Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Validation

Like most people, I have a day job that keeps me from watching all the news I'd like to watch. Last week, I watched with a sense of detached amusement as Senate Democrats devolved into a mire of their own hatred and prejudice during the Alito hearings. When will the left ever understand that Kennedy lecturing anyone on the finer points of morality and ethics is about as believable as Simon Cowell giving Yoko Ono a compliment on her singing.

The whole hearing was for show. The Democrats are going to vote against Alito and that hasn't changed since O'Connor resigned. Republicans were going to vote for him and that hasn't changed since Alito's nomination. People have been saying that there was value in the hearings because we got to hear from Alito. I'll partially concede that point conditionally, but what did we really find out about Alito?

We found out that Alito is smarter than Schumer, Swimmer, and Feinstien (aka Glockinpurse). Was this such a revelation? Like any organization, the brains and talent of our government does not reside with the people who are in control. Rather the true brains and talent of an organization lies with the people actually making things happen.

We found out that the right to free speech is actually codified in the Constitution because it is specifically mentioned, but the right to an abortion would require some additional reading and interpretation. Again, this is a huge revelation? I can take the copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and actually point to any person the specific wording that explicitly protects our right to free speech (for those who don't know, its the First Amendment). However, the word "abortion" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or Declaration of Independence. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion (pro or con), this is an undeniable fact.

We found out that Kennedy can read. That may or may not be a revelation. He was kicked out of Harvard, after all, for cheating. However, we also found out that the term "satire" is something that he and his staff aren't aware of. John Stewart could easily give him some lessons.

The biggest thing I learned is that Alito is the intellectual superior of every Senator on the Judiciary Committee.

What bothers me the most is how abortion has become the only issue that matters. To many Roe v. Wade is the holy grail of judicial decisions and must be protected or overturned at all costs. It is the only case that anyone knows about. How many can state the significance of Marbury v. Madison (especially those coming out of our esteemed public schools) or Kelo for that matter? Like many of the people closest to me, I believe Roe should be overturned. Unlike many of those closest to me, it is not the subject matter of the decision that it should be overturned on. Rather, Roe represents a broad overreach of authority on the part of the USSC.

Roe is bad as a judicial precedent and as a matter of Constitutional case law. As I indicated above, abortion is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. According to the Tenth Amendment "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." This means that since abortion is not included explicitly in the Constitution or its Amendments, the decision of the legality of abortion at the very least remains in the hands of the states or to the people. Let the states pass laws. My preference would be to the people. Let market forces dictate the availability of abortions.

The unfortunate part of this is that Roe isn't the high water mark for the part of judicial activism or finding rights in the Constitution that simply aren't there.

Alito's response to Schumer's baiting was to take the cheese and leave the trap for the dumbfounded liberal idiots to fume that once again they've been outmanuvered and outsmarted by the kind of person they believe to be beneath them intellectually, morally, and politically. To watch them chafe at that brutal reality is great television.

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