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The New York Times Doubles Down On Its Anti-Constitutional Worldview

Posted on Friday, July 15, 2022
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by David Lewis Schaefer
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55 Comments
New York Times

AMAC Exclusive – By David Lewis Schaefer

In the spirit of preserving respect for the independence of the Federal judiciary, one New York Times columnist has come up with a disinterested proposal for the 67-year-old Chief Justice John Roberts, one that would make him “a hero for many”: he should resign. By so doing, editorial writer Pamela Paul explains in an opinion piece for the Times’s July 11 issue, Roberts could “help the court move towards positions that more broadly reflect the opinions of most Americans than those of an extremist faction” – that is, the 5 or 6 justices (including the Chief Justice himself in two of the cases, with his partial concurrence in the third) who recently voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, to disallow severe state handgun restrictions as violations of the Second Amendment, and also to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from exceeding its congressionally-authorized mandate.

In both its Dobbs decision (overturning Roe) and the EPA case, the Court, far from overriding “the opinions of most Americans,” was actually returning decisions over major policy issues to the people of the states, rather than allowing unaccountable judges or bureaucrats to settle them. Nothing in either decision restricts the people of each state – or, in the EPA case, of the United States as a whole – from lobbying their elected representatives to enact whatever restrictions on abortion or CO2 emissions they think best. In the Second Amendment case, the Court, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, held that a New York law violates the Constitution by preventing “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” through its severe constraint on their ability to carry concealed weapons. The decision does not prohibit the enactment of reasonable restrictions on gun acquisition such as are favored by most Americans.

Paul’s criticism of Roberts’s performance as Chief Justice exhibits a serious misunderstanding of the Court’s proper role in Constitutional and legal interpretation as it was conceived by the Constitution’s authors and widely accepted until well into the twentieth century. She cites Roberts’s testimony at his confirmation hearing, where he stated his belief that judges should not be enacting new policies on their own authority, but only “mak[ing] sure everybody plays by the rules,” along with his earlier express advocacy of the principle of judicial restraint, according to which “if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more,” to suggest that the Chief Justice has violated his own principles. But this is a misrepresentation of what Roberts meant. To say that a judge’s role is to ensure that everyone plays by the same rules – that is, the Constitution, and laws enacted in accordance with it – means precisely that no law or administrative regulation which violates the Constitution, including its delegation of broad legislative authority to Congress and the President rather than unaccountable bureaucrats, should be allowed to stand. It was really the Court majority in Roe that failed to play by the rules, inventing a “right” to abortion that even serious liberal scholars acknowledged was nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

Admittedly, John Roberts has sometimes bent over backwards by comparison with his more conservative brethren in favor of “incrementalism,” that is, limiting changes to previous Constitutional decisions. As much can be seen in his joining the Dobbs majority in upholding the constitutionality of Mississippi’s law severely restricting abortion, despite its violation of the rules laid down in Roe and subsequent cases, but refusing to join their outright overturning of Roe. As in the convoluted opinion he wrote to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Roberts’s wish to minimize clashes with the political branches of the government has sometimes led him to take incoherent positions. But none of that caution has saved the country, in Paul’s words, from finding “all hopes deflated” among “liberals” like her, as they witness the Roberts court making “our cherished civil liberties” disappear. Indeed, she goes so far as to maintain that the Court’s recent decisions have caused “the stench of illegitimacy” to “emanat[e]” from the Court.

While it is true that some polls have found that a majority of voters express a negative opinion of the Dobbs decision, it is noteworthy that when asked specifically in a recent Harvard-Harris survey about the limits that should be placed on abortion, such as restricting it to up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, or limiting it to cases of rape or incest, nearly three-quarters of those to whom these questions were posed, including 75 percent of women, turn out to favor policies that were illegal under Roe.

