Sunday, July 4, 2010

Elena Kagan and Natural Rights

Every American should really get a chance to (really) watch the farce that is the modern day Supreme Court nomination hearing. It's especially interesting with Elena Kagan, since she argued back in the 1990s that the Robert Bork hearings were illuminating and indicative of how the process worked in the ideal. The irony of course is that because of the Democrats' "borking" of Robert Bork, no nominee to the Court will candidly discuss their political jurisprudence --- they'll be mercilessly caricatured by an array of (radical) interest groups and they'll be pilloried on the cross of public opinion. Also interesting, in the clips below, is how the short videos can't really capture the full context of the testimony. We see at top Tom Coburn's questions to Kagan on natural rights theory. She refuses to state her own position, repeating the standard line of all nominees that "it wouldn't be appropriate" to discuss anything larger that how she'd rule on the basis of text (of the Constitution). It's a game of dodgeball, frankly. And at bottom is the completely detextualized clip of Charles Grassley, which idiot leftists used to portrary him as confused over the founding documents. He's not, but there's little political gain to be had for leftists arguing from a position of truth and honesty:



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VIDEO HAT TIP: Thunder Tales.

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