Conservatives Need To Step Back And Read Hinderaker's Latest

I ran into this column by John Hinderaker (isn't he turning out to be something?) at The Weekly Standard a day or two ago. I kept coming back to it, knowing it was trying to tell me something, and I finally figured it out.

Seriously, I know it's been said before, but we have got to stop allowing the left to frame the debate.

This is the essence of the frustration on the right, the mystification at the GOP's handling of judicial nominees and the filubuster. As usual, we are allowing the left to bury the truth behind a wall of illegitimate noise. Hinderaker gives a solid reminder why all conservatives, religious and non-believer alike, are trying to end judicial activism.

Hinderaker provides the reminder with his coverage of a Yale chapter of the American Constitutional Society sponsored conference called "The Constitution in 2020":

"The touchstone is Franklin Roosevelt's "Second Bill of Rights," which would recognize a right to "a useful and remunerative job"; sufficient earnings to provide "adequate" food, clothing, and recreation; a "decent" home; a "good education"; and "adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health."

The essence of the progressive constitutional project is to recognize "positive" rights, not just "negative" rights, so that citizens are not only guaranteed freedom from specified forms of government interference, but also are guaranteed the receipt of specified economic benefits.

Here's some specifics from professor Cass Sunstein :

* With growth and change, political rights enshrined in Constitution are inadequate.
* Need economic bill of rights. Ingredients of Second Bill of Rights--Only with these rights will we have security.
* Long tradition of American political thought--states owe to every citizen a degree of subsistence. Second Bill of Rights made possible by attack on distinction between negative and positive rights. Effort to separate them is unfit for the American legal framework.

There's more from professor Bruce Ackerman:

* Task of every generation is to create institutional structures which express fundamental liberal commitments.
* Economic citizenship--stakeholder society in which every young adult gets a form of citizenship inheritance of $80,000, funded by a wealth tax . . .
* Idea of a national citizenship is powerful and underdeveloped legal resource . . . .concept that national citizenship has privileges--we need to make this a reality--cure disenfranchisement for felons.

Hinderaker breaks it all down:

The left makes no secret of its intentions where the Constitution is concerned. It wants to change it, in ways that have nothing to do with what the document actually says. It wants the Constitution to enshrine its own policy preferences--thus freeing it from the tiresome necessity of winning elections. And how will the Constitution be changed? Through a constitutional convention, or a vote of two-thirds of the state legislatures? Of course not. The whole problem, from the liberal perspective, is that they can't get democratically elected bodies to enact their agenda. As one of the Yale conference participants said: "We don't have much choice other than to believe deeply in the courts--where else do we turn?" The new, improved Constitution will come about through judicial re-interpretation. It only awaits, perhaps, the election of the next Democratic president.

IF THE IDEA OF A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to government-funded child care, "adequate" recreation, and $80,000 in cash seems outlandish, remember that these concepts are no more eccentric than the idea of a right to abortion was, prior to Roe v. Wade. As a law school exercise in 1972, my class was charged with trying to formulate an argument for a constitutional right to abortion. We were stumped. None of us could think of one. A few months later, the "right" to abortion was born.

So Republicans are right to put top priority on the president's ability to get a vote on his judicial nominations. Liberal interest groups have flatly declared their intention to filibuster any nominee to the Supreme Court whom they regard as conservative. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Although I printed more than I would have liked of this column, it is too serious a subject to rely on people's ability to link. It shouldn't cost The Weekly Standard any hits though, as Hinderaker makes many, many more excellent points. Read them all.