Leftist Justices Don't Like the Law

[WestVirginiaRebel]

PJ Media

The left doesn't like the rule of law much. If they legally lose an election, they take to the streets as if some injustice had been done to them. If we enforce our border laws, they become hysterical and try to intimidate and bully public officials. If they can't get a law passed by constitutional means, they are perfectly happy to use regulation to exert extra-legal control over the citizenry.

All of which is bad enough in leftist media, leftist mobs and leftist officials. But in leftist Supreme Court justices, it's even worse.

In an interview on my podcast this week, constitutional law attorney Jenna Ellis — the director of public policy at the James Dobson Family Institute — put several recent Supreme Court decisions in context as "compelled speech cases." Whether it was allowing a Christian cake designer to refuse to use his art to celebrate gay marriage in Masterpiece Cakeshop, preventing the state of California from forcing abortion advertising on anti-abortion pregnancy centers in NIFLA v Becerra, or allowing public employees to work without funding leftist unions in Janus, the court, Ellis explained, has declared "the government cannot compel you as an individual to participate in or subsidize speech that you fundamentally disagree with."

All of this is good news, of course, for those of us who love freedom, but for the left it is, as they say, problematic. In a dissent on Janus, leftist Justice Elena Kaganaccused the court of "weaponizing the first amendment:"

 

“Speech is everywhere – a part of every human activity (employment, health care, securities trading, you name it).  For that reason, almost all economic and regulatory policy affects or touches speech.  So the majority’s road runs long.  And at every stop are black-robed rulers overriding citizens' choices."

 

Alone among the left-wing justices, Kagan has always struck me as intelligent and honest, so this twisted logic is particularly disappointing coming from her. What she means by "citizens' choices," after all, are laws made by representatives elected by the majority of voters. But the whole point of the First Amendment is that there are certain choices citizens are not allowed to make — like compelling or curtailing the speech of the opposition. To say this is "weaponizing" the First Amendment is simply to say it is putting it to use.

________

The law and lawless liberals.