Disagreeing with Conservative Majority Opinions

It's been one of those weeks for me, where I've spent a lot of time disagreeing with folks I normally agree with and agreeing with folks I usually don't. Here's the list:

1. I don't like building a mosque at Ground Zero for all the dhimmitude reasons around, but I don't oppose it, since I happen to think freedom of religion (even when I disagree with it) is pretty important.

2. I'm pretty unhappy with the way anti-Prop 8 advocates (like liberals in general since the 1960s) are hellbent on cramming gay marriage down the collective gullet of an unwilling public through the court systems rather than going the Constitutional route. But having said that, the thread at this post on Volokh Conspiracy provided (for me) the best arguments I've heard for gay marriage, and it's got me thinking it may be time. Granted, a lot of it is still anecdotal, and we won't know for decades how this affects other family relationships, but still.

3. Calls to alter birthright citizenship is nuts. And a sure loser at the polls. Do Republicans just want permanent minority status?

Ok, flog me.

Quote of the Day

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

Stupid Quote of the Day

Comes from News Writer:

Violence of any kind, perpetrated against anyone, is terrorism.

Really? Really?

I can think of lots of "violence" that News Writer wouldn't consider terrorism. Like, say, abortion.

But there are lots of other examples of violence that would not come under any person's definition of "terrorism." Burglary which ends in the death of the burglar, for instance, would be violent but not considered terrorism. Or a robbery of a convenience store. Or even a football game (soccer games in Europe can get pretty violent, too).

News Writer is trying very hard to create some giant terrorism umbrella to cover a whole bunch of murderers she finds personally offensive, such as abortion doctor killers and crackpots, in order to diminish the distinction between jihadis and general murderers. She also wants us to believe that it's racism that causes conservatives to notice jihadis are typically Muslims who want to kill bunches of civilians for Allah.

So – Maj. Nidal Hasan? Terrorist. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab? Terrorist. Zacarias Moussaoui? Terrorist. Khalid Sheikh Muhammed? Ramzi Binalshibh? Ramzi Yousef? Omar Khadr? Ayman al-Zawahiri? John Allen Muhammed? Terrorists, all. Jose Padilla? Er, foreign-sounding name (check), brown skin (check) – Terrorist! Barack Hussein Obama? Um, can I get back to you on that?

On the other hand — Jim David Atkisson? Crazy loner who thought liberals were the root of all evil so he opened fire on a Unitarian Church. James Von Brunn? Crazy white supremacist loner who opened fire in the Holocaust Museum. Scott Roeder? Crazy anti-abortion loner who shot Dr. George Tiller to death at his church. Michael Griffin? Crazy anti-abortion loner who killed Dr. David Gunn. Robert Poplawski? Crazy loner who was convinced President Obama was going to take his guns so he killed four police officers. Eric Robert Rudolf? Crazy loner who bombed a park during the Olympics, a gay bar and a women’s health clinic and then hid in the North Carolina mountains for years. Tim McVeigh? Crazy loner who blew up the federal building in OKC because he didn’t like the Democratic government. Warren “Gator” Taylor? Crazy loner who thought Obama was going to take his guns AND tax him to death, so he held a bunch of people hostage in a Virginia post office. Johnny Wicks? Crazy loner pissed off at the federal government about his Social Security claim so he opened fire at the Las Vegas federal courthouse. Glenn Beck? Crazy commentator who urges crazy loners to act on their crazy thoughts.

Shoot, News Writer isn't even bothering to distinguish between leftwing whackos (such as the Holocaust Museum killer) and rightwingers. Or between guys (they're always guys! Are we anti-male, too?) who kill people and radio hosts who "urge crazy loners to act on their crazy thoughts." No examples cited, notice.

I guess to News Writer, a guy putting a bomb in his undies and a radio commentator running a show are pretty much the same thing. Except, of course, that the second guy has a constitutional right to discuss whatever he wants to on his show. The first guy is a terrorist.

Why would anyone be surprised that Barack Obama...

Obama gives Interpol free hand in U.S.

No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it.

There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA.

...believes in international organizations more than the U.S. Constitution?

