And I really do think it’s deliberate.
I’m going to be talking about some rather (comparatively) deep topics regarding the United States, what it is, and how the constitution works. If you’re not interested, please skip. If you are, read on, you might find it interesting. Unless you’re a leftist. Then you’ll probably put your fingers in your ears and yell “LALALALA”
There was a time when basic civics was a required topic in school. Yeah, it had a bunch of stupid things in it, like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but students were taught very young what the US was about and how the constitution worked. Based upon the response to the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade, it appears that no one has bothered to learn this anymore.
The United States is a republic, made up of fifty states. That much everyone knows. But what most leftists (and some others) don’t seem to understand is that the United States is actually a republic made up of fifty sovereign states. The US is not a country that has fifty subdivided parts, though functionally it is that in some cases. It is a republic made up of fifty states that decided to form a country to look out for their common interests. This has been subverted in recent years by a vastly overreaching federal government, but in essence, that is what the US is.
It seems semantic, but it’s not. It’s a very real distinction.
The Constitution of the United States is seen as the founding document of the country, and it is. It’s seen as the supreme law of the land, and it is. But the Constitution itself is very specific about what the role of the republic is, and what the role of the states are. The Constitution enumerates a series of responsibilities (providing for the common defense, regulating interstate commerce, etc.) that the federal government is responsible for. Everything that is not enumerated in the constitution is, instead, the responsibility of the states, or the people.
This is what leftists simply are not understanding, and I think deliberately so. They’re not stupid, they’re just evil.
So here’s what the Roe vs. Wade decision was actually about. Listen up, this is important.
Fifty years ago, in 1973, the Supreme Court made a ruling that, in spite of the fact that this is not enumerated in the constitution, abortion is a constitutionally protected right. Even at the time, many people saw this as an incredible overreach by the Court, and overturning it has always been a priority for those who did not agree with the decision. So let’s be clear – by making it a constitutionally protected right, they took the choice away from the states – states could not outlaw abortion even if they wanted to, and every time they tried, the courts would strike it down as being against the Roe vs. Wade decision.
What happened last week was that the court rectified this mistake. It’s no longer a constitutionally protected right (it never was, but the court rectified the mistake of ruling it so). The practical effect of this was not to outlaw abortion, in spite of what the media and Democrats are telling everyone. The practical effect was to get the federal government out of the decision, and leave it to the states. States such as Texas, the one I live in, have wanted to outlaw abortion for years, and now are able to. But states such as California are perfectly free to make their own laws allowing an abortion free-for-all. That’s what this is about, and that’s all this is about. The ruling restored sovereignty to the states. It did not outlaw abortion. It did not prevent women from travelling to another state for abortions (and, in fact, the Court explicitly said the states could not do that). It only said that it is not a constitutional right, and the courts are free to make their own laws.
But you’d never know it, would you?
Women are running around acting like they’re being turned into second class citizens, in the same way they were a hundred or two hundred years ago. Some are even going on about a “sex strike” (strangely enough, the pro-lifers would be completely fine with that for several reasons). They’re representing this as setting women back fifty years. Not the case, not even a little bit. All that happened is the states clawed back a little of the autonomy they were always meant to have.
It was a victory for the pro-life side of the culture wars. Don’t misunderstand me. People are fighting a cold war, and the pro-abortion side lost a decisive battle. But the histrionics (a word I used deliberately) are unwarranted. The constitution prevailed, no matter how much some people would prefer it to be gone. It’s just a shame it took fifty years to make it happen.