Tag: law

“You don’t get to pick and choose when the Constitution matters.”

@RetroAgent12 on X:

To everyone cheering on Trump for ignoring court rulings:

Imagine a future left-wing president declares a national emergency on gun violence, bans AR-15s, and signs an executive order instructing the ATF to confiscate semi-automatic rifles from gun stores. A federal court blocks it, citing the Second Amendment—but the president shrugs, calls the judges “activists,” and ignores the ruling.

Would you still be okay with that? Or would you suddenly rediscover your love for the rule of law?

This isn’t about immigration or Trump. It’s about whether the rule of law means anything to you—or if you only respect the Constitution when it serves your politics.

You don’t get to scream “tyranny!” over COVID lockdowns or gun restrictions and then celebrate when your guy blows off court orders. That’s not patriotism. That’s authoritarianism in red, white, and blue drag.

You don’t get to pick and choose when the Constitution matters.

“Both citizens and non-citizens in the U.S. have the right to due process.”

The International Rescue Committee:

Due process is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It protects people against arbitrary government decisions and ensures fairness in legal matters. Both citizens and non-citizens in the U.S. have the right to due process – a chance to defend their rights and to have a fair hearing.

Having a chance to go before a judge is an essential part of due process. Hearings allow individuals and the government to present evidence and for the judge to make a decision based on the facts and the law. Individuals get to explain their situation and appeal mistaken decisions, protecting their rights. Fair hearings can lead to better decisions so that the public has confidence in the integrity of the legal system.

Heather Cox Richardson:

All people in the United States are entitled to due process, but Trump and his officers have tried to convince Americans that noncitizens are not.

Here’s the thing: Once you give up the idea that we are all equal before the law and have the right to due process, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that some people have more rights than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality before the law with the idea that some people have no rights, you have granted your approval to the idea of an authoritarian government. At that point, all you can do is to hope that the dictator and his henchmen overlook you.

Immigrants’ Rights (ACLU)

“It would be naïve to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds.”

Howard Zinn, 2005:

It would be naïve to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.

The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than 12 hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance.

The right of a woman to an abortion did not depend on the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. It was won before that decision, all over the country, by grassroots agitation that forced states to recognize the right. If the American people, who by a great majority favor that right, insist on it, act on it, no Supreme Court decision can take it away.

The rights of working people, of women, of Black people have not depended on decisions of the courts. Like the other branches of the political system, the courts have recognized these rights only after citizens have engaged in direct action powerful enough to win these rights for themselves.

No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence — an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — be fulfilled.