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It's Time to 'Roll Back' Liberalism
· Sunday, January 24, 2010
America: the time has come to roll back liberalism.
This was the best week for conservatism in modern memory. On Tuesday, Scott Brown won a tremendous victory for the Republican Party in his Massachusetts Senate race. On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down a decision more important to the Constitution than any it has handed down in decades.
The case, entitled Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, dealt with Citizens United's "Hillary: The Movie," a 2008 documentary highly critical of the then-Democratic presidential candidate. The Federal Election Commission saw the documentary as a political advertisement in violation of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), and shut down Citizen United's publicity efforts. Citizens United sued. And on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations no less than individuals have a right to political speech.
The significance of the ruling is clear: It recognizes that freedom of the press and freedom of speech apply to all people, whether or not those people choose to organize legally as a PAC, a 527, a 501(c)(4) or a corporation. The unspoken rationale behind campaign finance reform has always been the equalization of access to political influence; many leftists feel that a poor man's speech is not truly "free" unless it counts as much as a rich man's in the public square. In this view, free speech is a commodity to be parceled out by the government in the name of equality, not an opportunity or a restriction on government interference in political action.
Because this rationale is not palatable to most Americans -- we don't want the government rationing our speech -- the campaign finance reform gurus have cloaked themselves in the guise of "anti-corruption." In Citizens United, however, the Supreme Court came out foursquare against that flimsy facade. "[T]he First Amendment," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, surprisingly lucid for once, "does not allow political speech restrictions based on a speaker's corporate identity."
The Citizens United decision demonstrates more than renewed allegiance to free speech principles, however. It demonstrates that perversions of the Constitution are not entrenched forever; Reagan-esque "rollback" is possible, even at the Supreme Court. Citizens United overtly states that the hallowed -- and foolish -- principle of stare decisis cannot be the final word for conservatives.
For too long, liberal legal authorities have hidden behind stare decisis when it suits them (see Roe v. Wade) and rejected it when they see fit (see Lawrence v. Texas). And conservative legal scholars have allowed liberals to get away with it because of the premium conservatives generally place on maintenance of the status quo -- as William F. Buckley famously put it, standing athwart history yelling Stop.
Historically, conservatives have embraced stare decisis on principle; liberals have embraced it without principle. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "The business of progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." Justice Antonin Scalia seconds Chesterton's motion in practice, stating, "You simply cannot reinvent the wheel in every case … Life is too short. By and large, I am not urging that we rip out all of the mistakes made over the last 50 years."
Now, finally, conservatives are beginning to wake up. As Justice John Roberts, a big believer in stare decisis, puts it in his concurring opinion in Citizens United, "in the unusual circumstance when fidelity to any particular precedent does more to damage [the rule of law] than to advance it, we must be more willing to depart from that precedent." The next step is for conservative justices to begin righting the wrongs that have occurred time after time in the Court's jurisprudence. Scalia's pragmatism isn't good enough. Simply because a bad decision is old does not make it a good decision. Our Constitution did not respect precedent; if it did, we'd be monarchists. It respected certain principles, and those principles must be protected at all costs.
Americans should look at Citizens United and take heart. Not all bad decisions are irreversible, even at the Supreme Court. At the same time, Citizens United should be a cautionary tale for American voters. It took the Supreme Court nearly a decade to dismantle the most egregious encroachment on free speech in our nation's history. We should rely not on them but on ourselves to preserve constitutional principles.
We can roll back the damage liberals have done to our founding principles -- just look at Scott Brown. It's easier to get rid of liberals and to roll back their awful policies electorally than it is to overrule awful Supreme Court decisions stamped with the legitimacy-conferring patina of stare decisis. Roll back starts with us.
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Alan Parker
The President, during his Saturday internet address today, said that he was going to get a bi-partisan effort to undo the "damage" that was done by the Supreme Court ruling this week. Shouldn't we let our great elected public servants know that we like freedom and don't consider it as damage when our rulers slip up and allow a bit for us serfs?
Posted January 24, 2010 at 1:58:32 AM
kev
When I heard chuck schumer railing against this decision, I knew the Supreme Court hit a homerun. I wonder if this decision might have some future effect on the democrats' attacks and probable legislation (which will undoubtedly be taken before the Supreme Court)regarding the so-called "fairness doctrine," which they've, of course, renamed in order to disguise their true intention of silencing opposition.
