I have been thinking a lot lately about the increasing anger republicans are showing towards the judiciary and the upcoming battles regarding the appointment of new judges. This provides an excellent opportunity to turn the Hannity phrase "why do you hate america" around onto the conservatives. To make this argument requires three steps of logic.
1. The judiciary is quite conservative (short of the 9th circuit court of appeals) and that many of the recent judgements that have raised the ire of republicans were by self-described conservative judges.
- The issues that are being increasingly pointed to by republicans as arising from activist judges are relatively well grounded in literal interpretations of the constitution. (ie federalism, separation of church and state, right to confront witnesses in a trial, habeas corpus etc.)
- Therefore, it is not activism that angering Republicans, it is judges who feel constrained to work within the constitution.
So that's it, now that Republicans control nearly all the levers of power, they have turned their attacks to their one remaining constraint, the constitution. And wouldn't it be fair to characterize expressing hatred, to the point of empathizing with individuals who commit violence,towards the constitution, as hating America?
To conjure what Hannity might say one last time: "Is it that you hate our constitution, or do you hate the whole idea of having a constitution in the first place?"
