JUDICIAL ACTIVISM

Don't you get so tired of hearing the same tired and untrue phrases used by conservatives from, it seems, the day they came crawling out of the primordial ooze? Phrases like "tax and spend liberals." In the manner they've perfected of accusing others of the very malfeasances they themselves thrive on, and making it stick by constant repetition, so they have done with this one. Which administrations spend more? Think expansion of government (an example of the linguistic tomfoolery right there); think deficits. Yes, they sometimes cut taxes, but for whom? This is nothing to be proud of. And during Reagan-Bush, my taxes went up.

Since the Massachusetts Judicial Court decision about same-sex marriage, we are hearing once again from the right the complaint about courts practicing "judicial activism", that being an egregious affront to civilization. The courts should not be creating law, after all, or deciding public policy. That should be left to the noble hearts who in Congress--but only when the Right has a majority. Otherwise the courts are merely correcting bad legislation that will bring about the downfall of western civilization* or worse.

We hear that phrase used whenever any court decides in opposition to any position held dear by the right. We always have. I first heard it from a constitutional law professor in college, a "strict constructionist"--code for idiot, I later realized, (as "judical activism" is code for "we don't like that decision"). Under 'strict constructionism", we never would have had a right to privacy as we understand it today, and all that it implies and means to us today, as that right is not literally articulated in the constitution, but is the result of decades of court decisions, activism in service of the fulfillment of the founder's dreams in a world they could not foresee, and in the cause of human dignity.

Judicial activism is what the courts do. It's what they were created to do. It's their job, dammit. That's why it's so important to not appoint whackos and idealogues like Thomas and Scalia to the courts, and why the federal court Bush appointees who would judicially activate the most extreme hardships on us and further reverse decades of social progress must be stopped at all costs.

But let's get to the main point--the hypocrisy of these phrases, for if the 2000 Supreme Court decision appointing Bush president is not the crown of judicial activism, then the world was created in six days.

So if it suits them, it's fine. If not, it's "tax and spend"--oops, I mean "judicial activism."


*Ghandi was once asked what he thought of Western Civilization. "I think it would be a very good idea," he replied.