Sometimes you just have to wonder what Liberals are thinking. Here is an article that breaks down the bias in peoples mental processes. What is of particular interest and telling is Justice Alito’s dialog with a liberal lawyer defending a Minnesota law banning political attire at polling booths. The problem is defining what political attire is and who determines what is political attire. Read on, I hope you find this as humorous (because of the hypocracy and cluelessness of Rogan) and insightful as I did.
You probably haven’t even heard about it, but yesterday there was an exchange in the Supreme Court that future generations will regard as one of the most significant revelations of our political era.
The case of Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky concerns a Minnesota statute that broadly bans all political apparel at the polling place. When Andrew Cilek went to vote in 2010, he wore a shirt bearing the image of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a button that read “Please I.D. Me.” The poll worker asked him to remove the shirt and button because it supposedly violated the state law.
Cilek filed a lawsuit opposing the regulation as an infringement on his First Amendment right to political expression. He also noted that the standard for what is acceptable is arbitrary and the enforcement itself could be politicized since the polling workers are chosen by local political parties.
In the oral arguments, Justice Alito agreed that the law does seem arbitrary and observed that “so many things have political connotations, and the connotations are in the eye of the beholder.” How could any poll worker, he asked, be even-handed in enforcing the regulation?
Daniel Rogan, who defended the statute for the state before the Court, responded that the political speech being conveyed by the wearer had to be “understood as relating to electoral choices and it has to be well-known.”
Alito said “that makes it worse” since the poll worker applying the “reasonable person” standard has to not only recognize the clothing is political speech but well known political speech.
Rogan answered that what the standard meant was it would have to be something a reasonable person would consider “clearly political” and “something that’s going to be reasonably understood by voters in the polling place.” What followed was a line of questioning by Judge Alito that will go down in the history books as a prime example of liberal cluelessness and hypocrisy.
Read on in the Acton Institute Powerblog for Justice Alito’s humorous dialog with Rogan.
R3publicans 