Activist Judges -- The New Easter Bunny?

If you've been watching C-SPAN lately, you will have noticed that the right has in effect declared war against what they like to call "activist judges."

I would like some time to hear Orrin Hatch or Tom DeLay define what they mean by an "activist judge." Of course, what they'll tell you is that such judges define themselves by what they vote for – they vote for abortion rights, they vote for gay marriage. In other words, "activist judges" are for all the things that right-wing conservatives are against. Of course, if a judge was to vote to outlaw abortion, that wouldn't make them an "activist judge" would it? Of course not: that would put them on God's side.

Was John Marshall an "activist judge" when he wrote Marbury v. Madison? How about Brown v. Board of Education? Was that decision a work of "activist judges"? Or is an activist judge like Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography – you know one when Tom DeLay sees one? Personally, I think that "activist judges" are the political equivalent of the Easter Bunny.

The right-wing of the Republican party (a term which is almost becoming redundant since there will soon be no one in the Republican party who isn't a foaming-at-the-mouth right wing lunatic) now controls the White House and both Houses of Congress. The one thing standing in their way of controlling the entire country is the courts. When these radical rightists attempt to push through their extremist agenda, the only thing that can keep them from getting what they want is a judiciary that takes seriously their constitutional mandate to interpret the law – and not just act as a rubber-stamp for the Republicans.

This is about power, pure and simple. The radical right wants to control the country. If they succeed in bending the judiciary to their will, there will be nothing to stop them. Except us. And that's where you and I come in. It's important that all progressives, and everyone who opposes the radical right and their increasingly fascist agenda for this country, do everything possible to vote for an overwhelmingly Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate in 2006. If we don't, and if the right gets their hands on all the major sources of power in this country, it will too late for a lot of things in this country – with freedom at the head of the list. It would be ironic, wouldn't it, if the legacy of George W. Bush's administration was that Iraq ended up being a freer country than the United States?

Don't laugh. It could happen, unless all of us on the left do whatever is necessary to take our country back.

Tom Moran