You probably won’t find this information, which comes from a July 8 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, in the Times. But the gap between the polls on which Dobbs critics rely and what voters report when the facts of such decisions are explained to them indicates, if anything, the way that political partisans in the media have been seriously misleading the public through their mode of reporting. What matters to Times editorialists who write on the Court’s decisions has nothing to do with the Constitution or the specific grounds of a decision that doesn’t go their way, but simply the policy outcome. Often dissatisfied with the outcome of the regular political process, they rest their hopes on unaccountable judges or bureaucrats to write their preferences into law.

But according to another editorialist writing in the same issue, Charles M. Blow, the American people’s situation is even more dire than Paul would have it. According to Blow, “one of our greatest errors as a country has been our nonstop campaign to convince generations of voters that elections are about freedom of choice.” While “this may be true if you are of a class not historically oppressed by the state,” specifically “white males,” a 2019 Times analysis of surveys of swing-state voters that focused on the “persuadable pool, the 15 percent of voters in the battleground states who were undecided” about voting the following year between Donald Trump and a Democrat found them to be “57 percent male and 72 percent white.” “For most other people,” Blow concludes, “’freedom of choice’ in elections is an illusion,” making them “political hostages” of the two-party system, giving them “only two choices: the benevolent captors (Democrats) or the cruel captors (Republicans).” But how does the fact that a majority of the undecideds a year before the election, were white males show that they were out to maintain mastery over minorities, rather than, perhaps, more deliberate in their choices, being less in thrall than others to identity politics or interest-group politics? And why assume that their deliberations aimed only at their own interest, rather than that of the people as a whole?

But Blow will have none of this.  Although “Democrats will work for your freedom,” he laments, they will not do so “to the extent that it endangers their power,” i.e., makes them likely to lose elections. And “[t]hey have to work against Republicans, who, now more than at any other time in recent memory, seem hell-bent on establishing a new age of severe restrictions under the banner of states’ rights.” (Blow has in mind state restrictions on practices like proxy voting, or allowing ballots to be placed in ballot boxes that aren’t even closely guarded – practices that no state allowed until quite recently.) 

Like Paul, Blow exhibits a common Times practice of using the first-person plural to denote the American people as a whole, or a majority of them, when what he really has in mind are the opinions of the liberals who write for, and commonly read, his paper. Hence, also like Paul, Blow expresses deep disappointment when the political process doesn’t go his way, and blames the “system” when he is in reality unhappy with the political choices made by a majority of his fellow voters and their elected representatives. Given this outlook, for Blow, should President Biden run for re-election, whatever his shortcomings, “he will be the only option” (Blow’s emphasis). “Helping to ensure his re-election becomes an act of self-preservation.”

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The logic of Blow’s position is even less apparent than that of Paul’s. By his account, the mere fact that a majority of “persuadable” voters in battleground states in just one recent election were white males proves that nobody else’s votes matter. Blow also assumes that these voters were purely self-interested, and never considered the interests of women (often their own wives), racial minorities, or other groups.  He offers no support to back up this assumption.

Having charged that the system in which “we” are trapped, reflecting the failure of this country to achieve what he calls “full freedom” (a term he leaves undefined), and then expressed regret at observing “political tiptoeing when there should be stomping,” Blow concludes “that politics are once again winning over the will of the people.” But he provides no evidence that a majority of the electorate shares his“will.”

Like Blow, Paul is really dissatisfied with the existence of constitutional, republican government itself. While she despairs because the Court has thrown issues like abortion or environmental policy back to the people, whose wisdom or justice she distrusts, he is convinced that to be a non-white American male is indistinguishable from being a slave. One can only wonder what sort of government that exists, or has ever existed, in the world would be more to their liking.

But perhaps we should leave the last word on these matters to a non-journalist who shares their outlook on the Court and the Constitution, the attention-seeking liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who in a recent fundraising pitch warned that “the American people are losing confidence in the Court,” since with its “dangerous decisions on abortion rights, climate actions, gun safety and more … the Court is tossing aside settled law and saying they’re just going to substitute their own personal views and make the rest of America bend to it.” As for Dobbs, she explains, “[t]his opinion basically cites a bunch of folks from the 1700s” (those who wrote the Constitution) and says ‘Boy, that’s the way we want to go.’ To a time when aristocrats ran the world. When the only people who had voices were white men. When slavery was a way to make money.” In other words, for Warren, allowing the people’s elected representatives to determine the legality of abortion, upholding their Second Amendment rights, and demanding that Congressional statutes bind the government’s environmental policies is indeed, as Blow would have it, to reduce them to slavery.