Judge Issues Injunction Preventing Congress from Defunding ACORN

Liberals call it a historic win for constitutional rights.

Today, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted a preliminary injunction against the United States for unconstitutionally withholding funds from ACORN. In its decision, the court found that there is a likelihood the plaintiffs will be able to show that Congress’ targeted defunding of ACORN violates the Constitution’s prohibition against Bills of Attainder, legislative acts which single out a specific person or group for punishment.

If defunding a program is "punishment," can Lockheed-Martin sue and force the U.S. government to continue funding the F-22?

Is Obamacare Constitutional?

Some say no.

UPDATE: More food for thought here.

No Brainer

Supreme Court rules strip search of teen unconstitutional.

It's sad that these things have to be spelled out by the Court, but making a 13-year-old strip to her underwear and shake out her bra and panties to prove she isn't carrying Tylenol is excessive. What is wrong with these people?

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

The combination of drug hysteria and the tyrrany of petty government officials is rarely a pretty sight. Unfortunately, the Court also held that no monetary damages could be awarded against Wilson and other school officials.

(FWIW, I'm not a Fourth Amendment expert, but as a matter of policy I would never let school officials strip search a child. If the incident is serious enough to merit police attention, say because school officials think the student is distributing heroin, call the police (who, among other things, have some training in probable cause and restrictions on searching without a warrant) and let them handle it. If the incident involves, say, possession of ibuprofen, which is neither illegal nor dangerous but only against school policy, handle it some other way.)

I wish the girl's parents could sue the pants (pun intended) off the school district. We have enough stupidity in the schools without this stuff.

Quote of the Day

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."

--John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787

Obama's Injustice Department

Must read to understand the ethically outrageous conduct of President Obama's politically-motivated Justice Department. Specifically, this on interrogation techniques:

In my opinion, the most basic problem with any suggestion of incompetence is that the memos' essential legal conclusions are correct. There is a fundamental distinction in the law between what constitutes actual, legal "torture" under applicable standards and what may be harsh, aggressive, unpleasant interrogation tactics but not, legally, "torture." Reasonable people will come to different conclusions as to where that line is, but the Bush administration's lawyers' conclusions are certainly defensible and, I think, ultimately correct. As a matter of constitutional law, moreover, the Bush administration memos' most sweeping and categorical conclusion--that at all events no statute or treaty may limit the president's sole constitutional powers as military commander in chief to direct and conduct the use of U.S. force--is in my opinion unquestionably correct.

Your Rights and the Internet

Internet usage can reduce your Constitutional rights. At least, that's the argument being made.

The voluntary transfer of such content and related data to third-party Internet communication facilitators reduces or eliminates First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Internet users. The technology and protocols used to enable Internet communication, as interpreted by existing privacy statutes and case law, further compromises Internet users' privacy and publicity rights.

The article is rather dry reading, but makes an important point about privacy in the Internet Age. Specifically, you don't have any. Because of the way the internet transfers information, you can't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy while using it. Companies are trying to address the issue, through encryption and other means, but it is important for people to recognize that privacy is difficult to have on the internet.

Eastern Michigan University Ousts Student for Not Affirming Homosexual Behavior

This story isn't really about whether one agrees with, approves of, or affirms homosexuality, but rather whether an institution can compel certain speech.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University Thursday after school officials dismissed a student from the school’s counseling program for not affirming homosexual behavior as morally acceptable. The school dismissed Julea Ward from the program because she would not agree prior to a counseling session to affirm a client’s homosexual behavior and would not retract her stance in subsequent disciplinary proceedings...

EMU requires students in its program to affirm or validate homosexual behavior within the context of a counseling relationship and prohibits students from advising clients that they can change their homosexual behavior. Ward has never addressed homosexual behavior in any form during counseling sessions with clients.

EMU initiated its disciplinary process against Ward and informed her that the only way she could stay in the graduate school counseling program would be if she agreed to undergo a "remediation" program. Its purpose would be to help Ward "see the error of her ways" and change her "belief system" as it relates to counseling about homosexual relationships, conforming her beliefs to be consistent with the university’s views. When Ward did not agree with the conditions, she was given the options of either voluntarily leaving the program or asking for a formal review hearing.

