I wonder if the fog of liberalism is finally lifting from the eyes of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor or if she is just ignorantly hypocritical as most liberals seem to be.
Speaking before a group of students and faculty at Oklahoma City University’s School of Law on Thursday, Justice Sotomayor railed against the increasing intrusion into our privacy during this “frightening” age of surveillance technology. She made a specific point about the use of drones by both public and commercial entities to encroach on our private lives.
There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don’t like the fact that someone I don’t know…can pick up, if they’re a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property.
While Sotomayor made a point to highlight the use of drones by private individuals I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she also is a person who thinks Americans should be protected from government intrusion as well.
She would go on to speak in terms that would make Robert Heinlein proud, stating: “We are in that brave new world, and we are capable of being in that Orwellian world, too.”
A liberal Supreme Court Justice warning us about falling into an Orwellian state?
Wow.
So is the fog of liberalism lifting from Justice Sotomayor’s eyes? Like a liberal college student getting their first paycheck and after seeing how much the government takes out becomes a fiscal conservative?
I’m not sure.
Here’s the thing. All of Sotomayor’s talk of government intrusion, that government technology now allows for officials to “listen to your conversations from miles away and through your walls” and that citizens should take a more active role in the debate in order to halt the tyranny is all well and good, but Sotomayor has consistently denied the American citizen from the last line of defense with regards to fighting off tyranny. Namely, she believes that the right to keep and bear arms is something malleable that can be infringed.
One need look no further than McDonald v Chicago in which Justice Sotomayor not only stated that the 2nd Amendment didn’t apply to states but also joined with Justice Ginsburg in Justice Breyers dissent, of which the following beliefs are put forth:
In my view, Justice Stevens has demonstrated that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “substantive due process” does not include a general right to keep and bear firearms for purposes of private self defense. As he argues, the framers did not write the 2nd Amendment with this objective in view. The use of arms for private self defense does not warrant federal constitutional protection from state regulation.
I can find nothing in the 2nd Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as “fundamental”
Further, there is no popular consensus that the private self-defense right described in Heller is fundamental.
Unlike the 1st Amendment‘s rights of free speech, free press, assembly and petition, the private self-defense right does not comprise a necessary part of the democratic process that the Constitution seeks to establish.
This inane blathering goes on for 35 pages, continues to malign, discount and undercut the God given right to keep and bear arms. And while gun hating Justice Breyer wrote the dissent, Sotomayor JOINED in and put her name on it, signifying her belief and agreement with it.
Before I move on, let’s just touch on a few of the bolded sections from the dissent.
The 2nd Amendment does not warrant federal constitutional protection from state regulation? It’s a right ENUMERATED in the CONSTITUTION. That’s all the warrant it needs to be protected.
Nothing in our history warrants characterizing the 2nd Amendment as “fundamental”? How about the FOUNDING of our nation along with the text of the Bill of Rights along with the letters of the day from the men who founded this country?
No popular consensus? 80+ million gun owners sounds like a consensus to me. 45 states that allow open carry (31 without the need of a permit) sounds like a consensus of among states. The notion that since 1994 politicians RUN from gun control during election years sounds like a consensus among voters. So tell me, what is YOUR definition of consensus?
And finally, the democratic process can ONLY exist when the government is held in check by an armed citizenry. It found King George on the wrong end of our bayonets and it was a lesson ingrained in the founding of this nation so that tyranny would not take root again.
Let’s tie this all together. Sotomayor is afraid of invasion of privacy. She is distrustful of drones. She warns of government intrusion leading to tyranny and an Orwellian state.
How EXACTLY does she expect the people to stop this when she herself is more than happen to disarm them and leave them vulnerable to the aforementioned tyranny?
An armed people are citizens, a disarmed people are subjects…and subjects do not have any right to privacy.
So as I said in the beginning of this article I wonder if the fog of liberalism is finally being lifted from Sotomayor’s mind. Because if it isn’t, she can prattle on and on about a growing “Big Brother” but so long as she continues to undercut the American people’s last line of defense against tyranny her words will ring hollow.
And you don’t need a spy network to see that.
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