Shame On You, Pat

Is any other TV pundit more intellectually bankrupt and backward-thinking than Pat Buchanan? Since only a handful of morons take Ann Coulter seriously, the answer seems to be “No.” Sure, he is chosen to represent the Radical Right thanks to his incendiary extremism, and heaven forbid a media outlet ever jeopardize its ability to entertain by offering moderate views. But at least he should make sense, and he doesn’t.

Interviewed on MSNBC this Friday about the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts, Buchanan spewed his thoughts with angry force, a style apparently calculated to disguise the fact that his ideas are deeply flawed.

When asked about the proper role of a Supreme Court Justice, he insisted that it is not for a Justice (in his example, Justice Kennedy) to decide on whether citizens, their legislators or their legislation are biased. If people want to pass laws that exclude or marginalize others, so be it. The judges should merely enforce those laws. In his world, apparently, states would be allowed to prohibit mixed race marriages, or contraception, or what...pre-marital sex? Nonsense.

I’ve got news for Mr. Buchanan. Our nation was founded by religious and political minorities who suffered oppression at the tyrannical hands of majorities. It seems he has forgotten or decided to ignore the historic core of our Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These sentiments are then echoed in the first paragraph of the Constitution:

“…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

In both cases, the core principle seems to be Liberty.

Liberty is freedom from the tyranny of the majority. The only liberty we don’t have is the liberty to take away the liberties of others. And the job of the Supreme Court is to judge whether Federal or State legislation goes against these Constitutional protections. Until we pass a Constitutional Amendment specifically denying our otherwise inalienable rights, it is essential that justices determine whether new laws are biased against these and other protections.

When Buchanan decries judges for “writing gays into civil rights laws,” he turns the truth on its head. Gays shouldn't need to be written into laws because they are already shielded by and included in the Constitution, just as women and African Americans were and are. When bigots and radicals want to exclude women from voting, or exclude blacks and whites from intermarrying, or exclude gays from, well…everything, they are prevented by the Constitution. Furthermore, Civil Rights laws don’t create new liberties. They only clarify and affirm pre-existing liberties. The Emancipation Proclamation says nothing that doesn’t already rest safely beneath the towering phrase, “all men are created equal.”

Until the Radical Right finds some way to change the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Justices are obligated to strike down bigoted laws. This isn’t activism, as intellectually dishonest spin-meisters tirelessly try to get us to believe. It is the proper role of the Supreme Court. Shame on you, Pat.