Dems Questionable Strategy To Protect The Courts

[xartlu]

The Right has been working feverishly these past 25 years to turn back the clock in America. One key front in that effort is to hijack the federal judiciary. On the face of it, their position sounds somewhat reasonable. The doctrine of Originalism states that judges should interpret the Constitution as the Framers intended. Yet this doctrine is merely the fig-leaf that hides the Right's true intent to undermine the right to choose, other rights derived from the unenumerated right to privacy, as well the entire New Deal social safety net.

Justices like Scalia want to further bastardize the Constitution. Scalia believes that unless a right is specifically enumerated... it does not exist. His only concession to expanding rights is to suggest those now deprived of rights can legally establish them though the legislative or amendment process.... something he knows can take generations if ever. He believes it is not the role of the courts to rule that governments have unjustly violated rights. Clearly Scalia has never read the 9th Amendment. It reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

If his views on rights aren't extreme enough... Scalia also has no use for the 10th Amendment. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Instead of government only having powers that have been granted it, Scalia believes it is free to do anything that is not prohibited. Clearly those favoring an imperial presidency would favor this view. If no one back in 1787 thought of prohibiting the government from issuing a national ID card... Scalia believes it's now permissible.

Here's a scathing critique of Scalia FROM THE RIGHT...
SOURCE: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0206c.asp

"Scalia here is saying that the government legally may require everyone to carry an ID unless the people amend the Constitution to prohibit Congress from enacting such a measure. His point is painfully clear: the government can do anything unless the Constitution expressly forbids it. No surprise here; Scalia has long made his views known. They are horrifying nonetheless.

His views are based on an incorrect — indeed, a pernicious — notion of what the U.S. Constitution was and is supposed to be. In fact, he stands the Constitution on its head. Instead of a document that protects individual liberty by reining in government power, Scalia would make it one that protects government power by reining in individual liberty."

In the long run Democrats have made a strategic blunder by failing to expose the hypocrisy in the doctrine of Originalism and counter it with a similar over-arching philosophical approach to Constitutional law. They need to educate the public and inoculate them against the Right's game plan. They need to make even those on the Right afraid of having more Scalias.