But my Constitutional rights…

Caterwauling about the recent SCOTUS decisions

For all the uproar over the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, from Dobbs to DeJoy, and the Department of Education to Elenis, nothing could be more clear than that people don’t know or understand the Constitution. You would expect that, at least those in elected offices do, but they are clearly ignorant as well. There is little other reason for people, especially government officials, to be calling the legitimacy of the court into question, or worse, for threatening the well-being of the justices. What most people fail to see is that, as Justice Scalia was famous for saying, “the Constitution is not a living organism.It's a legal document, and it says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say.”

I understand that many may not like the decisions coming down from the Court. Dobbs dealt a hefty blow to those who do not view unborn children as lives worthy of protection. That decision raised much ire over “taking away a woman’s constitutional right to choose.” Funny thing is, there is nothing in the Constitution (nor the Bill of Rights - rightly considered part of the Constitution) granting a woman the right to kill her unborn child. If anything, the guarantee of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as delineated in the Declaration of Independence, should be seen as providing the fetus safe harbor. Commence the screaming and wailing over the Court taking away women’s “Constitutional rights” and setting us back a century.

What about the fuss over undoing affirmative action at Harvard? I mean, there’s no better way to fight racism than with more racism, right? Here the Court rightly ruled that considering race for purposes of admissions violates equal protection (this rule should apply to hiring employees as well). The whole idea of “equality” as espoused by our founding fathers and the documents they penned (as well as amendments that have come later) is to ensure all people are treated equally - not that some should be included or excluded based on their level of melanation. “But it’s only racist if the one committing it has power.” No. That has never been the definition of racism. Racism is believing one race is better than another or treating one person better (or worse, or simply different) because of differences in skin color. The fact is, affirmative action hurts more than it helps. Justice Thomas did an excellent job of addressing this in his opinion, so I will not rehash the reasons here.

Biden v. Nebraska and the Department of Education v. Brown were both wins for the Constitution. Both rulings ensure Biden cannot with the wave of a wand (or the stroke of a pen, as the case may be) cancel debt into which students willingly entered. While we may feel sorry that students are graduating without marketable skills, or that they are unable to find meaningful employment whereby they can pay back the debt incurred while pursing their gender studies degrees, to punish the lenders for loaning the money in good faith, or to make the general population (many of whom never sought or earned degrees) bear the burden of the debt, is wrong. To even suggest it be done is anathema to the principles upon which this country was founded.

In the Creative LLC v. Elenis SCOTUS decision, the First Amendment emerged victorious. Though some may view this as a win for discrimination, it is really a triumph for religious freedom and freedom of speech. Unacknowledged by most, the First Amendment does not simply guarantee the right of people to hold whatever beliefs they choose - it ensures those religious beliefs may be exercised freely. To force someone to use their creative ability to produce or provide a service that violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs violates the First Amendment. Government coercion is never an appropriate solution in a land built on liberty, thus, preventing the government from coercing Creative LLC to produce work contrary to the owner’s faith is the only Constitutional decision the Court could make.

The reason for the disgruntlement over these recent decisions is that they go against what people want, not what the Constitution says. Before people cast aspersions at SCOTUS for making decisions they believe unconstitutional, they would do well to actually study the Constitution and the rest of our country’s founding documents. I believe they would find that, what they may have thought were so-called “constitutional rights” are no such thing, and that wishing for government to intervene where government has no authority does little more than violate everyone’s rights. If you’d like a brief overview of the Constitution and what it really says, I wrote a while back another piece titled, “The Constitution does NOT grant us any rights”. Check it out - you might find your perspective changed.