Monday, October 03, 2005
Cracking the Conservative Code
During the first days after the nomination of Harriet Miers, I was reading through a Reuters piece on the circumstances surrounding the nomination when I found this direct quote towards the middle of the article.
Bush said Miers would not legislate from the bench and would strictly interpret the Constitution, his code language for a conservative philosophy.
So much was said to me in that sentence that my head began to spin. First of all, the liberal bias in the media should be acknowledged. Not because it's a surprise, but because it's important to know where this thought comes from. Secondly, what Conservatives see as a formula for a good, responsible judge is seen simply by Liberals as code language for Conservative principles. Which leads to the most important thing that was said here: Liberals don't like to uphold the Constitution.
Constitutionally, legislation is supposed to happen in the legislative branch, and all legislation must fit within certain guidelines laid out in the Constitution. Apparently this is only a Conservative philosophy at this point. When you watch closely, you'll see that Liberals can't win in the legislative process, so they need to bend the rules of the Constitution to squeeze their agendas into place. Their contortionism must be applied to both the process and the ideas themselves, therefore strictly interpreting the Constitution is not only a Conservative philosophy, it is a very anti-Liberal philosophy as well. So when I said that Liberals don't like to uphold the Constitution, what I really meant to say was that in reality, Liberals can't uphold the Constitution. At least not if they plan on having any relevance in today's political system.
Bush said Miers would not legislate from the bench and would strictly interpret the Constitution, his code language for a conservative philosophy.
So much was said to me in that sentence that my head began to spin. First of all, the liberal bias in the media should be acknowledged. Not because it's a surprise, but because it's important to know where this thought comes from. Secondly, what Conservatives see as a formula for a good, responsible judge is seen simply by Liberals as code language for Conservative principles. Which leads to the most important thing that was said here: Liberals don't like to uphold the Constitution.
Constitutionally, legislation is supposed to happen in the legislative branch, and all legislation must fit within certain guidelines laid out in the Constitution. Apparently this is only a Conservative philosophy at this point. When you watch closely, you'll see that Liberals can't win in the legislative process, so they need to bend the rules of the Constitution to squeeze their agendas into place. Their contortionism must be applied to both the process and the ideas themselves, therefore strictly interpreting the Constitution is not only a Conservative philosophy, it is a very anti-Liberal philosophy as well. So when I said that Liberals don't like to uphold the Constitution, what I really meant to say was that in reality, Liberals can't uphold the Constitution. At least not if they plan on having any relevance in today's political system.
