Elena Kaga, Revealed

Let me pick apart Elena Kagan’s opening remarks at her confirmation hearing. She said “what the of law does is nothing less than to secure for each of us what our Constitution calls "the blessings of liberty" - those rights and freedoms, that promise of equality, that have defined this nation since its founding. And what the Supreme Court does is to safeguard the rule of law, through a commitment to even-handedness, principle, and restraint.” First off, nowhere does she acknowledge WHERE the writers of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence knew these “blessings of liberty” came from: God. She also chose to use the word “restraint”, although by some of her own statements and writings, her idea of restraint is anything BUT. Restraint SHOULD be exercised on the part of government, particularly the Judicial branch which, over the past few decades from the SCOTUS on down, has actually been quite activist in creating new and unreasonable definitions for laws already on the books and the Constitution itself. What is also troubling is her turn of the phrase “promise of equality”. This over-generalized concept flies in the face of fact. We are CREATED equal by God, but we are NOT all actually equal. She has, and will, choose to interpret her mandate impose the progressive perspective of “equality” upon those who have the “misfortune” of not actually being equal, as if not rising to the same status as one’s neighbor is somehow unjust.

Kagan also referred to a promise of a “fair shake for every American”. What exactly IS a “fair shake”? The Progressive mindset is that it’s not “fair” if you make too much or come from a “minority” or other group perceived as having less status. The conservative mindset is that it is not “fair” if you have unequal obstructions to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness.

She then said that “no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom”. I find this most insulting. Truth is, by definition, truth. Wisdom is the revelation of truth and how to apply it. Wisdom can be measured by degrees, but truth is truth. To say no one has a “monopoly on truth” is to say that truth is not absolute…what’s true for you may not be true for me. Which is absolutely garbage. In that context, Kagan says that we “make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.” Progress toward WHAT? Truth? Wisdom? I suppose if you judge truth as a matter of popular will or majority rule, then she’d be correct. I contend that you make progress toward wisdom by seeking the absolute truth, REGARDLESS of your political or ideological bent. Truth is truth EVEN IF NOBODY AGREES WITH IT.

Finally, she said, “I’ve learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every person and every issue with an open mind.” That is simply incorrect. You come closest to coming to CONSENSUS when you do that. You do NOT come closest to “getting things right”. As a Supreme Court Justice your responsibility is to judge the merits of cases brought before the Supreme Court IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. That’s it. It is a travesty that we have allowed precedence to circumvent a lot of what our founding fathers, the authors of the Constitution, originally intended. You do NOT arrive at what the authors intended by looking at other countries’ laws or even at what laws we’ve mistakenly authored in more recent years. As a Supreme Court Justice I believe you can only place any degree of reliability upon writings of those who originally penned the Constitution. Anyone who claims the Constitution is a “living document” outside the flexibility of changing it as detailed within the document itself is dead wrong. The very idea that its meaning “flexes” with the morality of the society of the time is insulting.