Monday, October 27, 2008

A Charter of Negative Liberties--Our Constitution

Redistribution through the courts--"I'm not optimistic." You can craft a rationale bringing economic change through the courts--the 3 of us sitting here could do it.

Warren Court wasn't radical--didn't break free from constraints of the Founding Fathers. The court didn't say what the federal government must do for you on your behalf. [paraphrased based on listening while scratching my head in disbelief]



People who have attended law school in the last 15-20 years probably will not find anything strange in this radio address, just like people listening to Jeremiah Wright for years didn't notice anything--just sounds normal and patriotic to them. This type of unAmerican, radical thinking is so common among certain classes, they are baffled when Conservatives find it alarming.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Joe wasn't a plumber (the investigation revealed), Obama was a lecturer, not a professor as he identified himself in this interview. There's a vast difference--publications, conferences, committee meetings, peer review, sucking up, etc.

Anonymous said...

What he said was: "But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical, it didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf and that hasn't shifted."

Looks like he plans to change that with his court appointments--what the federal government must do on your behalf.

Norma said...

If I hear him correctly, he wants community organizations to do the redistribution, which is exactly what has brought down our banking system.

Anonymous said...

"One of the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change."

He sure had that one pegged. Here he told us his game plan and we didn't catch on.