What I mean by “Remedial Education in Civics”

I got an e-mail from someone asking me why I thought Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) needed some emergency education on the subject of the job he’s been elected to do.


Here’s why….
America is the best country to live in in the world.
What makes that the case is not that America is a democracy. There are dozens of great democracies, some of them run much better than ours. What makes us better than anyone else is that we protect individual freedom. We have, added into our constitution, protection of individual rights that keeps the majority of people from being able to run rough-shod over the rights of individual people. You have the right to freedom of speech in public forums, even if your speech is unpopular. You have the right to worship as you please, even if people don’t like your religion.
What makes us better than everyone else is that we protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. And it’s the court system, specifically the federal court system, that does the protecting. The congress does the bidding of the majority. And when the congress oversteps its bounds (as it does occasionally) the federal courts put it back in its place and keeps freedom free for everyone, not just for the popular kids.
What Rep. Hostettler is suggesting in his little speech to the Christian nutjobs is that the Federal Court system shouldn’t be allowed to protect the individual, and that to keep individuals from getting their rights protected, that the Federal Court system should basically be dismantled.
Which is basically treason. For which he should be hauled into a court and charged. Or at the very least, tarred and feathered. I’ll heat up the pot; you pluck the chickens.

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