But as the New York Post, which reported Warren’s speech, observed, her argument is “noteworthy for what she neglects to say. Never does the former Harvard law professor mention the key word in the court rulings she denounces: unconstitutional.” Neither do our most prominent politicians nor writers at America’s most prominent, ostensibly liberal newspaper, it would appear, have any regard for constitutional government – unless the Constitution itself is rewritten (as it was in Roe) to impose their policy preferences on the nation. Under this vision, just who are the masters, and who the slaves?

David Lewis Schaefer is a Professor of Political Science at College of the Holy Cross.

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Lynn
Lynn
1 year ago

The nerve. Calling us radicals. They really know how to spin arguments. We must learn to do the same without apology and stop trying to be so collegial.

Dale
Dale
1 year ago

1. Roe v Wade was nerve an amendment Supreme Court cann not make amendments.
2. It was never law. Supreme Court is banned from making law. That is Congress.
It was an unconstitutional rule. A privilege. Government can make privilege, they can take it away at any time.

tika
tika
1 year ago

given to the NYT from the dems

David Millikan
David Millikan
1 year ago

NYT’s can LEAVE the UNITED STATES of AMERICA and do their COMMUNIST reporting in COMMUNIST China where they belong.
They can take Communist News Network and abc, cbs, nbc, msnbc, npr, and rest of COMMUNIST FAKE News with them.
Don’t forget to take DISNEY with you.

John Adamson
John Adamson
1 year ago

I have NO respect for anyone or any group that has no respect for the Constitution as written and legally amended.

Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis
1 year ago

For the first time in years, I’m happy with the supreme court. If the Constitution was a “living” document, it would not need an amendment clause. This court apparently understands their role and does not believe in interpreting the law to satisfy their personal opinions.

Gerald Burns
Gerald Burns
1 year ago

Why do journalists and reporters think they rule over the land. It no different than all the blood sucking no common sense lawyers in DC get in trouble. Why want someone do a poll on so called lawyers and see the number of them that have been jailed or disbarred?

Carol
Carol
1 year ago

The left ran the court for years with activist judges so now that we have enough constitutional judges who know the law and the balance of power, leftist scream right wing activism. The left can’t or refuses to see the SCOTUS actually doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done! The leftist addiction to power is having withdrawals and this article shows their lust for power and inability to understand our founding documents!

Beagle Boy
Beagle Boy
1 year ago

In the very first paragraph, Pamela Paul, unwittingly exposes the fallacy of the Left/Progressive platform and their complete misunderstanding of Constitutional Law. It doesn’t matter if the majority of the people share the same opinion of what they think or want a law to say. What matters is what does the Constitution say and is there historical precedent to support the law or ruling. The Constitution doesn’t care about your feelings. You don’t like a law, petition your legislators to change it. You don’t like what the Constitution says, petition your legislators to propose a Constitutional Amendment. Don’t think your legislators will help then petition like minded individuals to propose an Article 5 Constitutional Convention and bypass Washington DC altogether. Ms. Paul “Opinion” piece shows her ignorance of the Supreme Court and its current makeup. Even if she could get Roberts to resign it wouldn’t matter. President Joe Brandon would have the opportunity to replace him with another Liberal appointee. So what. It would still be a 5 to 4 Conservative , Traditionalist and Constitutional Textualist Court.

Bill T
Bill T
1 year ago

The NEW YORK SLIMES is a globalist progressive propaganda news paper, there propaganda is written by Marxist journalists that sway and twist everything in there views only. It’s a shame that in our constitutional and freedom loving country a leftist communist rag of hypocrites can even exist. But unfortunately this is the utterly sick and twisted society we’re living in today. This and many other leftist news papers are spreading hatred and lies everyday and everywhere, mostly in the dark blue cities where criminals are right now destroying everything, and all these woke District attorneys are allowing this? This entire leftist progressive socialist party needs to disappear or we’re all in for a extremely rude awakening!

