know your enemy

This, ladies, gentlemen, and other sophonts, is the individual who is likely to be the next Supreme Court Justice:

Sen. Coburn asked, “”Do you personally believe there is a fundamental right in this area? Do you agree with Blackstone? He said that [the right to self-defense through gun ownership] was a natural right.”

Kagan responded, “To be honest with you, I don’t have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution.”

“So,” Coburn asked, “you wouldn’t embrace what the Declaration says, that we have certain God-given rights” and that among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”

Kagan answered, “I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I am not saying that I do not believe there are not rights preexisting the Constitution and the laws, but my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.”

Coburn continued to press her, and she was insistent: “[Regarding] the question of what I believe as to what people’s rights are outside the Constitution and the laws, that [as a judge] you should not want me to act outside the basis” of the Constitution and the laws. I think you should ask me to act on the basis of law, which is the Constitution and the statutes of the United States.”

On the one hand, she is absolutely right – her job, as a Supreme Court Justice, would be to ensure that all governmental entities are obeying and following the proscriptions and requirements of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has been failing in this duty, somewhat significantly, of late, but that is neither here nor there – the requirement still exists.

However, on the other hand, there could not be a worse answer from a prospective Justice. As we have discussed a few times before at this weblog, by and large, the Constitution does not bestow, generate, grant, or otherwise impart any rights on the American people (especially not when we are talking about the Bill of Rights). Instead, the Constitution, and most of the Amendments that have been attached to it over the years, protect rights that existed before that document was written. Hell, the very first Amendment makes this reality abundantly clear, instructing that Congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of people to peaceably assemble.

Obviously, we, the people, had to already posses that freedom and that right, otherwise what on Earth would the First Amndment be referencing?

Granted, the actual nugget of the Constitution dealt more with how the American government was supposed to function, rather than what rights the gvernment had to acknowledge, but that is simply because many of the Founding Fathers and their compatriots considered those elemental rights (such as freedom of expression, self-defense, etc.) so bloody basic that no one would ever need to have it spelled out that the government was not supposed to screw around with them.

Thankfully for us, the Federalists lost that particular debate, and we now have the Bill of Rights… which is just as well, since people like Kagan there are getting more and more power in the American government.

In short, it should be painfully obvious to even the densest of high school American Government students that Elena Kagan has next to no understanding of how or why this country was founded, much less how it was set up or why… and yet this woman was chosen to be the next Supreme Court Justice. I guess that makes sense… once you consider who does the picking. Unfortunately, the bad news does not end there: Kagan could or did not articulate anything the government could not do under the “Commerce Clause”, she actually seems to believe that foreign law should factor into the Supreme Court’s interpretation of America’s Constitution, she refused to answer the kinds of questions she once whole-heartedly endorsed, and she promises to be nothing more than a rubber-stamp for any Presidential administration… so long as she agrees with it, of course.

If that does not send a few shivers down your spine, I am not sure what will.

Suffice to say, Elena Kagan is not the kind of person anyone who values individual freedoms and rights would want on the bench in the Supreme Court. If you have not already, please contact your Senators and let them know of your desires to oppose her appointment, and why – after all, exercising a right your opponents (in this case, Kagan herself) do not believe exists is one of the surest ways to win.

(Courtesy of Tekmage’s Blog.)