Law professor Rosa Brooks’ claim that the Constitution is an “ancient” document that holds Americans in “bondage” to archaic 18th-century political beliefs has received the beat-down that it deserves.
Jonathan Turley, the celebrity law professor at George Washington University who might be the last sane Democrat on the planet, reminded Brooks that Americans must respect the Constitution even if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in ways they don’t like.
As well, they must accept those decisions because doing so, despite political disagreements, holds together our system of government. The relentless leftist attack on SCOTUS, he wrote, highlighting Brooks, is causing a “crisis of faith” in the Court and the Constitution that is particularly lamentable among law professors.
Brooks’ Stupid Comment
Brooks delivered her opinion on MSNBC’s The ReidOut after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s unreasonable gun control law that greatly proscribed a resident’s right to carry a firearm.
“We are essentially slaves to a document that was written more than 230 years ago by a tiny group of white slave-owning men,” Brooks said of the ruling:
And we cannot break out of the bondage that we have imposed on ourselves from feeling like we have to– everything by our Supreme Court is decided in reference to this ancient document which is just not serving us well. It is causing enormous problems and enormous tragedies at this point.
It’s not Brooks’ first bizarre utterance, and won’t be the last. But Turley is concerned because so many leftists apparently believe the Constitution is only “working” when SCOTUS decides cases the way leftists want them decided.
“Brooks is not alone in saying that the Constitution is the work of racists and is the source of many of our problems,” Turley wrote:
CBS recently featured Boston University Professor Ibram X. Kendi, who proclaimed that the Second Amendment was little more than “the right to enslave.”
MSNBC commentator and the Nation’s Justice Correspondent Elie Mystal has called the U.S. Constitution “trash” and argued that we should ideally just dump it. Mystal, who also writes for Above the Law, previously stated that white, non-college-educated voters supported Republicans because they care about “using their guns on Black people and getting away with it.”
The obvious question is what the critics would say if the decisions had gone the other way. Answer: They would have been overjoyed and supported the Court.
Thus, “it appears that the Constitution became the problem when a majority of justices dared to follow an opposing interpretation,” Turley continued:
That is not how a constitutional system works. You do not support it so long as it yields to your demands or views. It is a crisis of faith that I have previously discussed but it is most alarming when voiced by law professors.…
The Madisonian democracy is based on the premise that, despite our factional divisions, the Constitution creates an interest in all groups in preserving the system. While the Constitution does not guarantee that your views will prevail in Congress or the courts, it has proven the most stable and successful democratic system in history. We are all invested in that system.
“Crisis of Faith”
Turley said likewise about the politicians who worked themselves into a rage when SCOTUS overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision that struck down legally passed abortion laws in all 50 states.
“We are now witnessing a crisis of faith with the political and media establishment declaring the highest court to be illegitimate,” Turley wrote. “All because they disagree with a constitutional interpretation adopted by the majority of its members.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for court-packing and the impeachment of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch “based on the entirely false claim that they lied under oath in their confirmation hearings,” Turley observed. A New York Times columnist wrote that the Court was “rogue” and needed “discipline.”
Amusingly, Turley wrote, leftists in the Senate are partly responsible for overturning Roe because they killed the filibuster on U.S. Supreme Court nominees.
“At the time, some of us warned the Democrats that the move was uniquely short-sighted and that they would rue the day that they took such a moronic step,” he continued:
As predicted, the Democrats soon found themselves in the minority without the protection of the filibuster rule and could not block nominees. They gained comparably little from the change given what they lost, including ultimately Roe v. Wade.
Rather than admit that their prior attack on the filibuster backfired, liberals are now demanding even more radical moves like a bad gambler at Vegas who just keeps doubling down in the hopes of winning a hand.
But back to the “crisis of faith,” which “is evident in other key constituencies in our system, including in our law schools.” Turley wrote:
Law professors like Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinksy have called the justices “partisan hacks” while others have supported targeting the individual justices at their home. Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz declared that “when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.” Most recently, the dean and chancellor of University of California Hastings College of the Law David Faigman questioned the legitimacy of the Court after the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Turley noted that “the very foundation of the Court is being challenged” and that leftists are fueling mob rage.
That is hardly surprising given their lust for totalitarian power. Raging, violent mobs are one way to achieve it.
