Discriminations

Writing today about the conservative backlash against the proposed new immigration law reform, Glenn Reynolds notes, in two posts, the divide between elites, including especially political leaders, and ordinary citizens in their attitude toward law.

Here, he notes

the disconnect between Washington officialdom's view of citizenship, and the view held by actual citizens, something that I think is at the core of the immigration debate. More than hostility to illegal immigrants, I think a lot of the backlash is driven by the sense that Washington insiders don't really value what ordinary law-abiding people do by way of living their lives and, you know, abiding by the law.

And again, here [after quoting a correspondent]:

“... What’s amazing is that the political class is so deaf to the concerns of their constituents.” Yes, they seem to regard the law on the books as a sort of opening bid, which I’m afraid accurately reflects the way it guides their own conduct, but which is infuriating to people who have a somewhat less . . . flexible attitude.

This split between constituents and political leaders over how to regard laws and principles is, of course, not limited to immigration. It is also quite apparent in the public’s belief that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, not some right of the National Guard, and the widespread belief, demonstrated forcefully most recently in Michigan, that the state should not bestow benefits or burdens based on race.

Glenn discusses this dichotomy as a gulf between leaders and citizens, and he is of course correct, but it is also often more than that. The idea that principles, and the laws that attempt to embody and apply them, are “a sort of opening bid,” a suggestion, a recommendation, reflects an attitude that has found a home in modern liberalism and most of Democratic Party officialdom. By contrast, Republicans generally — and conservatives much more broadly — still pay homage to a more formalistic, less “flexible,” belief that principles and laws are more like rules to be followed. Conservatives still strive to read texts “literally,” while liberals indulge in more free-wheeling interpretation and, when they really want to do something that is rather clearly prohibited by a literal reading of relevant statutes or constitutional provisions, they “construe” texts in such a way as to allow them to do what they want.

Examples are too numerous to mention, but I have written about conservatives reading vs. liberals construing many times (some of them would be humorous if they weren’t so sad), such as here, here, here, and here. You should reward my restraint in not quoting heavily from those posts now by going back and reading — or better yet, re-reading — them now.