Thursday, May 18, 2023

I…Ummm…(An Open Rant to Justice Gorsuch)

I lay out the history of this case only because it is so typical. Not just as an illustration of the quandaries that can follow when district courts award nationwide relief, a problem I have written about before. Even more importantly, the history of this case illustrates the disruption we have experienced over the last three years in how our laws are made and our freedoms observed.

Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighbor hoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.

And 3 million people died, and our healthcare system all but reached the breaking point (some could reasonably argue it did).  It doesn't change his analysis, so much as provide context for it.  And yeah, "civil liberties" is carrying a lot of baggage, there.  But I have to provide that context, because Justice Gorsuch doesn't.  It was, you see, all one big slippery slope whose only terminus could be the end of the world as we know it.  Or, at least, the end of democracy in America.

I am not making this up:

Doubtless, many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it. One lesson might be this: Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action—almost any action—as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force.* We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree.** Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties—the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes.*** We may even cheer on those who ask us to disregard our normal lawmaking processes and forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.

*Does he mean Trump?  Or Anthony Fauci?  Or the people in charge in the 50 state governments?  Or maybe the Chief Justice who, I presume, decided the Justices would meet only by Zoom, and not in chambers, for much of the duration of the pandemic?

**In Texas, Gov. Abbott (say what you will of his decisions) actually operated under laws passed by the Texas Legislature to account for such an emergency as covid-19.  I'm pretty sure all of the states had such laws, rather than declare their governors and health officials diktators with unlimited authority to save Rome from the crisis that was upon it.  50 times over.

***Again, authorized by laws allowing for emergency declarations.  And quarantine for public health is not an unknown practice in American history.  It was widely practiced into the mid-20th century, when modern healthcare was able to obviate the need for it.  Did I mention already that the contemporary healthcare system was on the verge of collapse during the darkest days of the pandemic?  Or that our POTUS was advocating ingesting bleach and somehow exposing your internal organs to ultraviolet light, as a means of cure?  There were a lot of quack cures loose, too.  Was government tyrannical in trying to protect us from those?  Are we free to make ourselves sicker and then demand the hospitals (especially the public, or "government" ones) heal us of our stupidity?

But maybe we have learned another lesson too. The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government. However wise one person or his advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people that can be tapped in the legislative process. Decisions produced by those who indulge no criticism are rarely as good as those produced after robust and uncensored debate.26 Decisions announced on the fly are rarely as wise as those that come after careful deliberation. Decisions made by a few often yield unintended conse- quences that may be avoided when more are consulted. Autocracies have always suffered these defects. Maybe, hopefully, we have relearned these lessons too.

Alright, you dumbshit motherfucker pontificating in your goddamned ivory tower, that tears it!  My wife worked as the assistant to the superintendent of schools during Covid.  She worked 12 hour days at her desk in this house because schools were closed to prevent the spread of contagion, and her boss followed every guideline issued by the CDC (who had no enforcement power, you dumbass.  You should know that much.) and the Governor of Texas and the Health Dept. of Harris County (also no enforcement power, and Abbott only told independent school districts what they should do; he didn't send the Texas Rangers around to be sure it was done, and he waflled so badly he made things worse).  They did the dead-level best they could between the competing interests of parents who wanted their kids in school in hazmat suits (one parent actually sent her child to school that way for a mandated state test that could not be administered at home) and parents who wanted their children back in their seats without so much as a handkerchief for when they sneezed.  You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground, and yet you pontificate about "autocracies" and "unintended consequences" and facing no criticism?  My wife fielded so much criticism aimed at her boss she damned near quit her job!  No matter what they did there was someone they couldn't please!  "No criticism"?  She still talks about the trauma of it. Godalmighty damn, you ignorant son of a bitch, don't you EVER assume facts not in evidence!  And this rant of yours disguised as a judicial opinion is completely fact and evidence free!  This school district worked doubly hard to keep the at-home school year from being a lost year, and became a model for districts around the country (no, literally) for how to recover from the shutdown, without which I'm quite sure even the Texas Medical Center would have looked like a post-apocalyptic horror movie.  You don't know fact one about how this fight against disease was conducted in this country, and you pontificate against the people who fought it.  FUCK YOU, YOU ASSHOLE!  Fuck your stupidity, fuck your arrogance, and fuck the horse you rode in on!

It wasn't a "concentration of power," you ivory towered shit; it was a concentration of effort to keep as many people as possible, adults and children, out of the hospital and off respirators and, especially, out of the grave!  You aren't writing a blog post, you goddamned fool, you're writing an opinion for the goddamned Supreme Court of the United States!  How can you so blithely show your ass like this?  What, are you proud of that?

Despite that law, the number of declared emergencies has only grown in the ensuing years. And it is hard not to wonder whether, after nearly a half century and in light of our Nation’s recent experience, another look is warranted. It is hard not to wonder, too, whether state legislatures might profitably reexamine the proper scope of emergency executive powers at the state level. At the very least, one can hope that the Judiciary will not soon again allow itself to be part of the problem by permitting litigants to manip- ulate our docket to perpetuate a decree designed for one emergency to address another. Make no mistake—decisive executive action is sometimes necessary and appropriate. But if emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others. And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.

Oh fuck you, I'm done.  I've gotten into arguments with drunks who made more sense than you.  You should be embarassed to have published this.  Written it, maybe, but then you should have tossed it in the shredder.  Your rhetorical crimes start with that ludicrous and unjustified statement on "civil liberties in peacetime" and end, not with a bang, but with a wet fart.  

You should be ashamed of yourself.  Justice Jackson joined your dissent when the stay in this case was originally granted.  She dissented to this disposition of the case now, too.  It's no surprise no one joined your dissent this time.
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