Taking it to Dems on SCOTUS nominations

Blogger Patrick Ruffini has an excellent post from a few days ago (which I'm just now seeing). It's so good that you need to read the whole thing, but here is (roughly) the last half:

"For once, let's argue substance. Let's get at the motivations driving Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy. If the Democrats want an ideological war over this Supreme Court nominee, bring it on. It's a war we can win.

The tone of such an argument is exactly as follows:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution.

What kind of America do Democrats want by opposing President Bush's judicial nominee? The kind that the judges they prefer are trying to make for us:

• An America where your children can't pledge allegiance to the United States of America, Under God (Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow)
• An America where gay marriage is imposed by judicial fiat (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health), and if the people of your state say no, they are silenced (Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning)
• An America where wealthy developers can take away your home (Kelo v. City of New London)
• A Banana Republic where elections can be manipulated after the fact to produce the desired outcome (Bush v. Gore; the Dino Rossi litigation)
• An America where the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are more likely to be set free, possibly to conduct further attacks.

How do we "strict constructionists" frame our "agenda?" As an anti-agenda. As one that opposes the imposition of any particular worldview through the Courts. As a simple sentiment, animated by faith in the body politic, and borne of 229 years of democracy in America:

Let the people decide.

Conservatives would never aspire to use the courts to ban abortion, or to end gay marriage. To state otherwise is patently false. Only through a Constitutional Amendment requiring overwhelming popular approval could these objectives be achieved nationally. We are committed to a healthy and vigorous debate at the state level in which the people decide, not judges.

"Conservatives" are modest and moderate in their views of the judiciary while liberals are radical and reckless and rigidly ideological. It is often noted that the decisions of the Supreme Court reach into the daily lives of average Americans. We don't believe it should be that way -- the Supreme Court is empowered deal only with matters contained in the Constitution, and last we checked, the words "abortion" and "homosexuality" weren't mentioned in the text. These are matters for the people and their elected representatives, not for the courts."

Read the whole thing here.