BY INTERFERING WITH THE LEFTY AGENDA, OF COURSE. DUH. How Do Decisions Upholding Freedom of Speech and Religion Violate Civil Liberties?

Slate’s list of last year’s “10 Worst Civil Liberties Violations” includes two Supreme Court decisions that do not constitute civil liberties violations by any stretch of the imagination: McCutcheon v. FEC, in which the Court overturned aggregate limits on contributions to federal candidates, and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Court ruled that the Obama administration violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) when it required employers to provide health insurance that covers forms of birth control to which they objected on religious grounds. I gather that the authors of the Slate piece, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, think these cases were wrongly decided. But even if that were true, it would not necessarily mean the decisions endorsed the violation of anyone’s civil liberties. To the contrary, people who welcomed these rulings (including me) believe they vindicated civil liberties.

Well, those are bourgeois civil liberties, which have to do with individual freedom of action. Real civil liberties are those freedoms — and obligations, especially — that advance the revolution, comrade.