Posted January 24, 2010 at 10:10:39 AM
TP
While these are good steps in the right direction for turning back the damage that has been done by the new brand of liberals this is not even the tip of the ice berg. I'd like to see the end of the Executive Branch making laws via its agencies, a return of the Senate being beholden to State Legislators and an end of teaching revisionist history to our children.
But Scott Brown is a start.
Posted January 24, 2010 at 12:14:34 PM
Doktor Riktor Von Zhades
I second TP's words! Let's start with the EPA, DOE, and others that make mandates.
Posted January 24, 2010 at 7:59:34 PM
MichaelSSEC
This is all good and well but it's much like passing an ordinance against smoking -- while your house is burning down.
How about instead of fiddling with questions like whether companies can influence our political process, we slam the door on FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS and companies that hire lobbyists to influence our political process? That's a FAR bigger problem with far more dangerous consequences, and nobody seems to be paying it the slightest attention except maybe Dick Morris.
Posted January 24, 2010 at 8:31:13 PM
Frank E. Waterstraat
01/25/10
The Federal Board of Education should,Teach our
grade school children subjects I was taught when
i was a youngster,"AMERICAN HISTORY".Later in High
School"AMERICAN GOVERMENT".Apparently most of the
people today selecting curriculum courses are
MARXIST oriented,especially College Proffessors.
Posted January 25, 2010 at 7:09:27 PM
Robert G.
If anyone has recognized yet, that the efforts being carried out by the Liberals, Socialists and any other groups opposed to the American Constitution and the freedoms it created for us, we are being bombarded on many fronts to create diversion, division and disputes amongst all as to what is important. The old addage, "Divide and Conquer" is what I see being presented by all parties.
We have the ability to make changes, the biggest one right now are putting Americans who believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the freedoms that those documents created. Nobody says it is the perfect tool, but it is still the best known to mankind in many centuries. Why do people come here to be citizens? Because of what they have had to endure!! This was to be their new start. We who were born and raised here probably have little understanding what it all means. Those who emmigrated here know, probably far better than many of us. We are in the midst of a war here; not one declared such as in Afghanistan, or in World War I and II, but being done covertly in some cases, overtly in others. Education, disinformation, lies, and outright denial of rights are some of their tools.
I read, almost daily, what is happening according to the press, internet, and verbal views. Many of us really have little knowledge or understanding what is being done to us. The good news is that this is really changing! More and more individuals and groups are beginning to fight back in ways we have yet to see the full results of.
One thing that I have yet to hear is the fact that we have two fronts to deal with. One is the Feds; the other is our own state leaders. No one has yet mentioned the fact that many of our local leadership is just as bad as that we have "representing" us in Washington, DC. How many have viewed their leadership with the same eye as that in Congress or Senate?
There is a man, G. Edward Griffin, who wrote "The Creature from Jeckyl Island", who states in the Creed of Freedom: Don't fight City Hall; Become City Hall". Find those people who believe in the Constitution and our freedoms and help them help you. WE NEED CHANGE! Locally as well as nationally.
Instead of fighting individually, unite and start at home and work up the ladder. But most importantly, UNITE!
Posted January 26, 2010 at 1:13:22 AM
Jack, CPO, USN (Ret)
It is time, and past time, that thinking Americans take stock of modern American liberalism. Pace Mike Savage, liberalism is not a mental disorder, but rather a disorder of the soul. Liberalism would perhaps be more appropiately named statism or collectivism, for those holding the liberal world view mean to control us, by whatever means. They justify their view of the common people by considering themselves, in Thomas Sowell's ringing description, 'the anointed.' They know better than us, by their lights, how to live our lives. They find excuses for communist tyranny. They deny the differences between the sexes. They throw up their hands in horror when an American President, whether Reagan or Bush, dares to call our enemies evil. (On that score, they certainly have no problem with our current president.) They exclaim that our perception of evil is only a failure on our part to understand the culture of those who would kill us. They champion positions that directly contradict common sense. In short, they refuse to live in the real world. And then, they express amazement when conservatives fail to agree with them.
Posted January 26, 2010 at 9:32:57 PM