I know parsing the average opinion piece can be an extravagant waste of time, but I've got plenty of time to waste. From American Prospect Online: Will of the People?
One of the longstanding criticisms of liberalism going back to its heyday involved the extent to which it relied on the courts to gain victories that could not have been achieved legislatively. School desegregation, abortion rights, and less well-remembered anti-miscegenation laws, struck down by the Warren Court in its Loving vs. Virginia decision of 1967, were all judicial triumphs for liberalism, not legislative ones. Advocates of each cause chose to go through the courts specifically because they knew that the odds on achieving these goals through legislation were slim.
One of the longstanding criticisms of liberalism going back to its heyday involved the extent to which it relied on the courts to gain victories that could not have been achieved legislatively. School desegregation, abortion rights, and less well-remembered anti-miscegenation laws, struck down by the Warren Court in its Loving vs. Virginia decision of 1967, were all judicial triumphs for liberalism, not legislative ones. Advocates of each cause chose to go through the courts specifically because they knew that the odds on achieving these goals through legislation were slim.
The criticism -- to which there is a lot of validity -- is that getting too far ahead of the popular will, as these and other decisions did, created backlash. And of course it was exactly that backlash, exploited by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (and still being exploited today), that contributed to liberalism's decline. Time has long since caught up with the Warren Court, if not on the still divisive issue of abortion, at least on racial questions. No one today would argue that Loving or the more historic Brown v. Board of Education were wrong, indeed, I would argue that it took a lot of courage for the Supreme Court to hand down these decisions. Nevertheless, the criticism has validity because undergirding it is the assumption that legislative action more accurately reflects the people's will.
Notice how "liberalism" is set up as standing in opposition to its un-named nemesis, presumably conservatism. They have to use this more nebulous language because if you tried to use the real language of politics in this country (i.e. Democrats and Republicans) it makes Democrats less comfortable. "Liberals" in the 1960's were not standing up to Republicans but to fellow Democrats. Republicans were not standing in the way of removing anti-miscegenation laws, Democratic state legislatures were. Republicans hadn't maintained state sponsered segregation, Democrats had. Republicans hadn't instituted Jim Crow, Democrats had. Now, the Republican party did indeed benefit from the "backlash" generated amongst these former Democrats, but I'd love for someone to point out Republican efforts to re-institute anti-miscegenation laws or the Democratic system of segregation, because it never happened.
Notice, also, how the liberal efforts in the courts were not an expression of their personal preferences undemocratically imposed on people. NO! The liberals were just seeing into the future! They were veritable Nostradamuses of the Federal Courts, seeing decades into the future to know how the will of the people will be. Not only did they have this power, presumably they were also infallible when excercising it. Aren't we lucky?!
The piece goes on from there to display a bit of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good: Rightly castigates the provisions in the latest finance bill that would have allowed Congress to snoop into anyone's tax returns. I agree with Charles Schumer on this. Have an investigation into who put that in, and let the people decide what to do with them.
The Bad: Americans don't want their elected officials to be prevented from having an honest debate about extremist judges; a majority of Americans still support the right to an abortion, and if their feelings are complicated on this issue, it seems safe to say that a majority would rather not see law on so important and contentious a question changed by sneaking a provision into a bill about something else.
Yeah, a wonderful sentiment when "extremist judge" is defined as anyone who doesn't agree with liberal orthodoxy. And, is it safe to say that many Americans with "complicated feelings" about abortion might also be uncomfortable with the status quo? That maybe many would want to support abortion rights in principle, but not the carte blanche system set up today?
The Ugly: All this of course comes in the wake of the incredible DeLay rule, which again breaks all precedents and would permit House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to retain his post if he's indicted.
What garbage. The Republicans only had such a rule since the 1980's (maybe that is "all precedents"?), and the Democrats have NEVER had such a rule. For example, the Dems stood by Rep. Rostenkowski who still chaired the powerful House Ways & Means Committee after he was under indictment.
Oh and don't forget the lie: And they'll rub the opposition's face in it to boot, as they did in such tawdry fashion last week when not a single Republican bothered to show up during the floor speeches bidding adieu to Tom Daschle, who gave a quarter-century of his life to the body.
Simply untrue. They might not have been in great abundance, but some Republicans were there. Daschle urges solidarity in final Senate speech
Addendum: As I reread this maybe the author meant that no Republican gave a farewell speech to Daschele. This could be true. Then again if any Republican did stand up and give a farewell speech for Daschele I'm sure they would have been blasted as being disengenuous.
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