Court Exposes Conservative Lie

Today’s Supreme Court ruling affirming Oregon’s so-called Right To Die Law exposes cultural conservatism for what it is: a manipulative, distorted, hypocritical lie.

The Supreme Court found that Oregon’s law is constitutional, and that Federal statutes, such as those pertaining to controlled substances, don’t apply.

Following decades of conservative rhetoric about the supremacy of states’ rights, you would think Supreme Court conservatives would be the ones siding with Oregon's law. But Scalia, Thomas and Roberts were the dissenting minority! (Note that with radical Judge Samuel Alito taking the place of Sandra Day O'Connor, this would likely have been a 5-4 decision rather than a 6-3 decision, yet another reason to vote against his nomination.)

Which brings us to the truth. Cultural conservatives claim they want states to have maximum autonomy when writing laws, insisting that Federalism should be tightly construed, but what they really want is for states to be able to pass laws prohibiting abortion and contraception. Conservatives care about their pet issues, not states’ rights, which today's ruling proves. They side with states when it suits their purposes, and they side with the Federal Government, as in this case, when it suits their purposes.

So the Federalism issue is a smoke-screen, obscuring the real conservative agenda: to prevent reproductive freedom. Their objection to Oregon’s law is motivated by the same fanaticism behind their objection to reproductive freedom--that their God doesn’t like abortion, contraception or suicide.

Fortunately, not all Americans are ruled by superstition, and today’s Supreme Court decision upholds common sense and reason. To those who disagree with it, I would suggest the following: don’t have an abortion, don’t use contraception, don’t seek assisted suicide, and don’t restrict the rest of us based on your superstitions. After all, isn’t liberty the American way?