Posted on 06/04/2005 6:07:03 AM PDT by George Frm Br00klyn Park
WorldNetDaily / Commentary
The Constitution, version 2.0
Posted: June 4, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Alan Sears
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
During the next 15 years, the United States could see some incredible transformations. Every young adult would be given $80,000 via a new tax on the "rich." Felons would be allowed to vote. A second Bill of Rights would be instituted, complete with a slew of new entitlements to ensure social and economic "equality." And most amazingly, no one will need – or even be allowed – to vote on these sweeping changes. Unelected judges could simply mandate each of them – for our own good, of course.
None of these changes are inevitable, but lest you chalk it all up as alarmist hype, an influential group of legal scholars seeks to make these things – and more – a reality.
In April, Yale Law School's chapter of the American Constitutional Society sponsored a conference titled "The Constitution in 2020." The event was designed to foster leftist policies into being, with the consent of neither voters nor elected officials. Perhaps this strategy should be expected in light of the desperation of many leftist politicians to remain in office these days. Not surprisingly, one of the conference's main financial backers was left-leaning and Bush-bashing international financier George Soros.
The first sentence of the conference description stated the goal forthrightly: "It is time for progressives to set a constitutional agenda for the 21st century." Yale law professor and opening speaker Bruce Ackerman revealed how sweeping their dream agenda could extend.
The professor promoted taxing the "wealthy" to create a "citizenship inheritance" of $80,000 for every young adult to use as each sees fit. In addition, Ackerman and other conference speakers believe that we as a nation need convicted murderers, rapists and other felons to help us select our leaders at the ballot box.
Harvard Law's lMartha Minow agreed.
"For the politically unpopular and disenfranchised – including detained immigrants, children and literally disenfranchised ex-convicts – we do need to ramp up affirmative constitutional aid," she urged.
But affirmative action for felons and non-citizens wasn't enough for some. University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein insisted that even more progressive "constitutional interpretation" was required.
"It is important to be clear on what is meant by 'the Constitution,'" he said, churning up thankfully forgotten days when we wondered what the meaning of the word "is" is. "That idea could of course be limited to what is technically part of constitutional law as the Supreme Court understands it. Much more ambitiously, it could include anything deemed 'constitutive' of national commitments and principles."
And which "commitments and principles" is Sunstein referring to? Well, leftist ones, of course.
The professor referred at length to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's proposed "Second Bill of Rights," which would invent bizarre, socialistic governmental guarantees our Founding Fathers never could have dreamed of.
Rights to a well-paying job, housing, health care, education, recreation and even freedom from "unfair competition" are included in this imagined constitution. No mention, of course, is made of the destruction of our nation's economic engine in the process.
While the original Bill of Rights set limits on the government, the Bill of Rights "the Sequel" would grant the state inconceivable authority to intervene in every sector of our lives.
If brought to the electorate, this breathtaking expansion of state power would be emphatically laughed out of town halls from Arizona to Vermont. But while the proposals seem outlandish today, government-sanctioned abortion and same-sex "marriage" seemed equally outlandish before being fabricated by some members of an unelected judiciary.
The sad truth is that, practically speaking, the only impediment these days to government-enforced recreation and nationwide salary caps is the interpretation of one more runaway Supreme Court decision. And if this effort is allowed to prevail, the results will be with us for a very long time.
Left-leaning columnist Joshua Micah Marshall reveled in the promise of the 2020 conference.
"This isn't about 2006 or 2008 or figuring how all the cards might fall right in this or that cycle," he said. "It's about creating the building blocks of progressive reform, one step at a time, one lawyer at a time, one new idea at a time, building networks of like-minded individuals who create enduring change. That's stuff that doesn't show results in a week or a month; but it endures."
The left has made it clear that the will of the people is not their primary objective, and they are willing to work incrementally to achieve their goals if need be. The conference at Yale demonstrates how important the judiciary is to our future. It is a startling reminder of the need for our judges to interpret the Constitution for what it clearly says – rather than what they wish it said.
Alan Sears, formerly chief of the criminal section of a U.S. Attorney's Office and an associate solicitor of the U.S. Department of Interior, is president and CEO of theAlliance Defense Fund, America's largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding and litigation.
