Be Very Freaking Afraid...

I got an email about this this morning, but it had no link, and I just tripped over the story at DailyStandard.com. Wow.

IF THE IDEA OF A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to government-funded child care, "adequate" recreation, and $80,000 in cash seems outlandish, remember that these concepts are no more eccentric than the idea of a right to abortion was, prior to Roe v. Wade. As a law school exercise in 1973, my class was charged with trying to formulate an argument for a constitutional right to abortion. We were stumped. None of us could think of one. A few months later, the "right" to abortion was born.
So Republicans are right to put top priority on the president's ability to get a vote on his judicial nominations. Liberal interest groups have flatly declared their intention to filibuster any nominee to the Supreme Court whom they regard as conservative. The stakes couldn't be higher.

It was kind of Yale's chapter of the American Constitutional Society to explicitly tell us what their goals are for a progressive Constitution and a new bill of rights:

* Economic citizenship--stakeholder society in which every young adult gets a form of citizenship inheritance of $80,000, funded by a wealth tax . . .

* Vision here is a citizenship agenda . . . preliminary to rehabilitation of privileges of 14th Amendment which have never been redeemed.

* Idea of a national citizenship is powerful and underdeveloped legal resource . . . .concept that national citizenship has privileges--we need to make this a reality--cure disenfranchisement for felons.

* Equal Protection clause is inconsistent with state that does little or nothing about social and economic inequalities. Implies the existence of positive welfare rights--education, police protection, healthcare, childcare, etc.

* 14th Amendment delegitimizes social and economic inequality.

* We need to develop argument that Constitution requires this type of legislative response (protect vs. winner take all economy).

The Constitution of 2020, if these folks get their way.

Politics Posted by jk at April 19, 2005 12:41 PM