“The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Bertrand Russell

No words more accurately describe the thinkers at the Heritage Foundation as shown in a recent post on their web site, “Why Does Sovereignty Matter to America?” They suggest that American sovereignty is threatened by looming international forces.  According to the author of this screed, “[O]ur sovereignty faces new threats. International organizations and courts seek to reshape the international system. Nations are to give up their sovereignty and be governed by a “global consensus.” Independent, sovereign nations will be replaced by “transnational” organizations that reject national sovereignty.”

I suppose the opening line of the Heritage Foundation post should have given away the punch line to this amazing corruption of legal reasoning: “The United States is a sovereign nation. Sovereignty is a simple idea.” Really?

So why have the Heritage Foundation “thinkers” gotten on their high horses? Well, in the case of the author, Steven Groves, he is perhaps concerned with the risk that American leaders could be prosecuted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court for their misdeeds in various wars which the country has engaged in of late.  Framed in the logic of Constitutional fundamentalism, which has become so popular with the conservative Right, he suggests that the republic is at risk from foreign forces bent on usurping the rights of Americans as spelled out in the Constitution.

For those familiar with domestic and international law, Groves’ logic fails. Despite his arguments, Constitutional fundamentalism has never been the basis for legal reasoning in America. With respect to principles of international law, it has always been the case that national laws of the United States are created that embrace principles set forth in treaties once entered into by the U.S. For example, the international law forbidding genocide has its counterpart set forth under Title 50, Section 1091 of the U.S. Code. Apparently Mr. Groves missed that lecture while attending law school.

Another explanation for this diatribe can be found in the all too common problem with conservative thinkers today. Playing to the lowest common denominator of the electorate and characterizing all things, which they don’t like as “bad” in the simplest of terms, conservative “thinkers” avoid any real debate about the complexities in the world around them. Like the recruitment by the Taliban and al Qaeda of impressionable young men in the belief that they get to hang with virgins once they blow themselves up, the conservative right demonizes solutions to complex problems with flippant solutions, effectively blows up the rule of law in the process and embrace the fools who buy their twisted logic. This has proven effective for idiots like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck and has served as a rallying cry for Tea Party acolytes everywhere.

It is all too apparent that this sort of reckless thinking is intended to garner votes from an uninformed electorate at the cost of preserving the rule of law.  This is the Christmas gift that the Heritage Foundation and the extreme Right offers America. Thanks a bunch!