AFTER ALL, IT WAS WRITTEN BY A BUNCH OF OLD, DEAD ELITIST WHITE GUYS: Liberal law professor Thomas Ginsburg in the NY Times, “Stop Revering Magna Carta.”

One clause prevents Jews from charging interest on a debt held by an underage heir. Another limits women’s ability to bear witness to certain homicides. . . .

In reality, Magna Carta was a result of an intra-elite struggle, in which the nobles were chiefly concerned with their own privileges. When they referred to the judgment of one’s peers, for example, they were not thinking about a jury trial. . . . The reference to one’s peers meant that nobles could not be tried by commoners, who might include judges appointed by the king. . . .

Magna Carta has everything going for it to be venerated in the United States: It is old, it is English and, because no one has actually read the text, it is easy to invoke to fit current needs. . . .  Tea Party websites regularly invoke it in the battle against Obamacare.

So basically, in the eyes of liberals/progressives, the Magna Carta is just like the US Constitution: An over-revered document tainted, as liberal law professor Louis Michael Seidman asserted (also in the NY Times), by “archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.”

With attitudes like this it’s little wonder we are presently experiencing a crisis in respect for, and concomitant stability of, the rule of law.

RELATED: Rand Simberg’s apt thoughts on the Magna Carta and its modern salience.