The Supreme Court's Constitutional Treason

How Conservative Justices Legalized the Tyranny Our Founders Died to Prevent

The Supreme Court just authorized exactly what Americans fought a revolution to prevent. In a decision that would make King George III proud, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a conservative majority have constitutionalized the general warrant logic that sparked the American Revolution—ruling that demographic statistics can justify stopping anyone, anywhere, to demand proof of their right to exist in their own country.

Read Kavanaugh's words and weep for the Constitution: because there's an “extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area,” immigration agents can now stop any person who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, works certain jobs, or appears in certain locations. American citizens must now carry documentation to prove their citizenship while walking in their own neighborhoods because conservative justices decided that looking Hispanic in Los Angeles creates reasonable suspicion of criminality.

This is the resurrection of British colonial tyranny dressed in originalist language. The writs of assistance that allowed British soldiers to search anyone, anywhere, based on general suspicion were precisely what motivated the Fourth Amendment. Our Founders fought and died to establish the principle that government agents need individualized evidence of wrongdoing, not statistical probabilities about demographic groups.

But apparently originalist interpretation doesn't apply when it would inconvenience Trump's deportation machine. Suddenly, the very tyranny the Constitution was written to prevent becomes “common sense” enforcement that serves the “public interest.”

Justice Sotomayor's dissent documents the reality that Kavanaugh's antiseptic legal language conceals: masked federal agents jumping out of unmarked cars to tackle Latino workers without asking questions, armed raids on car washes where American citizens get pushed against fences and have their IDs confiscated, systematic harassment of people whose only crime was going to work while Latino.

Jorge Viramontes, an American citizen, was detained for twenty minutes while agents “verified” his citizenship because his California driver's license wasn't sufficient proof for agents who decided his appearance made him suspicious. Jason Gavidia, another American citizen, got pushed against a fence and had a rifle pointed at him because he couldn't immediately recall which hospital he was born in when challenged by masked federal agents.

This is what conservative constitutional interpretation has produced: American citizens terrorized by their own government while shopping for groceries, going to work, or waiting for the bus. The Fourth Amendment, according to Brett Kavanaugh, doesn't protect you from arbitrary government harassment if you happen to look like you might be undocumented.

The intellectual dishonesty is staggering. These same justices will spend pages analyzing eighteenth-century dictionary definitions to justify eliminating environmental regulations, but they'll ignore the actual historical grievances that created constitutional protections when those protections inconvenience their preferred policies.

They've revealed their true priorities: the Constitution protects corporations from democratic regulation but doesn't protect citizens from government harassment. Qualified immunity for police who murder civilians? Constitutional. Civil asset forfeiture that steals property without trial? Perfectly fine. General warrant logic that lets federal agents stop anyone based on appearance? Just common sense enforcement.

The revealed preferences are clear—money matters, civil liberties don't. Corporate freedom is sacred, human freedom is negotiable. The conservative legal movement succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: they've created a legal framework that eliminates every democratic constraint on wealth while authorizing unlimited authoritarian constraint on citizenship.

Amy Coney Barrett, who claimed at a public event that we're not in a constitutional crisis and doesn't know what one would look like, just signed onto a ruling that eliminates Fourth Amendment protections for millions of Americans based on their appearance. If constitutionalizing general warrant logic doesn't constitute a constitutional crisis, then the phrase has no meaning.

These justices have committed constitutional treason. They've sworn oaths to defend the Constitution while systematically destroying the constitutional protections it was written to guarantee. They've legitimized exactly the tyrannical practices that motivated American independence while claiming fidelity to American founding principles.

When unelected justices eliminate constitutional protections that elected representatives never voted to eliminate, when they authorize systematic harassment that no democratic majority would accept, when they create legal doctrines that the Founders explicitly died to prevent—they've forfeited any claim to democratic legitimacy.

The Federalist Society promised constitutional restoration and delivered constitutional destruction. They promised originalist interpretation and delivered authoritarian innovation. They promised judicial restraint and delivered judicial tyranny that makes British colonial practices look restrained by comparison.

These justices should be impeached for treason against the constitutional order they swore to defend. They've betrayed their oaths while claiming to uphold them, destroyed constitutional protections while claiming to preserve them, authorized systematic tyranny while claiming to defend liberty.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And conservative justices just made it legal for federal agents to stop you on the street because of how you look.

The Constitution is dead. The conservatives killed it. And they're proud of their work.

Remember who destroyed your constitutional rights when masked federal agents demand your papers for the crime of existing while Latino in Los Angeles. Remember who authorized the tyranny our ancestors died to prevent.

The Court that claims to defend the Constitution just murdered it in broad daylight.