Ward chose the hearing, during which EMU faculty denigrated her Christian views and asked several inappropriate and intrusive questions about her religious beliefs. The hearing committee dismissed her from the counseling program on March 12. Ward appealed the decision to the dean of the College of Education, who upheld the dismissal on March 26.

In the real world, when counselors have problems with clients or potential clients, they refer them to other counselors. The idea that a counselor should be forced to affirm a practice that is contrary to her religious beliefs is constitutionally unsound.

This appears to be yet another step down the road towards forced universal acceptance of homosexuality as equal in all respects to heterosexual behavior, and superior to religious belief or expression, even though freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. As the Iowa Supreme Court ruling legalizing homosexual marriage illustrates, the argument used is that homosexuality is a suspect class, along with fundamental rights and racial classifications. This also vaults sexual orientation over gender into the Promised Land of constitutional analysis. Once an area is classified as suspect, nearly any law will be found to be unconstitutional. Should women be angry? You bet. We've now been told that being discriminated against because you are female is more permissible than being discriminated against because you are a lesbian.

There are all sorts of counselors. Demanding that students should be forced to mouth statements they don't believe should be an insult to any person seeking counseling.

About That Shredding of the Constitution Thing...

FISA Court backs Bush.

a major August 2008 decision released yesterday in redacted form, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, the FISA appellate panel, affirmed the government's Constitutional authority to collect national-security intelligence without judicial approval...


But the Constitution bans only "unreasonable" search and seizure, not all searches and seizures, and the Fourth Amendment allows for exceptions such as those under a President's Article II war powers. The courts have been explicit on this point. In 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Truong that "the Executive need not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance." The FISA appeals court said in its 2002 opinion In re Sealed Case that the President has "inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information" and took "for granted" that "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

Many critics of President Bush have argued that warrantless wiretaps are an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment. The FISA court disagrees.

Justice Thomas on Affirmative Action

This story seems like a "Well, duh!" moment to me, but I know there are others who simply don't see things this way.

Justice Thomas Says Constitution Forbids Racial Preference

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action.

Thomas, addressing leaders of historically black colleges, said affirmative action "has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking."

A longtime opponent of race-based preferences in hiring and school admissions, Thomas said, "Just from a constitutional standpoint, I think we're going to run into problems if we say the Constitution says we can consider race sometimes...

"My suggestion would be to stop the buzz words and to focus more on the practical effect of what we're doing," he said Tuesday.

"I can tell you when you have fudge words, it leaves a lot of room for mischief," he said. "People have a tendency to read their personal opinions into fudge words. You want, when it comes to the issue of race, absolute words."

It seems to me that focusing on actual, documented discrimination and using our race-neutral laws to eradicate that is a constitutional approach. Keep in mind that affirmative action was put into place at a time when businesses argued they "couldn't find" any qualified minorities to fill positions. 40-odd years later, that argument simply doesn't work. Even in areas where there are fewer minorities, there are still plenty of ways to find and encourage them in a given field. Arguing that the Constitution must allow racial preferences turns its language on its ear.

Moonbats: Why We Laugh at Them

Serious discussions about eliminating state borders and the U.S. Senate.

"The whole point of a written Constitution is to place limits on the ability of popular majorities to enact their will."

That's what Jonathan Adler says over at the Volokh Conspiracy regarding this hysterical column by E.J. Dionne.

Hysterical might not be a strong enough word to describe Dionne's piece. The only thing missing is a woman waving a coathanger and screaming that she "won't go back" to the bad ol' days.

