Posted on 06/28/2018 9:43:27 PM PDT by lowbuck
How dare an 81-year-old man retire from the Supreme Court. How dare he.
That, in a nutshell, seems to be the widespread reaction among many liberals to the announcement that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will step down from the bench next month.
"Anthony Kennedy Just Destroyed His Legacy as a Gay Rights Hero," announced a headline at Slate. Twitter, that great Hieronymus Bosch painting of our collective id, was aflame in what can only be described as full-on liberal panic. "The future of our democracy is at stake," proclaimed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
This gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth is a symptom of the dysfunction and corruption of the constitutional order. The reason Kennedy's retirement matters so much is that he was the swing vote -- the justice who could bequeath victory or defeat to the liberal or conservative bloc in any important case that divided the court.
And the reason the swing vote matters so much is that we've made the Supreme Court far too important in our lives. By being the deciding vote on so many issues, Kennedy in effect became the court itself, making him the de facto incarnation of the judicial branch, the way the president is the physical personification of the executive branch. This became all the more problematic because Kennedy's philosophy of judicial review all too often took the form of a deep personal inventory of his feelings rather than of the Constitution's text.
Thus, Kennedy's decision not to live forever -- or at least until a Democratic appointee could replace the Reagan-appointed justice -- was seen as a personal betrayal, because the political has become so personal for so many.
"I never thought I'd say this, but you're only 81!" late-night comedian Stephen Colbert exclaimed. "You know what they say: They say 81 is the new 79! And don't tell me your mind's going, because I've read Bush v. Gore and Citizens United; you never had one!"
A Comedy Central writer tweeted (and later deleted) that he wished "this Kennedy had been shot instead of the other ones." To think such things, never mind to state them publicly, can be seen as a symptom of deranged mental health, but also of a deformed civic health.
How did we get here? There are two tracks that converged to deliver us this dysfunction. The first is narrowly political. The Democrats, confident that they were on the right side of history, thought there was no harm in accelerating the rush to total victory. For years, Democrats practiced the rule that all is fair in judicial confirmation battles, starting with the war on Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Then, under the leadership of Barack Obama and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, they did away with the filibuster on judicial appointments short of the Supreme Court, opening the door for Republicans to nudge it slightly more wide open.
The second track is longer. Starting over a century ago, progressives began emphasizing ends over means. If the Supreme Court could deliver wins unattainable at the ballot box and unsupported by the Constitution, so be it. Thus was born the "living Constitution" -- the doctrine which holds that the magical parchment should mean whatever progressives need it to mean at any moment. This was how Anthony Kennedy became (an apparently temporary) gay-rights hero. After consulting his feelings, he found a Constitutional right no one had found in the text before.
This idea that the Supreme Court is there to serve as a Praetorian Guard around progressive policies was on full display this week. Prior to Kennedy's retirement announcement, the court issued a 5-4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME which held that public-sector unions can't compel nonunion members to pay fees for union representation, thus violating the First Amendment.
Justice Elena Kagan caustically disagreed. For her, the problem with the decision was that, "Public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support."
"The First Amendment was meant for better things," Kagan concluded in her dissent. "It was meant not to undermine but to protect democratic governance -- including over the role of public-sector unions."
In short: The Supreme Court isn't there to protect the meaning of the First Amendment; the Supreme Court is there is protect a secure source of financial support for public-sector unions. If the First Amendment gets in the way, that's OK.
The panic unfolding across the progressive landscape stems from the creeping fear that the Supreme Court might start doing its job -- and not the job progressives have assigned it.
Once the system the Founding Fathers created was destroyed in 1865 it was entirely foreseeable that the SCOTUS would be the final unelected arbiter of our rights. Once the states were removed as constitutional actors in their own right with the ability to check the excesses of the federal government, there was nothing left but 9 unelected federal government lawyers.
[The most important safeguard for the liberties of the people was]”the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.” Thomas Jefferson
[the only alternative to states rights] is to hand over sovereignty to the black robed deities of the court who disappear into their chambers and then tell us what orders we must obey, no matter how nonsensical or unpopular they may be. John C. Calhoun
“because whenever all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated” Thomas Jefferson
Being a hard core progressive is a mental illness. Its all about them saying “ I want You to be nicer” while they themselves would stab you in the back for not worshipping their superior intellect. They are Narsistic, manic, anti-social... Im not an expert, but thats my opinion. They think themselves as the supreme gentlemen! IE: most arent far from being elliot rodgers
Once the system the Founding Fathers created was destroyed in 1865 it was entirely foreseeable that the SCOTUS would be the final unelected arbiter of our rights. Once the states were removed as constitutional actors in their own right with the ability to check the excesses of the federal government, there was nothing left but 9 unelected federal government lawyers.
You could say, 1932, with FDR’s new deal monstrosities, but the states still had lots of power at least until FDR’s revolution in the Court.
I still want to punch Jonah right in the mouth.
L
Wow, how wrong is that. With the end of the Civil War secession became impossible. So the ultimate check against federal power and tyranny was lost (temporarily IMO).
"The question of treason is distinct from that of slavery; and is the same that it would have been, if free States, instead of slave States, had seceded. On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could thereby [be] induced to stay in the Union. The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals."
Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 – May 14, 1887) Abolitionist
I was on Lucianne.com for a long time. Not sure why I drifted away. I think it was around the Clinton-Lewinski stuff. Visited there a few weeks ago for old times’ sake, and it’s a shell of its past.
“Justice Scalia’s death was the most depressing event in my 66 years.”
I believe the circumstances of his death are/were suspicious, but nobody wants to go there — especially the family. Suppose we’ll never know how Obama and Hillary pulled it off.
“The future of our democracy is at stake,” proclaimed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Does no one from the left understand that we do not have a democracy in the United States?
Agreed.
I have read Lysander Spooner.
I am not impressed by his reasoning.
I left the Libertarians because their actual effects were exactly opposite of what they were trying to accomplish.
I wonder who this greasy-haired Never Trumper has to thank for this turnaround? Hmmm, Jonah?
The exact sentiments here. Mama prayed, the rest of the story still unfolding; we’ll never be able to complete this with the time we have remaining. Relying on Faith that all will end as it should.
Jeff Chandler is right. Goldberg is one of the biggest of the Never Trumpers.
Once the states were entirely subjugated by the federal govt via passage of the 24th amendment and their ultimate check on federal overreach the right of unilateral secession was de facto stripped away from them, the door for ever more federal usurpations was wide open.
Oops. Passage of the 14th obviously.
Good thoughts and insights. For me, the money quote “The panic unfolding across the progressive landscape stems from the creeping fear that the Supreme Court might start doing its job — and not the job progressives have assigned it.”
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Agreed. The only problem is that if Jonah and his fellow NeverTumpers had gotten their way and elected the Witch, this great thing never would have happened. IOW Jonah just conclusively proved what absolute, destructive nitwitted traitors he and the other “conservative” NeverTrumpers were and are.
the writing is on the wall, and the leftards are starting to pull their own head off ...
sounds good.
the crushing of their nasty little souls is just beginning.
That's the same thing FDR said... in 1937
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