I can’t define absurdity, but I know it when I see it

Linda Chavez describes the state of the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence after this week’s decision on the Child Online Protection Act as follows:
“The First Amendment protects the right of hard-core pornographers to lure children into “adult” Web sites where they will be exposed to every manner of deviant sexual behavior. Yet. . .the First Amendment restricts the right of groups critical of this decision from airing ads at election time that oppose presidential candidates who might appoint similarly disposed judges.”
As the present coalition of liberal and “past their sell-by date” Justices renders similarly incoherent mandates in field after field, the old question arises — where does the Court get the right to invalidate laws enacted through the democratic process. I don’t believe that the Constitution plainly vests final authority on these matters with the Court, nor does the right flow from the natural order of things. In my view, the Court has this right because, early on, it asserted it, and since then this arrangement has worked well enough, in the view of the public, that it hasn’t needed to be disturbed. Giving the Court the final say has produced results (albeit sometimes only at the last minute) that have been acceptable on the whole to the body politic. In other words, the Supreme Court gets to contribute in a big way because people think that, by and large, its contribution has been worthwhile.
It follows, I believe, that if Supreme Court jurisprudence becomes widely viewed as posing a serious impediment to our national security, economic welfare, or moral fabric, and if the Court fails to “switch in time,” it will be stripped of its right to the final say. As bad as many recent decisions have been, we are nowhere near that point, and I hope we never get there. But it could happen.

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