The Kavanaugh Hearings: A Lesson in Civics

This article first appeared in New English Review.

This week’s Senate hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court are highly instructive. Not just because (to this point) Kavanaugh is handling himself admirably, but for the behavior of the Democrat senators and the disruptions. I wish every American were watching this spectacle.

Yesterday, Democrat senators like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker were demanding that the hearings be adjourned. They were complaining that the White House had failed to turn over documents from when Kavanaugh was working in the George W Bush White House. Of course, they know full well that no White House would turn over documents related to advice the president was getting. They just want to delay the process until after the election in the hope they might gain a majority in the Senate and defeat the nomination. How embarrassing to watch committee chairman Charles Grassley trying to get through his written comments while being interrupted constantly by the likes of Harris and Booker

Even more instructive are the disruptions by people in the audience, shouting sentiments echoing those of the Democrat senators. The most prominent among them was Muslim activist Linda Sarsour, who was dragged out of the chamber by infidel cops nearly by her fashionable hijab, which was flapping in the breeze. A beautiful sight.  People like Sarsour have the reasoning skills of a 9^th grader.

One should ask: Who is it that routinely disrupts the proceedings of others? It is almost without exception those on the left. I have seen it myself time and time again on university campuses where any pro-Israel display or event is disrupted. It is the left that wants to shut down any speech to which it is opposed. Pro-life students on campus. Shut them down. Bring Milo Yiannopoulos to speak? Shut it down. They routinely attack the Campus Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation. Similarly, they are against the Kavanaugh nomination, so they come to shout and disrupt.

I would hope that young people, who are still trying to figure out what’s right and wrong across a wide spectrum of issues, would pay close attention to which side is willing to debate and dialogue with the other side, and which side would rather shut down debate, shut down the views of others, and disrupt that with which they don’t agree. A good start would be to watch the Kavanaugh hearings.