Ginsburg — It’s time to try shutting up?
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday called her criticism of National Football League player Colin Kaepernick “inappropriately dismissive and harsh” and said she should not have commented on his protest against racism and police brutality in the United States.
Ginsburg, a liberal justice, told Yahoo News on Monday that Kaepernick was “dumb and disrespectful” for refusing to stand during the national anthem before games.
SEE EARLIER:Â Ruth Bader Ginsburg just threw shade at Colin Kaepernick
“Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. I should have declined to respond,” Ginsburg said in her statement on Friday.
Conservatives are often ridiculed for criticizing activist judges who fail to respect the Constitution. We are told that it is not conservative originalists (labeled ignorant and extremist) but rather enlightened liberal judges—with their nuanced understanding of constitutional penumbras—who truly respect the spirit of the Constitution.
Conservatives, however, have good reason to be skeptical of the leftâ€
The problem, you see, is that the U.S. Constitution is “a rather old constitution.†Ginsburg suggested that Egyptians should look instead to the Constitution of South Africa or perhaps the European Convention on Human Rights. All these are “much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.â€
Ginsburgâ€
For one, the Constitution is still among the shortest and most elegantly written constitutions in the world. By contrast, South Africaâ€
Equally ridiculous is the claim that the Constitution is too antiquated to apply to the modern world. The principles of the Constitution, although first articulated centuries ago, are not tied to the material conditions of a bygone age. They rest on that most solid and enduring of all foundations: human nature. The Constitution itself contains no policy prescriptions. Rather, it is a short, elegantly written document that create a framework for a free people to confront the political questions of their times.
Of course, the real reason progressives swoon over South Africaâ€