Are You Ready for a New Bill of Rights?
Posted by Tina
Excerpts from the transcript on 2001 WBEZ Chicago radio interview with Barack Obama:
* If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it Id be o.k. But, the
Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasnt that radical. It didnt break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. *
* Says what the states cant do to you. Says what the Federal government cant do to you, but doesnt say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasnt shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. * (emphasis mine, end transcript)
Commenting on the interview with Obama Jennifer Rubin speculates about one potential Supreme Court nominee:
It Should Come As No Surprise, by Jennifer Rubin Commentary Magazine
* …a person often identified for the Obama Supreme Court actually does believe in an extreme version of the Constitution, a version which confers all sorts of economic rights, so Im not sure even his supposed caution about using the courts as welfare agencies is to be given credence. Second, it is fairly obvious that Obama was saying nothing extraordinary in his own mind. This is the sort of thing left-leaning intellectuals bandied about. Its the outlook that underscored the bent of not just his closest comrades at the time ( e.g. Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger), but the activist organizations he and Bill Ayers supported through the Woods Fund. It is absurd, really, to write off all these associations as an aberration or exaggeration, or to ignore them as some imagining of paranoid conservatives. What comes through loud and clear was that Obama shared the classic anti-capitalist, redistributionist philosophy accepted as dogma by many on the Left. *
That person, Cass Sunstein, who is often identified as a possible Supreme Court appointment choice for Obama, has also made the case for redistribution as the following review notes:
* Three decades ago, young stars of constitutional law like Larry Tribe were advocating a constitutional right to welfare. For reasons that are probably obvious, the idea has faded from sight over the past 20 years. *** In The Second Bill of Rights, Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor who is one of today’s academic stars, reopens this debate. He makes a surprisingly plausible case for resurrecting this idea with some modern twists. Recalling FDR’s proposal for a “second of bill of rights” protecting basic human needs, Sunstein urges Americans to recognize a new list of constitutional rights, including access to a good education and health care, and the opportunity to work at a fair wage–in essence, economic rights in addition to the largely political rights enshrined in the country’s founding documents. *
* Sunstein (along with his coauthor Richard Thaler) has elaborated the theory of Libertarian paternalism. In arguing for this theory, he counsels thinkers/academics/politicians to embrace the findings of behavioral economics as applied to law, maintaining freedom of choice while also steering people’s decisions in directions that will make their lives go better. * – Wikipedia Cass Sunstein
* libertarian paternalism, is a political philosophy that believes the state can help you make the choices you would make for yourselfif only you had the strength of will and the sharpness of mind. But unlike ‘hard’ paternalists, who ban some things and mandate others, the softer kind aims only to skew your decisions, without infringing greatly on your freedom of choice. [1] The term “libertarian paternalism” is intended to evoke the idea that soft paternalism is an approach to public policy that can be endorsed by libertarians because it does not abridge individual freedom, though most self-described libertarians are firmly opposed to it. *
The only “change” Obama offers is a much more covert plan to take money from some Americans to give to others. The progressive movement in America has never been satisfied with taking money only from the rich and their plans to “help” people over the past 50-60 years have not created a society free from poverty or one of highly educated and successful people…JUST THE OPPOSITE. People are more, not less, emotionally dependent on the government and people are less able to care for their own needs. This is NOT a healthy approach to a “great society”…it is a sentence to generational enslavement. Just because people think they are helping others doesn’t mean they actually are. Look to the evidence.