The last three major Supreme Court decisions are not all popular. But case outcome popularity has little to do with the points of constitutional law at issue.
Despite some gnashing of teeth (the cases hit hot-button political bull's-eyes head-on: guns, abortion and religion), this is a celebratory moment for self-governance, because the court sided with freedom in each ruling.
The First and Second Amendments echo each other with unmistakable absolutes regarding government's limitation to interfere with unalienable rights.
Congress shall make "no law" prohibiting the free exercise of religion. And the right of the people to keep and bear arms "shall not" be infringed. The Constitution's restrictive edicts to government couldn't be plainer: Hands off.
We have the greatest freedom of religion when the government doesn't prohibit prayer. We are most free when our right to bear arms is least infringed.
And everybody--pro-life or pro-choice--is most liberated to practice their conscience regarding abortion through local self-government, not federal fiat. What the Constitution says about abortion is utterly indisputable: nothing.
For those who wear their politics like a covid mask, that distinction may not matter much. But to SCOTUS justices, it's the only thing that should matter.
Sure, back in 1973 a handful of justices declared a "right" they conjured up in their minds about a woman's decision to end her pregnancy. But their judicial activism did not add the word "abortion" to the text of the Constitution.
Now another handful of justices have mustered enough mettle to call a wrong a wrong.
It takes no courage to cave. What takes real fortitude is standing firm on legal facts and limited authority when popular sentiment is shrieking for political capitulation.
This court did what Justice Harry Blackmun & Co. should have done 50 years ago: tell Roe and Wade that their argument--like thousands of others involving daily life choices--simply wasn't, and isn't, a constitutional matter.
I have never met a Supreme Court justice, and likely never will. It would be difficult if not impossible to do so. Even if I did, our conversation would resemble that between a toddler with a toy rocket and Elon Musk. I have made no scholarly study of the law or its history. I can't correctly pronounce all the Latin words and phrases that populate legalese.
In a democratic republic, the highest members of the judicial branch are not representative of me in the least, and shouldn't be. They are legal brainiacs who delight in the intricacies of constitutional jurisprudence.
I don't vote for them, because they aren't supposed to legislate or execute the law. Their appointed job is to keep the other branches from enacting and enforcing laws that violate my Creator-endowed rights.
So when the Supreme Court says abortion isn't a federal constitutional issue, it's speaking up for freedom. And directing abortion arguments back where they belong, in state general assemblies.
Unlike SCOTUS justices, I know some members of the Arkansas Legislature. I can meet with them. Or email or call them. And it's in our representatives' interest to respond to me and you. Our votes, and our possible influence over other voters, matters to them.
This is what self-government looks like.
The good news is, a lot of us can now communicate with the men and women who will work out the lawful answers to difficult practical questions involving abortion.
More importantly, we can hold them accountable.
The court's prioritization of liberty also prevailed for common-sense regulations regarding firearms and respect for religious freedom.
Clarence Thomas succinctly called out regulatory overreach in the New York gun case (involving a requirement that an applicant explain their particular "proper cause" for unrestricted concealed-carry licensing): "We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need."
Neil Gorsuch tidily summed up the religious discrimination involving Washington state school administrators not allowing a football coach to say a private post-game prayer on the field: "In the name of protecting religious liberty, the district would have us suppress it."
Those are simple, sensible statements of principle restoring the liberties and freedoms of citizens by reducing the power of government bureaucrats.
When people in California or Oregon or New York protest the way we might govern ourselves here in Arkansas, they're not championing our liberty. They're trampling it.
When national special-interest organizations file lawsuit after lawsuit hoping to sway five Supreme Court justices, they're trying to impose their tyranny of ideology on every state and every person.
It's an undisguised all-out assault on our exceptional federalism. Special-interest activists get impatient waiting on 50 laboratories of democracy for progress; they prefer circumventing all that with a decree from a few unelected justices.
They succeeded in Roe v. Wade. The court became a dictatorial abortion autocrat, short-circuiting the federalism process and short-changing all citizens of the right to self-govern on the matter. Although it took a while, today's court has remedied that.
What neither the court, nor government, can do is make us all more responsible with our individual freedoms. A lot of problems stem and flow from that one problem.
Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.