George Will finally comes clean: he's calling for an end to democracy. In his latest column Unleash the High Court, he calls on conservatives to end respect for judicial constraint and condemnation of activism. As Will points out, if Romney wins he may be able to make a conservative court for a generation. A Romney court, he says,
might rectify the court's still-reverberating mistake in the 1873 Slaughterhouse cases. It then took a cramped view of the 14th amendment's protection of Americans' "privileges or immunities" saying those did not include private property rights, freedom of contract, or freedom from government interference with the right to engage in enterprise.
Ultimately, Will says, this led to decisions that "economic rights are inferior to fundamental rights", a grevious error that a Romney court should correct.
Will tells Romney to stop saying he will appoint "restrained" judges who "leave the governance of the nation to elected representatives". Instead he calls on Romney to appoint judges who will constrain democratic processes, like those that produced the health care act and campaign finance reform.
A court that followed Will's prescription, and granted economic rights constitutional protection that made them equal or superior to human rights and acts of Congress, would essentially turn the nation over to corporations, since their freedom would outweigh environmental laws, public safety, and public economic choices. A George Will nation has little use for democracy and is frighteningly close to a fascist state.
I fear we are at a real fork in the road for the country I know and love. Romney seems a natural ally for Will and the corporate forces in Congress who would strike down anything that stood in the way of profits, turning our democracy into a police force for enforcing corporate "rights" and protecting privilege. It is astounding to me that nearly 50% of the voters seem to think that's a good idea.