Mailbag: Defending Ann Coulter

From: "Gilbert"
Subject: Ann Coulter vs. Reality

I always like to read an individual's comments about another person's work, especially regarding the "reality" of the work, when their comments lack "reality".

This is the first and only time I’ve ever received anything that might qualify as a “defense” of Ann Coulter. Normally I would think of her as epitomizing the concept of “indefensible,” but apparently I am wrong. She must get her popularity from somewhere and there must be people out there who find her writings to be reasonable or coherent.

One - You say "In reality, no one has to put a hand on a Bible and swear before God to tell the truth - if anyone doesn't want to do this, they can simply affirm that they will tell the truth." that is true, but in reality almost everyone who takes an oath of office or testifies in court, swears on the Bible.

Those statements aren't contradictory - no one has to swear on a Bible, but most people do anyway. There are lots of things that no one has to do, but most people do anyway - like saying "please" and "thank you," for example. My point was that Ann Coulter implied that swearing on the Bible were a requirement when, in fact, it isn't. I noticed that this was a pattern throughout the column (implying or stating things as true when they obviously weren't), so decided to make that the theme of my commentary.

So it is a little strange that we have "In God We Trust" on our coins, a taxpayer funded Chaplain in the Senate, Biblical Quotations on the Supreme Court building, to name a few, and yet the display of the "Ten Commandments" is a violation of the separation of church and state?

All of this is based upon the unfortunate doctrine of "Ceremonial Deism," according to which there are some pseudo-religious statements that are believed by everyone and, hence, couldn't possibly be offensive or exclude anyone. It's false (there are no religious statements which are believed by everyone and which no one would ever object to), but still widely believed.

The constitutionality of the Congressional Chaplain, for example, was decided by not actually applying any constitutional tests to the case - had that actually been done, the position couldn't possibly have been found to be constitutional. The justices knew what decision they wanted, knew that the standard tests couldn't let them reach that decision, so they simply ignored the tests and waxed philosophically about how long the Chaplain has been around as if that made it OK.

Two- You say "It is only a part of Coulter's fantasy that constitutional limitations on the government's power only applies to acts of Congress and no one ele. In Ann Coulter's fantasy world, the police can't violate your Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure because a warrantless search isn't an act of Congress, government agents can't violate your First Amendment rights of free speech because those agents' actions aren't a law, and the ATF can't violate your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms because their seizure of your guns doesn't involve Congress." I guess only you know what that statement means!

Yes: it means that Ann Coulter’s arguments are completely divorced from reality and that no principled conservative would ever take them seriously. Genuine conservatives would never argue that agents of the government other than Congress are incapable of violating one’s constitutional rights. Principled conservatives would never argue that only Congressional measures, resolutions and laws are covered by the constitutional limitations on governmental power. Ann Coulter has set herself squarely outside the mainstream and spread ideas that only cranks and nuts agree with.

Guess we just have to disagree about separation of religion and state.. I just think that our government branches and the Supreme Court are hypocritical when it comes to "religious" expressions and symbols. They need to read the works of those who were responsible for the writing of the Constitution and not their "modern day" interpretation especially when they rely on "international" law as Justice O'Connor has said she does.

I completely agree that various branches of the government are hypocritical — I simply conclude from this that they should stop finding lame excuses for their actions and maintain a strict separation of church and state. I also agree that we should read the works of those who were responsible for the writing of the Constitution. James Madison, for example, advocated a separation of church and state that would be even stricter than what we have today.

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