Today's Rights Rollback Round-Up

Not Carmen, You Cretin

In a nation where the vast majority of sheep can't name any of the weasels on the Supreme Court, is it fair to ask that an affirmative Miranda declaration be made before suspects' rights are observed? Is the traditional reading/explaining of rights already a thing of the past?

The real problem:

"This result is not especially surprising nor, by itself, should it be alarming," said Michael C. Dorf, a former Supreme Court clerk who currently teaches constitutional law at Cornell University Law School and authors a legal column for FindLaw. "Even though Supreme Court rulings can have a major impact on contentious issues such as the death penalty, abortion rights, discrimination and environmental protection, the Court issues its rulings as a collective body. After their 15 minutes before the Senate Judiciary Committee are up, Supreme Court justices rarely appear on television. What is a source for concern are polls consistently showing that many Americans are unfamiliar with basic features of our constitutional system."

Increasing White Reactionary Dementia-Sufferers in The Senate

By repealing that pesky Seventeenth Amendment.

That the idea has taken hold among a vocal subset of activists does, however, tell us a few things about our times. The first is that skepticism of government generally has reached such intensity that it has become commonplace for the losing side in any political argument to scrutinize not just their party or their candidates, but the system itself.

The same thing happened after the 2004 elections, when a group of frustrated liberal academics began to posit that the real problem in Washington was the structure of the Senate, which prevented the urban masses from imposing their will on sparsely populated rural states. (Funny how that complaint has largely disappeared, now that Democrats control 59 seats.)

Having been through a controversial impeachment, a deadlocked election and a divisive war, all within a dozen years, perhaps it is unavoidable that we should now cast suspicions not just on the actors in our democracy, but also on the rules that govern it.

Yup. That's bullshit you smell. Also known as "balance." Jonathan Chait gets the shovel & exposes it.

There is a whole lot of wrongness packed into one small section. Bai's suggestion that liberal complaints about the malaportioned Senate have "largely disappeared" since the start of 2009 is simply bizarre.