Kavanaugh Exposes the Left's Intellectual Poverty

Recently, NowThis News reported that Judge Kavanaugh completely ignored protesters who attempted to ask him why he voted against Obamacare during a decision he delivered several years ago. The crazy thing about this is that it demonstrates the Left's complete misunderstanding of what judges are for, and the difference between a judge and an elected representative.

One of the protestors confronted Kavanaugh on the way to a meeting in a hallway where a) it's just rude; he doesn't have time. They didn't reach out to him or attempt to contact him as a person via email or phone or anything like that, they didn't formally ask for an interview, so obviously their goal was not to have legitimate dialog to begin with, so they accost him in the hallway while he's on his way to another meeting, asking him what have got to be some of the most absurd and vague questions  ever. For instance, "Judge Kavanaugh, will you protect our healthcare?" --as if the job of a justice is to be some sort of crusader for the rights of the people. Kind of a Marxist savior kind of notion, which reflects generally the Left's view of what the judiciary's job is, basically to wield power for preferred sexual minorities, racial minorities or ideological minorities, not to uphold the constitution, which justices take an oath to do.

So Kavanaugh is accosted by these questions; [the protestor] ask him three questions:

"Judge Kavanaugh, will you protect our healthcare?"
"Why did you vote against coverage?"
"Do you generally ignore citizens?"

In these three questions we really get a great picture of how the Left wants to basically distort our Republic and how they completely misunderstand the separation of powers and the job of the various branches of government.

First off, "Will you protect our healthcare?" What does that even mean? How does a justice protect healthcare? If I understand the meaning and intentions behind her question, what she should have asked is, "Judge Kavanaugh, will you protect the Affordable Care Act and it's various provisions ensuring coverage? Because that's really what she wants to know, and it's probably what she's trying to get at him because she understands that he dissented in a decision of upholding Obamacare. But that's a poorly worded question, because it leaves it open to so many other questions.

"Judge Kavanaugh, will you protect our healthcare?" A) That's not his job. His job is to protect the constitution. B) The Affordable Care Act does not uphold healthcare. It increases costs, and makes it difficult. The only thing it provides is individual mandate to buy insurance, which is dying the death of a thousand cuts, and insures that certain people can't be denied on the basis of a preexisting condition, but forces that cost to be absorbed by various health insurance providers rapidly going out of business. So in the name of providing subsidized healthcare for all, rather than trying to get a socialized mlskdjflsdkjfls

the Affordable Care Act just foists the burden onto insurance companies and hopes that it doesn't break the system, which, it is.

Without disclosing what aspects of healthcare law or healthcare policy she believes are important to protecting healthcare, he can't even answer the question! He can't even understand what she means.

Second, she asks him, "Why did you vote against coverage?" That doesn't make sense either. He didn't vote against coverage. He voted against the Affordable Care Act, but that's reductionistic to her because the Left doesn't do politics unless it's in a soundbyte, in a couple seconds youtube clip, or Buzzfeed video. Depth of analysis is not their bread and butter, so every dispute has to be reduced to "is this pro the-little-guy or anti the-little-guy? And if we think it's anti little-guy, then BAD. Anyone who's anti little-guy is a bigot and a hateful person and an oppressor." If it's pro little-guy, then no matter what violence it does to the separation of powers, rule of law, or the systems and safeguards in place established by our constitution to protect our liberty, who cares! As long as the right guy gets paid, gets vindicated, gets what he wants, as long as the correct person in the totem pole of oppressed individuals; as long as the right minority group gets their back scratched, as long as the right individual group -- whether it's the poor, or LGBT individual group -- gets vindicated, it's fine.

So there is no principle. This is how you go from being in favor of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in the '90s, when President Clinton signed it into law, and Democrats helped enact it. That's because at that time religious freedom meant Native Americans who want to smoke paoti can do so as a part of their religious practice, and mean old anti-drug Anton Scalia need to get taken down a peg. So that's how we got the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on the federal level in the early 1990s. Fast forward twenty years, and religious liberty means religious people should not be forced to bake cakes for gay weddings, they shouldn't be forced to engage in recognition or practice of homosexuality, well now religious freedom is bad. Now RFRA is anti gay people, as you saw in the debate over Georgia's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

For my part, I think that in both cases it's correct. If this is a genuine part of Native Americans' religious exercise, then yes the First Amendment to the Constitution ensures the free exercise of religion as long as it doesn't run up against other serious public policy concerns. Now, paoti is not the sort of drug you would do recreationally because of how sick it makes you, but if it is genuinely part of a religious practice, then it should be protected. Likewise, no religious person should be compelled  to bake cakes or engage in artistic practice or religious expression on behalf of something they find to be immoral, namely homosexuality. Be equal.

But the ACLU has radically shifted its position from the '90s to today, as have democrats. Because at the time they had a favored minority class, Native Americans, who would be served by RFRA. But now their favored minority class at issue today is LGBT persons, and those people are not favored by RFRA, ergo RFRA has to go.

It's so hard to reason honestly, to have a serious conversation with Democrats about matters of law and public policy, because there is no principle. There is no higher principle except the rights of whatever oppressed or minority group in in vogue at the time must be vindicated. The rights of the financially downtrodden, of the poor, must be vindicated. There's no real question about what's the best way to go about this or how do we balance competing concerns. They decide which policies meet those goals, and then anyone who opposes them is a wealthy bourgeois capitalistic oppressor, or an out-of-touch elitist social darwinist, or a bigoted hateful religious xenophobe. And that's just how they do policy.

This is on display in a dramatic way in Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing. I highly recommend you go read the Daily Caller's article and watch the videos they embedded from NowThis and others, showing that this is the state of political discourse today.