Bob H
Bob H
1 year ago

If they institutionalized the 50% of Americans who are democrats , who have mental retardation, this Country would be better off.

Joearcher
Joearcher
1 year ago

The Supreme Court is charged with upholding the Constitution AS WRITTEN. They don’t make decisions, then post them on Facebook to see which ones get the most ‘Likes’. My suggestion to the NYT – 1. Move to another country. 2. Try to get an amendment to the Constitution ratified by at least 38 states. 3. Try to overthrow the government and install your own government. I would kinda like to see option 3. Imagine the U.S. Marines surrounding the NYT building and hauling them all to Gitmo.

TOMASD
TOMASD
1 year ago

LET’S MAKE IT EASY……… HOW ABOUT NO MORE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS????

Joanne4 justice.
Joanne4 justice.
1 year ago

Trust the insane , numbskull Dumbos to cause any infinite number(-s) of problems / disasters!!!!! Time for them to go far, Far away!!!

porterv
porterv
1 year ago

The New York Times: All the News That’s Fit to Wrap Fish Guts In.

Amacer
Amacer
1 year ago

I am no fan of Chief Justice Roberts ever since he ruled the ACA mandate as a “tax”, and his refusal to rule on gay marriage resulted in its legalization by default. I do wish he would resign, but only if he can be replaced with a more righteous conservative, and more importantly, courageous judge.

PaulE
PaulE
1 year ago

If you look at the positions that the New York Times has openly advoacted for going back all the way to the early 20th century, what you’ll find is they have always sided with anti-American, pro-totalitarian regimes and ideologies around the world. They just used to do it in a much more skillful and nuanced manner, that most of the public couldn’t readily discern.

The paper has been incredibly consistent in its distain for the anything that represented classic American values. I certainly don’t expect it to modify its stance on anything, as long as the paper is owned by the same family that has guided its view on what and how things should be reported for decades.

The New York Times was always the paper of the liberal elites and the far left. It championed their worldview at every turn. The newspaper reported or buried news stories depending on whether it fit the desired narrative its owners wanted promoted. Today, the newspaper no longer tries to hide behind the thin veneer of being an unbiased news source. It now openly advocates and supports socialist ideology and the people that promote it on the world stage. In simple terms, it no longer tries to hide the fact that it is a bull horn for leftist ideals.

Ed J
Ed J
1 year ago

Pamela Paul’s and the libtards’ “world views” can best be characterized as falling under the umbrella term of “Culpable Stupidity.” It represents collective ignorance on such a profound and widespread level – an ignorance that is blind to our Constitution, our nation’s history, and what our country is truly all about. Across the board, their so-called thinking is usually very shallow and devoid of any real or meaningful content, often contains obvious logic flaws, and avoids or excludes any mention or consideration of many of the fundamental concepts that necessarily pertain to the issues they raise.

Larry Mace
Larry Mace
1 year ago

The Senile One stated recently that SCOTUS was “out of control”. But, if you READ the Constitution, and have any common sense, you realize that SCOTUS is SUPPOSED to be out of control. The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret laws and Governmental edicts with a view of the Constitution firmly in mind. SCOTUS should absolutely NOT be in control — of either the Right or the Left. If we have a Court which holds up its collective finger to determine which way the wind blows, we will have anarchy, and we have enough of that, already, with the Left-leaning Democrap Party. The Left wants to control SCOTUS by intimidation, expansion, or impeachment. It is the independence of the Court which is vital to the continuation of a free America.

DenvilleSr
DenvilleSr
1 year ago

If the liberals actually believe their positions on the 2nd Amendment and abortion are so widely popular, why don’t they initiate a movement to amend the Constitution? That involves electing officials who support an amendment, which ought to be really easy since liberal positions are so overwhelmingly popular. Sure it takes time and effort and perseverance and demonstrations (preferably not burning down drug and grocery stores), but its been done before.

