Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Et tu, Lowry?

It's not just George Bow-Tie who doesn't get the New Deal revolution. Rich Lowry, doubtless thinking he can score look-how-good-faith-I-am points by a throwaway to liberals, tosses off this little gem:

The court has created rights from nothing before. As George and Tubbs point out, from 1890 to 1937, it struck down social-welfare legislation because it supposedly violated a right to "liberty of contract" that had no constitutional basis. It reversed course in 1937 and admitted it had been imposing its own policy preferences.

The court created this right from nothing, eh? Now, I don't read everything Lowry writes, so I don't know the answer to this, but I'm thinking he didn't like Kelo. And Kelo decided issues of what, again? Oh, that's right. Property. So which is it? Lowry can't find property in the Constitution? Or is it that he thinks that property is just fine, it's only that you have no right to buy or sell it? Perhaps I'm wrong and he thinks Kelo is the keys to the kingdom.

If conservatives can't get the New Deal right, what hope is there?

UPDATE: Yeah, it turns out Lowry doesn't like Kelo: "[A] crucial insight — the right to property is the most important check on governmental power and abuse, especially for the poor and vulnerable." Sounds like just the thing that would be in the Constitution, doesn't it? But I guess they have no right to contract it, which, I don't know, would seem to affect its value, wouldn't it?

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