In a discussion on another blog (“Whatever,” maintained by John Scalzi, formerly a film critic for the Fresno Bee), “Todd” argues that Scalzi’s argument for preserving rights he has no plans ever to exercise is “a bit of a humor piece which won’t be taken seriously.”
Among other things, Todd argues that in order to preserve our rights, we should “prove that [exercising these rights] hasn’t destroyed the world.”
This is exactly backwards. The Constitution of the United States places limits upon the government — not upon the citizens. If the government wishes to take away our rights, they must show that 1) they have a genuine governmental interest to do so and 2) that their attempt to take away the right is not unconstitutional.
This article explains that, and also discusses how the Bush Administration’s approach to the controversy over homosexual marriages, its methods for getting conservative judges on the bench, the willingness to use extralegal means to enforce Christian ideals where the law will not allow it and the President’s frequent misguided comments about “activist” judges, are all harmful to the vitality of the Constitution of the United States and, thus, to the continued health of the United States of America as a democratically-driven republic.