TheRightsWriter.com
05-19-2010, 12:12 PM
Elena Kagan on Social Issues
Her socialist thesis, her disdain for "innocent life," her opposition to traditional marriage and more. Part one of a series.
by Ben Johnson
On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/17/274143.aspx) he wanted to select a judge with “the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” Now he is smearing Republicans for assuming he has done just that. The White House branded a blog post by Ben Domenech at The Huffington Post, which stated Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is a lesbian, part of an elaborate Republican “whispering campaign.” Just as liberals claim all opposition to Obama is racist, they hope to frame all opposition to Kagan as “homophobic.” Domenech explained (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-domenech/the-white-house-elena-kag_b_540633.html) he is not part of a vast right-wing conspiracy but wrote that she was a lesbian “because it had been mentioned casually on multiple occasions by friends and colleagues – including students at Harvard, [Capitol] Hill staffers, and in the sphere of legal academia – who know Kagan personally.” Well-connected Democrats, including practicing heterosexual (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/nyregion/12cnd-kristen.html) Eliot Spitzer, have insisted the nominee is straight, claiming she passively pursued the option of potentially dating men in the 1980s (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37114.html). (Case closed.) Considering Elena Kagan is but 50-years-old and could conceivably spend her next 40 years on the high court, her closeted sexuality should be less interesting than her legal philosophy, the judicial heroes she would model herself after, her apparent readiness to use foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution, her record as dean of Harvard Law School, her proposals to loosen restrictions on pornography, and her contempt for conservative Christians and the unborn.
This series of articles will address each of these points. The media won’t.
A "Mainstream" Progressive
Kagan’s radicalism emerges early and runs deep. At Princeton, she wrote the thesis, “To The Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933.” (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/anatomy-of-an-activist/) The paper stated: “In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States…Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.” This is especially true in America, “a society by no means perfect.” She went on to describe how the Socialist Party’s in-fighting “reduced labor radicalism in New York,” dooming its political fortunes. “The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.” Her prescription: “American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.” Workers of the world, unite!
The thesis revealed Kagan had a personal stake in the topic, when she thanked “my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.” (Emphasis added.) Brother Marc did what he could to increase “labor radicalism in New York”; he was a union activist (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/11/2010-05-11_educated_in_school___on_citys_streets.html) with Transport Workers Local 100 until a falling out with a superior. (He is now a school teacher.)
Sean Wilentz, who advised Elena on her favorable thesis, insisted that the paper did not prove his student was a socialist, adding (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/05/03/26081), “Sympathy for the movement of people who were trying to better their lives isn’t something to look down on.” Steven Bernstein, who worked with Kagan on Princeton’s newspaper, attempted to defend her from charges of radicalism, as well. “I would probably describe her back then – her politics – as progressive and thoughtful but well within the mainstream of the...sort of liberal, democratic, progressive tradition,” he said. That her ideals are in the “mainstream” of the “progressive tradition” should provide no comfort whatever.
The Daily Princetonian notes (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/05/03/26081/) as an undergrad, Kagan served as editorial chairman of the student newspaper, “where she was responsible for the opinion content of the paper and the unsigned editorials that appeared almost daily – many of which took decidedly liberal stances on national and campus issues.”
Kagan Mocks “Innocent Life” – and You
Kagan signed her name to a 1980 editorial slamming Ronald Reagan, Christian conservatives, and the unborn. Following Reagan’s first landslide, Kagan wrote (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/us_supreme_court_nominee_elena.html) that on election night she came to the “emotion-packed conclusion that the world had gone mad.” However, in time she came to hope “that a new, revitalized, perhaps more leftist left will once again come to the fore.” (Emphasis in original.) She then bashed Christians for having the temerity to vote. “Even after the returns came in, I found it hard to conceive of the victories of these anonymous but Moral Majority-backed opponents of Senators Church, McGovern, Bayh and Culver, these avengers of ‘innocent life’ and the B-1 bomber, these beneficiaries of a general turn to the right and a profound disorganization on the left.” (There’s her emphasis on leftist “organization,” again.)
Her mocking quotations around “innocent life” indicate a hostility to the unborn. Although NewsMax has reported (http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/US-Kagan-Abortion/2010/05/10/id/358607?s=al&promo_code=9DF0-1) that, as a White House adviser “Kagan urged then-President Bill Clinton to support a ban on late-term abortions,” the reality is another matter. The amendment to the Partial Birth Abortion ban, offered by Tom Daschle, contained a “health of the mother” exception, a broad loophole used to undermine abortion bans. Warren Hern, who literally wrote the book on performing abortions, once told The Washington Times, “I will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life and could cause ‘grievous injury’ to her ‘physical health.’” (http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32910) In a 1993 article, Kagan wrote the Supreme Court “to its discredit” (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Regulation-of-Hate-Speech-and-Pornography-after-RAV.pdf) approved of a bill that forbade the use of taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortion advocacy. Kagan characterized the harm caused by abortion as “in fact widely contested.” In point of fact, women who have abortions also have “a more protracted course of mental disturbance” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-371392/Abortion-trauma-years.html) than women who miscarry, an increased risk of suicide (http://www.abortionfacts.com/reardon/abortion_and_suicide.asp), a 40 percent greater likelihood of developing breast cancer (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10010706.html), and a host of other complications (http://www.abortionfacts.com/effects/effects.asp).