Dionne seems to think that judicial restraint is a bad thing, at least when it butts up against his liberal ideas. As Adler states,

Dionne cites "the spate of 5 to 4 conservative decisions during the Supreme Court term just ended" as a signal that the conservative justices, when joined by Justice Kennedy, are willing "to overturn the will of Congress and local legislatures when doing so fits their political philosophy." Yes, Kennedy and the conservatives overturned D.C.'s handgun ban and a small portion of the McCain-Feingold law, but also among the end-of-term 5-4 decisions that overturned "the will of Congress and local legislatures" were the Court's decisions in Boumediene and Kennedy, which struck down Congressional policy on Gitmo detainees and state laws allowing capital punishment for child rape. Dionne also fails to mention the Roberts Court's demonstrated tendency to reject facial challenges to various legislative policies, ranging from voter ID and lethal injection to limits on soliciting child porn and the partial-birth abortion ban. While pretending to care about voter preferences, it appears Dionne is only concerned about judicial invalidation of legislative policies he favors. He's hardly alone in this, to be sure, but it belies his reputation as a thoughtful and insightful columnist.

This is, generally, the attitude of liberals towards the courts. They don't mind when the courts overturn the desires of the people--regarding, say, gay marriage or abortion--because it's just wrong for the majority to run everything. But that's exactly the argument Dionne wants to use in this instance. If a bill is popular, the court should rubberstamp it!

I realize that it is tough when the courts make up shit from the bench. Conservatives have had more than my lifetime watching liberals use a ouija board to determine what the Constitution says. But now it's time that we start reading the Constitution as it is written. If you want to change it, there's a process for that, too.

The Activist Court

Remeber when liberals were screaming about precedent and how the Roberts court was an abomination--nay, a massacre--of longstanding legal principles? Why, you'd think moonbats actually cared about the law, to listen to them blather on about stare decisis!

Naturally, I've been waiting for the screaming about stare decisis regarding the Boumediene case in which five liberal justices threw precedent under the bus, as it were, to arrive at the decision they wanted.

Well, I'm still waiting.

Liberals?

*hears crickets*

Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting that for liberals, stare decisis is important when it's a decision they like, like killing babies or helping criminals. But when a decision hurts the U.S., they can't even pronounce stare decisis.

This John Yoo piece sums up the hypocrisy:

Boumediene should finally put to rest the popular myth that right-wing conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. Academics used to complain about the Rehnquist Court's "activism" for striking down minor federal laws on issues such as whether states are immune from damage lawsuits, or if Congress could ban handguns in school. Justice Anthony Kennedy -- joined by the liberal bloc of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- saves his claims of judicial supremacy for the truly momentous: striking down a wartime statute, agreed upon by the president and large majorities of Congress, while hostilities are ongoing, no less.


First out the window went precedent. Under the writ of habeas corpus, Americans (and aliens on our territory) can challenge the legality of their detentions before a federal judge. Until Boumediene, the Supreme Court had never allowed an alien who was captured fighting against the U.S. to use our courts to challenge his detention.

In World War II, no civilian court reviewed the thousands of German prisoners housed in the U.S. Federal judges never heard cases from the Confederate prisoners of war held during the Civil War. In a trilogy of cases decided at the end of World War II, the Supreme Court agreed that the writ did not benefit enemy aliens held outside the U.S. In the months after the 9/11 attacks, we in the Justice Department relied on the Supreme Court's word when we evaluated Guantanamo Bay as a place to hold al Qaeda terrorists.

Yeah, that Roberts Court is sooo darn conservative. Remind the moonbats of this when they cry and whine about the D.C. gun case.

Liberal Law Firm for Constitutional Rights Founded

And you thought they were all liberal already.

Strawman Arguments and Abortion

Fewer issues get more strawmen thrown up about it than abortion. Now comes this ad from the National Institute for Reproductive Health, a branch of the former National Abortion Rights Action League. Watch the construction:

Where to begin? Well, to start with, John McCain has been inconsistent (to put it politely) on his opinion of Roe v. Wade. In an attempt to increase is credibility with conservatives, McCain has argued for about a year that Roe should be overturned. Previously, he had supported Roe. Frankly, I don't know if he supports it or not.

But the worst part of this ad is the strawman built up that if Roe were overturned, women would go to jail. This is just an outright lie. States have laws against physicians performing abortions, not against women seeking or even obtaining them. It's disingenuous for pro-abortion sorts to use this type of scare tactic to try to get women not to vote for McCain.

As usual, the most interesting information is in the comments.

That’s rigt. Make abortions illegal and you’ll see more deaths caused by shady people. A study in Norway by one of the leading papers showed that almost all abortions was performed due to poverty.
People with adequate income have an option, poor people don’t.

