We are hearing more and more subsequently about root causes—especially from Vice President Harris, who President Biden charged with developing a “Root Causes Strategy.” But what we are hearing is bunk. The fact is that when the U.S. opens its borders—which is what it amounts to when we return to a catch and release policy—illegal immigrants flock to the U.S. That’s the root cause of the crisis on our southern border.
This is a movement that would turn our children against themselves because its advocates know there is no greater harm—no quicker way to bring America to its knees—than by driving our children to do themselves irreversible damage.
If we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government.
If Big Tech’s capabilities are allowed to develop unchecked and unregulated, these companies will eventually have the power not only to suppress existing political movements, but to anticipate and prevent the emergence of new ones. This would mean the end of democracy as we know it and place us under the thumb of an unaccountable oligarchy.
More and more areas of American life have been withdrawn from voters’ democratic control and delivered up to the bureaucratic and judicial emergency mechanisms of civil rights law. Civil rights law has become a second constitution, with powers that can be used to override the Constitution of 1787.
While the hallowed doctrine of stare decisis—the rule that judges are bound to respect precedent—certainly applies to the lower courts, Supreme Court justices owe fidelity to the Constitution alone, and if their predecessors have construed it erroneously, today’s justices must say so and overturn their decisions.
Economists since Adam Smith have taught us that in a competitive economy, the pursuit of private interests leads to the best possible outcome for everybody. But notice the qualifier: for this arrangement to work, there must be competition.
In thinking about the kind of person who should take his seat on the Court, it is worth reflecting on Justice Scalia’s principles of jurisprudence.
The Justice Department plays a fundamental role in our nation’s life, because its work has to do with how honest, how fair, and how safe our country is.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 30, 2015, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center, as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series by Jason L. Riley. 