Urgent! Right Wing Agenda for the Supreme Court

[sweetroxie]

Urgent: A TDS Strategy Memo on the Supreme Court

The Republican right has a deeply disturbing covert extremist agenda for the Supreme Court – end the separation of church and state, undermine the legality of Social Security and Medicare and give individuals the right to ignore any laws they choose.

Does this sound like a wildly hysterical exaggeration?

It certainly does. But unfortunately, it also happens to be true.

The unavoidable fact is that major elements of the Republican coalition – the elements most likely to become deeply engaged in the battle over the next supreme court nominee like the Christian Right, the Tea Party Movement, and the radical Federalist Society legal wing of the Right—do indeed harbor profoundly extreme views on the Constitution. In fact, since Obama’s election these views have veered even more sharply toward extremism.

--snip--
Taken together, these three ideas actually amount to a covert three-pronged agenda to radically transform the American constitution:

1. To redefine America as a Christian Nation and treat Christianity as a state-favored religion

2. To create a legal doctrine that could justify the voiding of all social programs enacted since 1933.

3. To establish the right of individuals or states to ignore and disobey any laws that they happen to interpret as impinging on their freedom or natural rights.

Democrats can – and must -- respond firmly and categorically to this extremist philosophy. They must respond by saying that the Democratic Party proudly upholds the traditional American view of the constitution – the view of the founding fathers of this country – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.

1. That the constitution guarantees religious freedom and tolerance for all Americans of every faith and creed.

2. That the constitution guarantees the right of the freely elected representatives of the people in a democracy to pass laws for the common good. The people have the right to elect new representatives who promise to repeal laws with which they disagree, but not to simply ignore and violate laws of which they do not happen to approve

3. That the constitution protects individual liberty but is not a prescription for anarchy. It provides equal rights for all under a system of laws, but does not provide veto rights for anyone who happens to disagree with a particular law.

--snip--
Democrats should not let them get away with this deception. A substantial part of the Republican base deeply and sincerely believes in the three-pronged extremist agenda described above and will consider any attempt by the Republican leadership to shy away from those views as a betrayal tantamount to treason. If Democrats firmly and consistently demand that Republican leaders honestly say where they stand on these issues, the Republican coalition will become deeply fractured.

-snip--
But if the Republicans insist on a fight, let’s stand ready to give them a battle they’ll wish they never started.
<http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/> Scroll down to April 10th.

[pinboy3niner]

1. As the R's are not in the White House, President Obama . . .

has the prerogative of appointing the next Justice, subject to confirmation. The wingnut agenda is irrelevant . . .

[sui generis]

2. but this isn't different in any way than the last 50 years

why panic now? I mean, we already have that va fancula justice whatsisname, Scalia, who is going to presently find himself in an even more hostile peer situation, and even more irrelevant as a constitutional literalist. To actually enact all the sturm und drang the right wants also requires the participation of the vast majority of the U.S. population, and THAT ain't gonna happen anywhere that isn't some backwater rural town in the south, or Michigan.