To read the full article, click here. (http://citizen-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50:elena-kagan-and-social-issues&catid=29:national&Itemid=4)
Her socialist thesis, her disdain for "innocent life," her opposition to traditional marriage and more. Part one of a series.
by Ben Johnson
On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/17/274143.aspx) he wanted to select a judge with “the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” Now he is smearing Republicans for assuming he has done just that. The White House branded a blog post by Ben Domenech at The Huffington Post, which stated Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is a lesbian, part of an elaborate Republican “whispering campaign.” Just as liberals claim all opposition to Obama is racist, they hope to frame all opposition to Kagan as “homophobic.” Domenech explained (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-domenech/the-white-house-elena-kag_b_540633.html) he is not part of a vast right-wing conspiracy but wrote that she was a lesbian “because it had been mentioned casually on multiple occasions by friends and colleagues – including students at Harvard, [Capitol] Hill staffers, and in the sphere of legal academia – who know Kagan personally.” Well-connected Democrats, including practicing heterosexual (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/nyregion/12cnd-kristen.html) Eliot Spitzer, have insisted the nominee is straight, claiming she passively pursued the option of potentially dating men in the 1980s (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37114.html). (Case closed.) Considering Elena Kagan is but 50-years-old and could conceivably spend her next 40 years on the high court, her closeted sexuality should be less interesting than her legal philosophy, the judicial heroes she would model herself after, her apparent readiness to use foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution, her record as dean of Harvard Law School, her proposals to loosen restrictions on pornography, and her contempt for conservative Christians and the unborn.
This series of articles will address each of these points. The media won’t.
A "Mainstream" Progressive
Kagan’s radicalism emerges early and runs deep. At Princeton, she wrote the thesis, “To The Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933.” (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/anatomy-of-an-activist/) The paper stated: “In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States…Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.” This is especially true in America, “a society by no means perfect.” She went on to describe how the Socialist Party’s in-fighting “reduced labor radicalism in New York,” dooming its political fortunes. “The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.” Her prescription: “American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.” Workers of the world, unite!
The thesis revealed Kagan had a personal stake in the topic, when she thanked “my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.” (Emphasis added.) Brother Marc did what he could to increase “labor radicalism in New York”; he was a union activist (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/11/2010-05-11_educated_in_school___on_citys_streets.html) with Transport Workers Local 100 until a falling out with a superior. (He is now a school teacher.)
Sean Wilentz, who advised Elena on her favorable thesis, insisted that the paper did not prove his student was a socialist, adding (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/05/03/26081), “Sympathy for the movement of people who were trying to better their lives isn’t something to look down on.” Steven Bernstein, who worked with Kagan on Princeton’s newspaper, attempted to defend her from charges of radicalism, as well. “I would probably describe her back then – her politics – as progressive and thoughtful but well within the mainstream of the...sort of liberal, democratic, progressive tradition,” he said. That her ideals are in the “mainstream” of the “progressive tradition” should provide no comfort whatever.
The Daily Princetonian notes (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/05/03/26081/) as an undergrad, Kagan served as editorial chairman of the student newspaper, “where she was responsible for the opinion content of the paper and the unsigned editorials that appeared almost daily – many of which took decidedly liberal stances on national and campus issues.”
Kagan Mocks “Innocent Life” – and You
Kagan signed her name to a 1980 editorial slamming Ronald Reagan, Christian conservatives, and the unborn. Following Reagan’s first landslide, Kagan wrote (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/us_supreme_court_nominee_elena.html) that on election night she came to the “emotion-packed conclusion that the world had gone mad.” However, in time she came to hope “that a new, revitalized, perhaps more leftist left will once again come to the fore.” (Emphasis in original.) She then bashed Christians for having the temerity to vote. “Even after the returns came in, I found it hard to conceive of the victories of these anonymous but Moral Majority-backed opponents of Senators Church, McGovern, Bayh and Culver, these avengers of ‘innocent life’ and the B-1 bomber, these beneficiaries of a general turn to the right and a profound disorganization on the left.” (There’s her emphasis on leftist “organization,” again.)
Her mocking quotations around “innocent life” indicate a hostility to the unborn. Although NewsMax has reported (http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/US-Kagan-Abortion/2010/05/10/id/358607?s=al&promo_code=9DF0-1) that, as a White House adviser “Kagan urged then-President Bill Clinton to support a ban on late-term abortions,” the reality is another matter. The amendment to the Partial Birth Abortion ban, offered by Tom Daschle, contained a “health of the mother” exception, a broad loophole used to undermine abortion bans. Warren Hern, who literally wrote the book on performing abortions, once told The Washington Times, “I will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life and could cause ‘grievous injury’ to her ‘physical health.’” (http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32910) In a 1993 article, Kagan wrote the Supreme Court “to its discredit” (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Regulation-of-Hate-Speech-and-Pornography-after-RAV.pdf) approved of a bill that forbade the use of taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortion advocacy. Kagan characterized the harm caused by abortion as “in fact widely contested.” In point of fact, women who have abortions also have “a more protracted course of mental disturbance” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-371392/Abortion-trauma-years.html) than women who miscarry, an increased risk of suicide (http://www.abortionfacts.com/reardon/abortion_and_suicide.asp), a 40 percent greater likelihood of developing breast cancer (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10010706.html), and a host of other complications (http://www.abortionfacts.com/effects/effects.asp).
To read the full article, click here. (http://citizen-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50:elena-kagan-and-social-issues&catid=29:national&Itemid=4)