthodox American liberal ideology ..."
So, here is this group that started because the members fell into that belief that conservatives are somehow oppressed because liberals are everywhere
and as a result, the entire system needs
reforming back to a time that never existed, but when their interpretation of some mythical
"original" Constitution
just so happened to coincide with their freshly-invented beliefs.
The fourth point about the Federalist Society comes a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society#Funding_and_history">little later on down the page:
4.
"The society was begun by a group including Edwin Meese, Robert Bork, Ted Olson and Steven Calabresi, and its members have included Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Jr. and Samuel Alito."
What makes this disturbing is that despite this past election where there was an overwhelming turn-out all across the nation for Democratic candidates and liberal ideals, here is this fringe group that promotes an agenda that is conspicuously out of touch with the rest of the country, yet has three members in the one branch of the federal government that is neither elected, nor accountable to anyone.
The Federalist Society has a choke-hold on our judiciary in the same way creationists and IDers have a death grip on our science education.
Both the Federalist Society and creationist/IDers believe that the systems they seek to control need "reform."
The Federalist Society believes the Constitution is static and unchanging in much the same way the creationist/IDers believe scientific knowledge is frozen in Biblical times.
And finally, both the Federalist Society and creationist/IDers cast themselves as some kind of heroic outsider fighting against the system that needs the type of reforming only they can provide. Their push for this "false populism" that demands equal time for their extremist, unsubstantiated views is intellectually dishonest.
Together these beliefs share a failure in logic. Their
perception that some kind of ideological oppression exists and should result in reform along with the ill-conceived notion that current understanding and the many years of development giving rise to this understanding should be negated because it differs from the original understanding shows a basic
misunderstanding of cause and effect as well as a severe case of dissonance.
Again, we go to Wikip*dia for the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism">definition of originalism,
(O)riginalism is a family of theories central to all of which is the proposition that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning, which was established at the time of its drafting.
If this is not tantamount to infallibility, then nothing is.
No system--legal or education--needs the conservative, right wing brand of reform just because they say it does. Nor are they the sole arbiter of history just because they say they are. And, finally, they cannot declare law or knowledge isolated from evolution just because it leaves their preferred ideology behind.
Finally, the fifth peculiarity about the Federalist Society, is a line the editors of Wikip*dia quoted directly from the Society's official website,
5.
"... the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be."
This is nothing short of a cop-out and the type of cowardice behind
John Yoo's torture memo that sought to interpret the law not to protect the victims of an un-Constitutional policy, but to protect his bosses from accountability. Yoo's bosses hoped he would be able to narrow the letter of the law, while they freely ignored the spirit of it.
An unidentified Bush aide once famously declared,
Whatever one believes, no one can choose their own facts. Yoo cannot say his bosses did not torture just because he invented an interpretation of the words on the paper that dismissed the blood on the floor. It is no accident that the Federalist Society and creationist/IDers found an ideological home with the GOP, since both refused or were simply are unable to accept reality as it is.
If the GOP want to continue to exist, they're going to have to get out of their philosophical bubble and join reality. And, if we reality-based people want the GOP to disappear, we're going to have to dislodge the creationst/IDers from education and the Federalist Society from their position in the legal community.
We may have won the election, but the GOP is still entrenched in our institutions.
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