Well, I guess that answers that.

Not long ago, I posited, after reading an E.J. Dionne column:

...it strikes me that E.J. Dionne thinks that democratically elected officials' decisions should ultimately be the last word...Seriously, does he not know what the function is of the judicial branch of government?

Well, with this morning's column, he shows once again that he either does not know or care about said function, as he seems to praise Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's remarks that she would be deferential to Congress when casting her vote in cases before the court. I don't see why Elena Kagan apparently doesn't think everything is "clear-cut." Sure seems like it to me -- either it is or is not faithful to the Bill of Rights and/or conducive to liberty as the Founders envisioned it. Oliver Wendell Holmes might well have "insisted that if the people wanted it, it was their right to go hang themselves," but what about when the people wanted to force people to hang themselves who wanted to keep on living? I suppose that might count as one of those more extreme cases, but at any rate, you see what the deference of the liberal wing of the court to elected officials has meant in recent years. It has meant the liberals on the Supreme Court have deferred to:

• those who took land from a private citizen to give to a public entity because the public entity's use of the land supposedly benefited the public more;
• those who denied their citizens the right to protect themselves with firearms in their own homes; and
• those who denied certain organizations their constitutional rights to free speech.

I'm guessing that E.J. Dionne, Elena Kagan and their ilk wouldn't see those cases as "extreme," even though it's been argued here and there that if you don't have the right to your property and the right to defend yourself, you really don't have any rights at all. Apparently "progressives" think that's just fine as long as elected officials decide it.