This argument ignores the big hole in its center. Studies in this country on why women get abortions list plenty of reasons, but most of those reasons amount to convenience ("it's not a good time for me," usually leads the way). Pro-abortion supporters lump a whole variety of answers into the "women would be poor" category, including "I'm in school" and "it would hinder my advancement at work." These aren't really arguments that these women are poor. They are arguments that having a baby would be inconvenient.

This is one of the reasons I always ask pro-abortion people if they consider sterilization. Most of the time, the moonbats are shocked and horrified that I would make the suggestion, but, as I point out, if having a child would truly and irrepairably harm this woman, you would think she would take the most logical steps to avoid ever, ever, ever getting pregnant: abstinence and/or sterilization. There are problems with sterilization; mainly that many doctors will not perform that procedure on anyone under about 30. I think an adult woman should be able to opt for a tubal at 21 if that's what she wants. That's real choice.

But no, most pro-abortion supporters act as though women don't have any choice in becoming pregnant. Either they are a victim of circumstance or a victim of failed birth control. The fact is, except in the case of rape, women have control at the very basic level: they can refrain.

Amanda Marcotte argues that this is the "sex is no fun" argument levelled by people who don't like sex. But that's not true. It's the "pregnancy is your responsibility" argument. Every person decides for themselves how much of a risk pregnancy is and whether the fun is worth it. It's just that people who are pro-life don't consider babies to be expendable.

Now for another silly comment.

Excellent ad. Says just enough in just the right way. No woman wants an abortion, but some woman have no choice. We did not fight for this right back in the sixties to have to keep on fighting in the 21st century. A woman’s body doesn’t belong to the state - it belongs to her.

This comment is wrong, as well. As I mentioned way back in 2006, there are plenty of women who wouldn't say they didn't want an abortion.

CourtneyMD: What the fundies fail to realize is that all abortions are obtained for the exact same reason: because the woman chooses not to carry the pregnancy.

Everything else is merely a circumstance: a circumstance of conception (rape, incest, birth control failure); a circumstance of finances, future plans, relationship, personal health, family completion, etc; a circumstance of embryonic health/viability. A circumstance is merely a set of attendant conditions. Circumstances change, but the basic motivational driver does not: this particular pregnancy is simply not worth the risks and burdens.


Cycles: In the charts above, I don’t see a category for "I don’t like kids." Oh the horror. I don’t like kids. I’m not "Not ready for a(nother) child/the timing is wrong." I’ll never be "ready." The "timing" will always be wrong.

I also don’t see a category for "There are already too many damn kids on the planet."

Just browse any abortion thread on Pandagon or any feminist site and you will get dozens of women who didn't mind at all having an abortion. In other words, for those women, there was no tragedy or pain. It was a 20 minute procedure.

More comments:

Here is the real issue: Who is going to adopt the flood of unwanted children that will occur due to a repeal of Roe vs. Wade. The rich including the religious right wing rich will ship their pregnant daughters off to Europe for an abortion - who is going to adopt the unwanted black or Latino babies? No one in the burbs so let’s just have that child grow up in a ghetto and be abused and have their best job opportunity be prostitution or selling drugs. When are the blue collar folks going to wake up?

This commenter should read Pandagon. Then he/she would know, as Amanda does, that pro-lifers just want more white babies for adoption. And note the slippery slope that if black and Latino babies are born, they will automatically end up criminals and gang bangers.

In general, this ad will attract only people who are pro-abortion--and thus, unlikely to vote for John McCain--in the first place. The "they want women to go to jail" meme has become the argument du jour from this crowd on why Roe should remain the law of the land.

But Roe is horrible, incoherent and illogical. Don't just take my word for it. There are plenty of liberals and scholars and justices who have criticized the decision on a variety of fronts, including that in usurping state power to regulate abortion, it created the modern pro-life movement. More than even the moral problems I have with abortion, this is my main objection to the liberal predisposition to using the courts to decide what should be legislative debates: it makes popular opinion irrelevant and deprives us of the sort of persuasive debate that should be conducted. And that really is a crime.

