Yes, E.J. Dionne really said this:
Let's remember that the truly “elitist” judges are the ones who protect the privileges of the powerful over the right of Congress to legislate on behalf of workers, consumers and the environment.However, as we have seen before, he sees no problem with "the powerful" being the only ones entitled to their choice of the means of self-protection they wish to employ. He also sees no problem when "the powerful" see fit to deny those with less power their fundamental rights. The Citizens United decision has already been covered in numerous words here; but I still must say that I found it pretty funny that Dionne would imply that the Founders would not have known what to make of larger corporations, just as he and his ilk say the Founders would not know what to make of Glocks and M16s. Yet, again, Dionne said nothing of the fact that he was typing on a computer and that his witless screed would be seen by a multitude of people, by way of an invention that the Founders probably didn't anticipate any more than they did ExxonMobil or the 15-round pistol magazine -- an invention that may be used to spread all sorts of abhorrent, deadly ideas far and wide -- the Internet. And of course you remember the old Stalin quote:
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?And of course you know that those ideas can be implemented with the most primitive of weapons, with a frightful toll even without the Internet. See: Darfur, Sudan or Saudi Arabia.
Back to the screed at hand, though, it strikes me that E.J. Dionne thinks that democratically elected officials' decisions should ultimately be the last word; and I find that to be more than a little bit frightening. Seriously, does he not know what the function is of the judicial branch of government? Or does he think said branch is only necessary to say that certain planks of the leftists' platform are constitutional? Whatever the case may be, it looks to me as if the Supreme Court as of late is only erring on the side of liberty -- at least in the cases in which leftists lament that the Founders could not have known the impact of the issues at stake in said cases -- and that E.J. Dionne thinks that erring on the side of liberty is a bad thing. And, once again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised; but I just get more and more disgusted with the American left every time one of its pundits opens his or her mouth. Is there no depth to which these creatures will not sink?
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