Free Speech or Girl's Softball: Kagan's 'Hot or Not' List

Elena Kagan, Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, is soon to be coming before the U.S. Senate for her confirmation hearings. While this is completely out of our hands, it is certainly something to which we should all pay close attention. These types of events are historical and rare, but more importantly it gives us a valuable look into our president’s thought process.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Chief Executive who had barely held a job running anything is touting a nominee who hasn’t been a judge. The last time a non-judge was nominated was over 40 years ago. To be fair, the Constitution does not require a sitting justice to have been a local, state, or federal judge. The qualifications, in fact, are completely absent: a president may nominate anyone to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), regardless of their lack of qualifications. It seems in this instance President Obama is taking that idea to an extreme.

Anyone can read her full bio here. In a nutshell, Kagan is a product of Ivy League schools and has spent most of her life either in liberal academia or serving under former President Clinton. She clerked for a couple of courts early in her career, and she had done a stint in private practice. Most recently she has served as Solictor General under Obama, a position where she has represented the U.S. government in cases heard before SCOTUS. Kagen's true relative background, like her personal live is noticeably ambiguous.

Kagan has some pragmatic views, to say the least. On the side of ‘right and good’, while under Clinton she had seemed to advocate a tolerance for expression of religious views, both in the workplace and in private situations. She also was a little more moderate in some abortion language of the time.

But most disconcerting is her acceptance of limits on free speech. Kagan is all about restrictions. She wanted to restrict students on campus to access to recruiters. She has voiced support for the government to limit political pamphlets being distributed. Kagan may have even went so far during her Clinton years to see if the Volunteer Protection Act would cover members of groups the administration did not like, and it appears that she questioned if the National Rifle Association and the KKK would be covered.

Really?

Obama’s nominee has also written that the government may decide on a ‘disadvantage’ to certain ideas ‘if acting upon neutral, harm-based reasons.’ The bare hint of this smacks of the type of restrictions on freedom of speech seen in much of Europe and with our Canadian neighbors. Officials in these countries routinely make determinations as to what or how their citizenry may express themselves, right down to banning outright certain words or phrases deemed to be offensive. Some of these countries, contrary to the civilized norms one would expect, even may resort to arrest and prosecution for ideas the government decides to be unsavory. Jackbooted behavior such as this is to be expected in Third World countries, but the thought police are thriving in many more places than the average American would believe.

Kagan’s nomination is but another example of the controlling mindset prevalent with those on the Radical Left. Adherents of this ideology range from current Obama administration ‘czars’ like Cass Sunstein, (who wrote a paper in 2008 calling for a tax on proponents of certain ‘conspiracy theories’), to the FCC diversity czar, (who thinks ‘white people’ should step down from government positions to force a different perspective upon Americans). In the same vein, advocates of global warming propaganda, like Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel, would like the licenses of skeptical weathermen revoked if the deny manmade causes of climate change. Likewise, NASA scientist James Hansen wants criminal trials for skeptics, and RFK Jr. said in 2007 that being skeptical of global warming was treason!

Further fueling the goose-stepping march of the thought police are some of the dimwits of Hollywood. Many of the entertainment jet-set openly deride the idea of conservative criticism from their progressive positions. Danny Glover and Sean Penn are frequent guests and good friends with Hugo Chavez, who shuts down media with which he disagrees. Formerly hot / now fat Carrie Fisher thinks dissent from Obama makes one a racist and Bill Maher regularly tries to silence the voice of the Tea Party Movement by labeling them as a ‘cult’.

This is the political climate in which supporters of Obama thrive and let their true colors show. While the assault on our constitutional rights may continue unabated from various media, radical politicians, and even Supreme Court nominees, the president may want to look at his waning popularity and consider pulling a retro-Clinton move and do the soft shoe back toward the middle for the rest of his term in the White House. Otherwise, not all the hope in the world will keep him off that long Greyhound ride back to Chicago.

And yeah...she digs softball, too.