Supreme Court Gets It Right on Voting and IDs; Nutroots React Accordingly

The Supreme Court has upheld the Constitutionality of state requirements of photo IDs for voting.

What's interesting isn't the decision but the composition of the majority.

Indiana has a "valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Stevens said that Indiana's desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver's license serves as the identification.

The story itself is a picture of media bias, highlighting what Democrats who opposed the measure said in the lede, and using a headline that talks about states "demanding" identification to vote. This article from law.com does a better job at objectivity.

Naturally, the nutroots are screeching about disenfranchising people, but I can only conclude that liberals want people to vote illegally. The law in question clearly allowed for free photo IDs specifically to overcome any arguments about "disenfranchisement." But that doesn't stop your local nut from going ballistic. A few choice comments:

Not everyone can afford to get a government-issued ID. This directly goes against the poor who may not have the money to purchase an ID if they don’t have a drivers license. Unless the government is going to give those who can not afford the proper ID, which I highly doubt (health care anyone?), I don’t see how this if fair.

The number of Americans with driver's licenses is very high (I don't have an exact figure) and, as I said before, the state is providing free photo IDs. It's hard to argue that free ain't free enough.

Hey Scalia, why don’t you go Cheney yourself! This torture approving, pissing his pants in fear ala “24″ goodfella whannabe deserves the deepest scorn of every true American. A pathetic excuse for a judge and the perfect Bush lackie. He’ll rot in Hell with the rest of these pathetic excuses for profesionals in this criminal Administration.

Shorter commenter: I'm too stupid to add something intelligent to the thread.

THIS is the best reason to vote Democratic in November. We just can’t allow the highest court in the land to become even more reactionary. It would put our nation behind fifty years, minimum...

50 years back? To 1958? But--but I like my TiVO and color TV!

who was the sixth vote?
Stevens?
we are so fokked…
Scalia’s a fan of Jack Bauer.
Stevens has gone senescent.
The goddam Inquisition controls jurisprudence in the USofA…
Chuy!

A good example of why we need literacy tests.

I could go on. The comedy on the Left never ends. One commenter swore that the Constitution didn't guarantee a right to vote. Others swore that we're going down the road to fascism (seems we've been on that road a long time according to these people. Shouldn't we have gotten there by now?). Others just swore.

The Supreme Court made the right choice. States should have the right to require ID to vote to minimize voter fraud. Getting a photo identification is very easy in this country and the state even offered free IDs for those unable to afford one. What's really at work here is that liberals don't care if ineligible voters get to cast ballots because they hope those "voters" would cast ballots for Democrats. This is why they supported the Motor Voter law and decry any restrictions as placing too great a burden on (pick your favorite group here).

UPDATE: The hysteria continues at Echidne of the Snakes, where someone should hand Anthony McCarthy the smelling salts.

We have to save the right of a citizen to cast a vote from the Supreme Court. It’s clear now, the Republicans intend to overturn the Voting Rights Act and all other protections for the right of The People to cast a vote. The photo ID law will drive down the vote in states that adopt it, it will be the easiest thing for them to do to make it an insurmountable burden to obtain an ID in a timely manner to vote, legal remedies will take longer than the presidential campaign.

Both of the Democratic candidates for president, all of our leadership should issue a joint statement condemning this atrocity and begin a plan to legislatively overturn the usurpation of the Court on behalf of Republican state legislatures to rig the vote through making it harder for poor and minority citizens to vote. They want to send us back to the 1950s and eventually back to the 1800s.

Notice there's no evidence for this shrieking other than the fact that the SCOTUS said states can require IDs. How this heads us back to the 1800s takes more imagination (or estrogen, I suppose) than I have.

In Support of the Unitary Presidency?

I get a quote from the founding fathers sent to my e-mail every day from Patriot Post. This morning's quote seems to support the claims of George W. Bush to the unitary presidency.

"My construction of the constitution is very different from that
you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the
others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the
meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action;
and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Samuel Adams Wells, 12 May 1819)

John Marshall stomped all over this idea in Marbury v. Madison. But it's always interesting to read what the founding fathers thought government should be like.