Political Confusion

Hey Hey, Ho Ho; Roe v. Wade has Got to Go

For the record, I agree with you about Roe. This decision created the worst sort of judicial purgatory. Which, ironically, is where aborted babies go when they die.

But really, what options do you have if you no longer buy into the sanctity of the political process? I am sincerely terrified of the Constitution's potential inability to withstand an assault from fundamentalist "Christianity".

Yet Roe doesn't present a fully unresolvable case of cognitive dissonance quite the same way Brown did. With Brown, the legislative process was doomed to fail for decades to come and the judiciary was the only feasible remedy. Thus the proper question here cannot, by definition, be whether or not a certain quantity of what the hysterical right has dubbed "judicial activism" is a morally good thing. I mean, what is the democratic process worth when it perpetuates a blatant evil? And why on earth is the only functional remedy for the grossest injustice in American history the idea on trial here?

Abuse of state power, that's why. And it's a damn good why, most of the time. It's certainly not a power I'd cede willingly to our contemporary Order of Apollo, run by the deceptively congenial Dr. Dobson. This question--and its theological cousin, the appropriate tolerance for inter-temporal flexibility in defining "sin"--is the lynchpin of most modern political tension. The third party that makes tangible progress in squaring this circle will permanently alter the philosophical landscape of the country as much as the Republicans did in 1860.

posted by Gabe @ 6:10 PM