Liberals Hate Civil Rights - Especially When Conservatives Exercise Them

 

By Kurt Schlichter
TownHall.com

Liberals never met a civil right they didn't dislike. As with everything about liberal ideology, liberals’ great concern for civil rights is a scam, a lie, a fraud designed to sucker in the weak-minded and disguise their goosesteppy inclinations.

They care about civil rights like Michael Bay cares about Oscar night.

Sure, liberals pose as advocates of civil liberties, but only when they don’t have the power to squash them. In my new book, Conservative Insurgency, a speculative future history of the struggle to restore our system and culture, the left’s coordinated attack on our Constitutional rights is one of the biggest motivations for the pushback that results in conservatism’s final victory.

Yeah, the story has a happy ending.

But don't listen to me. Listen to the liberals. Let's take a look at our Bill of Rights and see which amendments liberals like. Here’s a hint: There aren’t many.

There's the First Amendment, which lists rights such as free speech and freedom of religion. Liberals are against them.

Don't think so? Ask a liberal whether he supports Harry Reid’s plan to repeal part of the First Amendment. He does.

Liberals hate the way the Citizens United decision recognizes that people still have the right to speak freely when they speak together. The feds, defending the law Citizens United overturned, told the Supreme Court that the law could allow the government to ban a book critical of a politician.

Yeah. Liberals think the First Amendment is bad because it protects people from being jailed for writing books. Unbelievable? Don’t believe me. Believe right-wing stalwart Jeffrey Toobin of the ultra-conservative New Yorker.

How about the whole religious freedom thing? Well, 20 years ago even Ted Kennedy thought it was okay to protect people's right of religious conscience when he led the enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that underlay the Hobby Lobby decision. Today, for liberals, the right to religious liberty pales against their “right” to boss you around.

So much for the First Amendment. How about the Second. Seriously? The idea of free Americans armed to protect themselves, their communities and their Constitution terrifies liberals. That freedom-loving Americans are able to defend themselves from the left’s most secret fascist fantasies fills them with fussiness.

On the Bill of Rights, so far liberals are zero for two.

What about the Third Amendment, the one about quartering soldiers in private homes? This is a toss-up. Liberals want to harass soldiers, who they see as hillbilly knuckledraggers useful only as photo op backdrops, but they also can’t resist intruding on private property. Call it a wash.

There’s the Fourth Amendment, but since the Obama administration probably read this column the minute I emailed it off, you can safely put this one down in the “Against” column.

Liberals are loving the Fifth Amendment more and more these days, as every Obama administration flunky seems to be taking it. We’ll call that one “For,” at least until it stops being useful to them.

Sixth Amendment due process rights? This whole “fair trial” thing is a huge hassle. They want the bureaucrats to handle that, not courts. For example, now the EPA apparently wants to garnish people’s wages without due process for bothering elk.

Liberals love the Seventh Amendment! It guarantees a Democrat-donor trial lawyer the right to have his crappy product liability lawsuit involving a plaintiff who is suing because his hammer was defective because it hurt when he hit himself in the head with it is heard by a jury composed of people who were unable to figure out how to get out of jury duty.

The Eighth Amendment against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment? The liberals loved the idea of fining into oblivion companies that didn’t want to pay for abortifacients. As for cruel and unusual punishment, they’ll be for that once the trials for political heresy get underway.

The Ninth Amendment? Liberalism is literally built on denying and disparaging rights retained by the people.

How about the Tenth Amendment, the one that reserves unenumerated rights to the states or to the people? Unenumerated rights? Liberals don’t even like the enumerated ones.

In sum, of ten amendments, liberals are against seven, in favor of one because it makes Democrat ambulance chasers rich, in favor of another as long as it keeps them out of jail, and torn about one because it’s too hard to choose between shafting our warriors or shafting property owners.

So, what do the liberals really think of civil rights? Not much. To liberals, the Constitution doesn’t have a Bill of Rights. It has a List of Suggestions.