Hollywood Elites Out Of Touch

Last night, Hollywood put on fancy dresses and tuxedos and told the people of the United States that the greatest love affair of the year was between two gay cowboys, one of whom was cheating on his wife; that Islamic terrorists are sympathetic figures while Americans are selfish fascists who have few redeeming qualities and that we should be forced to accept in your face transgender identity.

The Golden Globe Awards, yesterday evening, honored "Brokeback Mountain", "Syriana" and "Transamerica" as the best that Hollywood has to offer; once again proving that anti-Americanism and a rejection of traditional morality are positives in the glitter capital of the world.

Amazingly, Hollywood has also spent the past few weeks wondering why Americans don’t go to the movies anymore. Attendance at movies is down 10% from last year, continuing a trend of the past few years.

If you read any of the trade publications or columns by movie critics, they offer a multitude of excuses for this trend, and without exception, they reject the idea that content and subject matter have anything to do with it. That’s right, Hollywood insiders appear to be incapable of self examination.

Hollywood elites fly from coast to coast and throughout Europe, and despite their worldliness, live rather insulated lives. They share their political and cultural values with Northeastern liberals from the East Coast and urban European secular socialists. To them, fly-over country, the Red States, consist of toothless morons playing banjos.

They believe they have a responsibility to re-educate us and our children. They believe that it is up to them to dilute the influence of typical American values, which they view as parochial and unenlightened, and replace them with secular anti-Americanism and sexual license without consequence.

In the wake of the 2004 election, you would have thought that they, the Hollywood elites, would have examined themselves and how they were out of touch with the American people. They didn’t. They simply decided that we in the Red States were stupid and in need of their influence.

I realize that Hollywood believes movies like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Transamerica" perform a valuable service by forcing Americans to face aberrant sexuality; but how do you explain "Syriana" and its sympathetic portrayal of Islamofascists?

I know Hollywood thinks the Red States are unenlightened when it comes to homosexuals and transgenders, but do they really think that those kind sympathetic Islamofascists would embrace a movie about two gay camel herders?

Yeah, Hollywood put on its tuxedos and fancy dresses last night and reminded the rest of us just how out of touch they really are.

 

What is an originalist, anyway?

Justice Antonin Scalia once stated, "If you think the Constitution is some exhortation to give effect to the most fundamental values of the society as those values change from year to year... If you think it is simply meant to reflect the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society - if that is what you think it is, then why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers? What do I know about the evolving standards of decency of American society? I’m afraid to ask." 

Justice Scalia is one of the Supreme Court's most vocal originalists.  Originalists are sometimes called "textualists" or "literalists".  They believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of the Framers.  For some reason, such a view horrifies liberals.   In fact, liberals are scared to death that Judge Samuel Alito might turn out to be an originalist.

Judge Alito, President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, begins his inquisition this week; with Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy playing the role of collective Torquemados.  Of course, they will be attempting to trip up Judge Alito on the issue of abortion, NSA wiretapping and the like; but underlying that whole line of assault is the question of whether Judge Alito is an originalist.

Why does that word frighten liberals so?  Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal's liberal if there ever was one, explained in a speech given at Harvard Law School.  He said,  "...textualist and originalist doctrines may themselves produce seriously harmful consequences...."

Seriously harmful consequences according to whom?  Why the leftist elites who know what is best for us, that's who.  You see, leftists believe the law is nothing more than a tool for them to achieve the social objectives they believe should control society.

That is why, when they talk in terms of judges, they talk about whether the judge ruled in favor of the government, big corporations, "the little guy" etc.  Everything to them is about furthering the agenda, and they believe everyone else operates in the same way.  In fact, leftists didn't know what to make of Chief Justice Roberts' statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said, "If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy's going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy's going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution."

That is what an originalist believes.  The Constitution is paramount.  His obligation is to the Constitution, the actual words, as written.  Where the Constitution says that the executive power lies with the President, the executive power lies with the President.  Since the Constitution grants the power to legislate to the Congress, originalists believe that courts shouldn't legislate. 

Originalists don't make allowances for liberal elites to engage in social engineering.  Originalists don't care what the law in France or Belgium is when the case involves the law of the United States.

Leftist elites don't trust the masses they profess to love.  You see the masses do stupid things like vote for Republicans, support tax cuts, oppose gay marriage and believe that parents should be told if  their minor daughter is about to have an abortion.  Liberals can't allow that.  Enlightened elites must make the rules.

You see, the Framers believed in limited government, state's rights and community control of values and standards.  The essence of original intent is trust in the people and distrust of the Federal government.  Of course, to people like Justice Breyer, that is asking for "harmful consequences".

For those of us who believe in originalist thinking, trusting the Constitution and trusting the people is the essence of who we are as Americans.  We're a scary bunch.  Aren't we?