Tuesday, February 08, 2022

“WE’RE THE SUPREME COURT, BITCHES!

Yes, increasing the size of the Court is a terrible, no good, horrible, very bad idea which will just introduce chaos and undermine the Court’s authority, and no reasonable person can countenance it, because FDR and we’ve always done it this way.

At some point we have to do something radical, because radical ideologues (one can no longer call them “jurists”) have taken over the court and recognize no authority but their own. Either we increase the number on the bench, or we change the court’s jurisdiction. Or the Court declares such legislation unconstitutional, and the impeachment hearings begin. Some of these people clearly aren’t fit to be on the high court. But removing them is nearly impossible. Diluting them is the most reasonable immediate correction.
They really are the Supremes, and if you don’t like it, you can suck it! Kavanaugh is addressing critics of this Court’s practice like Professor Vladeck, not fellow Justices like Kagan. Good thing this Court is concerned with appearances; or are they spelling that c-r-i-t-i-c-i-s-m? Nothing like establishing your authority by saying “You can’t talk to me that way!”

(This one is for the lawyers. Suffice to say ideology is rising in truly naked and disturbing ways.)
And to hammer the point into the ground: Appearances are NOT deceiving!
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1 comment:

  1. rustypickup9:51 AM

    I am thinking there is a connection between this case and the Harvard admissions case (and I will even throw in here the recent district court decision that blocked payments to black farmers that had been discriminated against in federal farm loans and payments, event though I don't think it has even made it to the circuit court). This court is likely heading for a decision that race (and by extension ethnic, sectarian, sexual orientation or other grouping) can never be considered in any action by the government. This rule would swallow any disparate harm analysis, since that analysis would inherently require categorizing into groups. It also eviscerates any action that would address past harms, since the recipients of relief would themselves have to be categorized into groups (like black farmers). This of course allows systemic racism to flourish, since as long as the law is on it's face discriminatory (de jure), it can be de facto deeply discriminatory and withstand constitutional scrutiny. The discrimination is only limited by the creativity of the drafters. Of course past discrimination can never be compensated under such analysis.

    Effectively we are being radically atomized into individuals (something that has been happening under American culture anyway, and encouraged by conservative politics). Since as a group (by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) we can't be recognized under the law, then we have no power under the law. The wealthy and well connected (and corporations which are treated as individuals under the law) have enormous power in their singular capacities, whereas the rest of us only have meaningful power through our collective action.

    Tied to the radical expansion of "religious freedom", we will soon have some bizarre outcomes. Harvard will unable to take race or other factors into consideration for admissions (which of course will leave more openings for the children of the wealthy and white), while a religious based university will be free to discriminate at will for any reason, because religious freedom trumps requirements of non-discrimination.

    I will go even further and predict that not only is the voting rights act going to be struck down, but we are on a path to strike down all of the civil rights acts of the mid-60's that relate to public access and accommodation. In short, any anti-discrimination law will be deemed unconstitutional. With complete atomization, "deeply held religious" beliefs will no longer be measured by comparison to established denominations or even individual churches, but will be purely individual. A mere statement that this is my religious belief will be sufficient to allow for any form of discrimination by the individual (or corporation). It won't even need to be explicitly religious. You can hear the formation of the arguments in the latest arguments before the Supreme Court. Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, Barret and Kavanaugh in turn testing the waters. Strange comments, such as saying teaching tolerance at a public school is like having a religion, make more sense when they are seen through the lens of any belief being sufficient to allow for individual action. The state may not make any racial distinctions (I am betting it will even extend to collecting data on race etc. that would even allow you to know the extent of discrimination), but individuals will be completely free to discriminate at will, and any law that prevented that discrimination would be an unconstitutional infringement of the individual's freedom. Add the outsourcing of public services to institutions that can discriminate and we are back to only a civil rights law era, but effectively a pre-Brown v. Board of Education era.

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