Activist judiciary? Who are the real activists?

I just got the news of the Supreme Court decision today “upholding” the so-called second amendment right to bear arms. I have not had a chance to read the full opinions yet, but from the initial news summaries, it looks like all existing state and local gun control laws are in peril. My wife, Eileen (a very sharp lawyer), wonders whether the import and effect of the decision will allow any fracking yahoo to have a fully automatic weapon. I don’t know the answer to that yet, but when I find out I’ll let you all know. If you want to read the actual opinions [majority decision + concurring and dissenting separate opinions] jump right in.

Anyway, this ruling is yet but another sad chapter to the shameful saga of the rightwing attempt to dismantle our Constitution. By no means do I mean to criticize “laymen” for not realizing how important the courts are in shaping our society and individual lives, but I think it is fair to wish that the public as a whole would collectively tune in to the issue. In this regard, you must watch or read the great speech that Al Franken recently delivered on this subject. While many still write Franken off as some sort of gadfly, he is for real – believe me. Anyway, I usually shy away from giving you long watching/reading assignments, but this is one that is required.

Upshot: We need to be worrying as much or even more about who our Judges are as we do about who represents us in the Senate, Congress, and state/local elective offices.

[Post script: After publishing this post I thought that I might have been a bit presumptuous because I had only read the text of the Franken speech and not taken the 35 + minutes to watch it. So, I just watched the whole thing, and it fares even better in that milieu. It reminds me of FDR's great "Economic Royalists" speech. It's all great in the watching, but here is a portion that jumped out at me:

It’s important to recognize that, for some conservative legal activists, this is the whole point. Do they want to undercut abortion and immigration and Miranda rights? Sure. But those are just cherries on the sundae.

What conservative legal activists are really interested in is this question: What individual rights are so basic and so important that they should be protected above a corporation’s right to profit?

And their preferred answer is: None of them. Zero.