Philip Hammersley
Philip Hammersley
1 year ago

The “Slimes” has always loved dictators–Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Ortega. They hate America and pro-American citizens. SCOTUS should NEVER rule based on people’s views; it should STRICTLY be on what the Constitution says and how that may be applied in today’s world.
Idiots who say SCOTUS cannot allow 2A rights because the Founders couldn’t image “assault rifles” have NO problem using the internet and TV to push their propaganda. I Don’t think that Al Gore had invented the internet in 1787!

Robin Boyd
Robin Boyd
1 year ago

The NYT could just as well be referred to as the One World Socialist Order Times. The NYT has always been a propaganda machine for Socialists. Other MSM outlets may be just as bad, but the NYT is one of the largest and most prominent.

Art
Art
1 year ago

POCAHONTAS AKA ELIZABETH WARREN, a former Harvard Professor, is another major disgusting example of voter preference in Massachusetts. We have plenty of fetus removal centers here in the Bay State.She,with THE Buster Brown hair cut, may prefer a drive up situation similar to a self service car wash where you drive up then throw in your quarters. Properly place the removal mechanism and push START. YES ELIZABETH YOU ARE ALIVE. NOW YOU CAN MAKE DECISIONS FOR THE UNBORN.

Phyl
Phyl
1 year ago

I haven’t read a NY Slimes in about 30+ years. Why waste time on a crummy antiAmerican junk paper?

John A Bird
John A Bird
1 year ago

If you are anti-constitutional and live in the United States of America, you are nothing but a target.

Jake the snake
Jake the snake
1 year ago

Thank you George soros and gates for screwing up the world.

joe mchugh
joe mchugh
1 year ago

Onced upon a time, the New York Times had the reputation of a news paper that all other print media admired, and tried to emulate. It is now regarded as being a pro socialist rag only fit to be read by useful dullards.

The Times blames the electronic forms of communication for its ongoing loss of readership. The real reason for the loss of customers is that it is so relentless in slanting the political news toward the Democrat agenda that even liberals find that the paper is empty in content, and jejune in nature.

The Times is on a path to irelavency, a path that will take it to a wilderness populated by other insignificant tabloids. I would be desperately searching for a new career path if I were a “journalist” at the Times.

Kay
Kay
1 year ago

I agree in part with this article Chief Justice Roberts should resign. He doesn’t know who he represents and why hasn’t the name of the person who leaked Roe before the decision been revealed. Lastly, I believe we must have TERM LIMITS for all Representatives including the Supreme Court. No office should be a Life Term.

Lawrence Greenberg
Lawrence Greenberg
1 year ago

The New York Times has been nothing more than an anti-American, anti-freedom Communist propaganda rag for a good many decades. It is very sad that so few people seem to understand that.

Krell51
Krell51
1 year ago

The Judges on the Supreme Court are supposed to decide cases based solely on the Constitution and nothing else, not their personal beliefs, not public opinion and certainly not on the whims of the communist propaganda rag the NYT!

J. Farley
J. Farley
1 year ago

If you don’t have a Bird Cage or an Outhouse, why would you buy the New York Times, on 2nd thought don’t even use it in an outhouse, the cheap Ink rubs off too easy.

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
1 year ago

NYT, LA Times & WaPo Narrowminded media

Legally Present
Legally Present
1 year ago

What a fool, the extreme people are the ones that think most of America believes like New York City, and their counterpart on the west coast. Sorry, you can’t control your bodies, but are the ones killing the body growing within you. That’s extreme to the max! And NO retirements because they would put another nut job on the court that can’t even tell you what a woman is.

jocko
jocko
1 year ago

nyt IS A CANCER LIKE ALL libs

shamus
shamus
1 year ago

Please, consider that the NY Times is a very liberal “news” paper.

Granny
Granny
1 year ago

What is the number of New York Times subscribers….I heard it was diminishing rapidly and these are death gulps for notoriety reading.

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