Would you like a little cheese with that whine?
As much as Ann Coulter likes to characterize liberals as whiney, petulant children, she’s got a rather high pitched whine of her own. Her favorite topic of complaint is the courts. She was once again in rare form today: “Liberals cannot win when Americans are allowed to vote, so they jam their insane ideas down our throats through the courts.” Which ideas does Ann consider insane exactly? The only decisions I’m aware of that come down through the courts are ones affecting social order. I’m not aware of the courts taking a stand on foreign policy, or tax policy, or welfare or Medicaid or Social Security or defense spending or… do I need to go on? So which ideas does Ann think are insane? The only ones left are the ones where liberals think people should have control of their own lives without government interference and equal opportunity: civil rights, in other words.
One might be tempted to raise the obvious issue of gay marriage at this point, but apparently Alabama is still chaffing about “activist federal judges” who forced them to desegregate their schools almost 50 years ago. Voters in Alabama recently defeated a measure that would remove language from their state constitution that mandates segregated schools. Theoretically the defeat came not because Alabama voters want the racist language to remain in the constitution, but because the proposed changes also included striking a passage that says Alabama does not guarantee a right to public education. Striking that language might, in the words of Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, open the door for activist judges to force Alabama to raise taxes to improve their school systems.
That’s actually unbelievable on multiple fronts. He’s basically admitting that Alabama public schools are substandard. And he’s proud of that? Or does he not care because his kids go to private school? It’s also remarkable in its transparency. Public education is not a right in Alabama, so the rich white folk send their kids to private school and the poor (read: black) who can’t afford private schools are stuck with Alabama’s substandard public schools. Nice.
Maybe Alabama isn’t chaffing over activist judges. Maybe they’re still chaffing about that activist President who interfered with their way of life. Southern voters chose to secede from the United States. It was a legislative act. No courts to blame there. Lincoln decided that was unacceptable behavior and used military force to prevent it. There is a lot to be said for state’s rights. Being a libertarian, I’m hardly in favor of an all powerful federal government. Still, at some point you have to acknowledge that you belong to a part of a larger community and ought to be willing to honestly reevaluate your position when a goodly number of your fellows think your ideas stink. Oh, wait. I forgot. God said it was okay to treat blacks (and women and homosexuals and Native Americans and pretty much anyone not white, straight and male) as inferiors. Sorry. My bad.
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