While the original Bill of Rights set limits on the government, the Bill of Rights "the Sequel" would grant the state inconceivable authority to intervene in every sector of our lives.
All, Further confirmation of what IS happening to YOUR children's future freedom is 'To form a more perfect union' . It is NOT some "dream", or even nightmare! Peace and love, George.
Yikes!
Version 2.0 is outdated, Ruth Bader Ginsburg woke up this morning.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
"This isn't about 2006 or 2008 or figuring how all the cards might fall right in this or that cycle," he said. "It's about creating the building blocks of progressive reform, one step at a time, one lawyer at a time, one new idea at a time, building networks of like-minded individuals who create enduring change. That's stuff that doesn't show results in a week or a month; but it endures."
Guys, This is to be accomplished through that most dirtiest{redundant.I know}of words, "consensus", and by the "compromising" of parties in "dispute" through rules and regulations given the color and full force {that's guns} of law by politically appointed bureaucrats {in judicial chambers without record of proceedings} we call judges {of the most high order we call lawyers. Just ask 'em.} in "consent Decrees". And, all without legitimacy. Peace and love, George.
Already well on the way.
gsgop, I don't think{?} Marbury did {or could do} that. Only those most corrupt who taught "the gospel" of "case law" that Mabury "set the precedent, and therefore law". We need judicial review to prevent abuses by the Administration and Legislative branches. But only as envisioned by our constitution. NOT by the whims of politically appointed bureaucrats we call judges. Peace and love, George.
Why bother? The Republicans and Democrats ignore the document anyway. And from statements I've seen from 'conservatives' they apparently won't care as long as Republicans are in charge
I agree that judicial review must go. It was a power grab that the Congress failed to counter at its inception, and it's detrimentally changed this country.
Having said that judicial review alone doesn't account for judicial activism. Nor will changing the make up of the court's judges have a lasting effect on judicial activism. The heart of the problem is the human beings who sit in black robes, and who are able to make law from the bench without accountability to anyone.
We have seen past Republican Presidents appoint either "conservative" or "moderate" judges to the bench only to have those same judges become our worst judicial nightmares later in their careers. That must change before any activism is halted.
Term limits would give any judge only so much time to be a detriment to society. It would bypass our do-nothing Congress, and do away with the unused impeachment process. At the same time it would give judges that "independence" they say they need, but which has only proven to be a judicial skirt to hide behind when making bad law.
Barring term limits what else can check and balance the courts?
The living constitution gives us duties we must perform for the imperial state's "common good," and the payment of financial obligations to ideas and people we don't agree with or know.
Who needs permission. They do it already.
"Rights to a well-paying job, housing, health care, education, recreation and even freedom from 'unfair competition' are included in this imagined constitution."Perhaps it's because I live in Oklahoma, but I don't see anyone who can't get a "well-paying job" (if they actually bother to go to work), "housing" (using their earnings from said job), "health care" (don't get me started), "education" (k-12 at least, if they wanted it), and "recreation" (an incident of freedom). Yes, we do have the homeless and unemployed and such, but most of them are lazy, drug-addicted, or make other choices that imperil their abilities to get a job.
N, The Constitution CALLS for impeachment. Peace and love, George.
And when has that ever worked against a Supremme Court judge? Give me one example.
Someone should tell these folks that even the brain-washed European peons are wising up to this kind of socialist freedom-killing tripe.
N, Congress could begin TODAY!. Peace and love, George.
That one really cracks me up. The Demo/Commies become apoplectic when the mere possibility of offering young adult workers the chance to put aside a small portion of their own Social Security tax payments in a private account so that they can build up equity that they own personally is discussed. Yet what is this bizarre proposal other than a personal account for young adults. The only difference is that their proposal is mainly a "soak the rich" proposal. So, their real interest does not appear to be in helping those young adults, rather their interest is in punishing successful people.
With that in mind, it's clear that the quickest way to kill the idea is to call the proposed handout a "privatized Social Security account for young adults". They'll drop it like a hot potato...
Truly stranger than fiction and the stuff from which nightmares are made.
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Thomas Jefferson
Why stop at $80,000? Indeed giving each citizen a billion or so is no sillier and not much more self-destructive either.
Government supplied recreation is mandantory recreation.
I wonder how long it would take before liberals would interprete that as mandantory happiness pills for all.
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