Friday, February 02, 2007
Questions for the ACLU
A spied an American Civil Liberties Union bumper sticker on a co-worker's car today. (It could very well be the same co-worker who took such a keen interest in what books I've been reading.) The bumper sticker in question said: "President Bush: Keep Your Hands Off Our Freedom."
The ACLU can fancy itself as a nonpartisan protector of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights all it wants. One needn't possess a PhD in political science, however, to notice that the ACLU is quite selective in terms of the Constitutional battles it chooses to wage. I, for one, have a few questions for them. To wit:
In his seminal legal study Takings, Richard Epstein explores the government's 60-year assault on private property rights. Indeed, Dr. Epstein has spent much of his career detailing how the Takings Clause and the Commerce Clause have been deliberately misinterpreted in order to justify the expanding welfare state in the United States. As he points out, there exists not one single document to suggest that any Founding Father was a champion of income redistribution and/or transfer payments. When will the ACLU speak out against confiscatory taxes and the redistributionist welfare state?
The ACLU has taken a public stand in favor of affirmative action and racial preferences. Where in the Constitution is equality of outcome favored above and beyond equality of opportunity?
As a document, the Bill of Rights is the single greatest enshrinement of personal freedoms known to man. The philosophical origins of the Second Amendment are found in the writings of thinkers from Blackstone to Locke; in the English common law; and in the English Declaration of the Rights of 1689. There is a growing body of scholarly commentary which indicates that the "right to keep and bear arms" is - as the Amendment's text suggests - a personal right. When will the ACLU champion an individual's right to bear arms?
Our nation's universities are becoming Orwellian places in which any statements that challenge the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy are systematically condemned and suppressed. "Speech codes" are the norm, and conservative thinkers are often shouted down or denied the right to be heard at all. Will the ACLU take steps to ensure that First Amendment rights are enjoyed uniformly on our nation's college campuses?
The ACLU's crusades against public displays of the Ten Commandments have been quite eventful; however, the ACLU has yet to explain how such displays support an "establishment of religion." Does the ACLU honestly believe that the Founding Fathers envisioned an absolute removal of religious thought and expression from the public square?
There are indeed legitimate questions to be asked about the Bush Administration's proposals for fighting domestic and international terrorism. However, until the ACLU is prepared to wage a non-ideological and factual defense of Constitutional freedoms, I'm not so sure that its pronouncements condemning the Bush Administration deserve serious consideration.
The ACLU can fancy itself as a nonpartisan protector of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights all it wants. One needn't possess a PhD in political science, however, to notice that the ACLU is quite selective in terms of the Constitutional battles it chooses to wage. I, for one, have a few questions for them. To wit:
In his seminal legal study Takings, Richard Epstein explores the government's 60-year assault on private property rights. Indeed, Dr. Epstein has spent much of his career detailing how the Takings Clause and the Commerce Clause have been deliberately misinterpreted in order to justify the expanding welfare state in the United States. As he points out, there exists not one single document to suggest that any Founding Father was a champion of income redistribution and/or transfer payments. When will the ACLU speak out against confiscatory taxes and the redistributionist welfare state?
The ACLU has taken a public stand in favor of affirmative action and racial preferences. Where in the Constitution is equality of outcome favored above and beyond equality of opportunity?
As a document, the Bill of Rights is the single greatest enshrinement of personal freedoms known to man. The philosophical origins of the Second Amendment are found in the writings of thinkers from Blackstone to Locke; in the English common law; and in the English Declaration of the Rights of 1689. There is a growing body of scholarly commentary which indicates that the "right to keep and bear arms" is - as the Amendment's text suggests - a personal right. When will the ACLU champion an individual's right to bear arms?
Our nation's universities are becoming Orwellian places in which any statements that challenge the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy are systematically condemned and suppressed. "Speech codes" are the norm, and conservative thinkers are often shouted down or denied the right to be heard at all. Will the ACLU take steps to ensure that First Amendment rights are enjoyed uniformly on our nation's college campuses?
The ACLU's crusades against public displays of the Ten Commandments have been quite eventful; however, the ACLU has yet to explain how such displays support an "establishment of religion." Does the ACLU honestly believe that the Founding Fathers envisioned an absolute removal of religious thought and expression from the public square?
There are indeed legitimate questions to be asked about the Bush Administration's proposals for fighting domestic and international terrorism. However, until the ACLU is prepared to wage a non-ideological and factual defense of Constitutional freedoms, I'm not so sure that its pronouncements condemning the Bush Administration deserve serious consideration.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Friday, February 02, 2007 
