Wednesday, August 09, 2023

Old Enough To Remember “Freedom Fries” 🍟

The Tom Fittons of the world unite to back Trump. You don’t really hate to see it. God has a way of expressing God’s will through people not in positions of power. And not being much interested in controlling people, so much as being compassionate towards them. ETTD. Be careful what you ask for; you might get it:
Luttig, who founded the modern conservative legal movement off which former President Donald Trump appointed many of his own court nominees, was the jurist who warned former Vice President Mike Pence not to overthrow the results of the election and convinced him Trump's plans were illegal. 
"Judge, you told our colleague after the latest indictment came down last week, these are as grave offenses against the United States as a president could commit, save possibly treason," said anchor Poppy Harlow. "Remind our viewers. You are a conservative's conservative. Trump is winning by a mile in the polls. Republican officials are lining up behind him. What do you think has happened to your party?" 
"I'm not a political person, Poppy," replied Luttig. "Frankly, I don't care about the Republican Party at all, except to the extent that the two political parties in America are the political guardians of democracy in our country. American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties. So, today, in my view, there is no Republican Party to counter the Democratic Party in the country, and for that reason American democracy is in grave peril."
I’ll accept the claim, arguendo, that Luttig brought the arch-conservatism of our hometown to the nation. But I remember the arguments of my childhood against my then-nascent liberal opinions: “what happens if you win?” It was meant as a deterrent, because “conservative” inherently prefers the status quo. But the “modern conservative legal movement” which gave Trump so many of his nominees? Whether or not Luttig is responsible for that, it’s an ugly legacy and a clear sign of short-sightedness.

My own jurisprudential leanings are conservative because I respect the law is a blunt instrument, and changes have unintended consequences. Some of those we are seeing from the Supreme Court, and some of Trump’s judicial appointments, and it isn’t pretty. OTOH, I agree with the Judge: the GOP has ceased to exist as a political party. I’d say we’re seeing its death throes in Ohio, and Kansas, and even Florida. Who knows, even Texas may yet see the light.

But the excuse that you aren’t a political person?  After making yourself a TeeVee authority on constitutional law and the state of political parties? 

You can’t slice the baloney so thinly it only has one side. Time to take responsibility.
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1 comment:

  1. ntodd12:41 PM

    I'm quite conservative when it comes to software updates, much like lawyers and engineers are in their areas of expertise. NASA engineers (often at odds with NASA management) hate even fixing things that are clearly broken because of the potential of even worse unintended consequences.

    When there was a problem with particulates getting into the shuttle's fuel cells, causing them to shut down, engineers properly thought filtering would solve the issue. To add redundancy, they included 2 layers of filters. Then they discovered that 2 filters could trap some free hydrogen, which...could explode.

    As a related aside, a fix to the ECA was needed, and I'm glad they updated statutory language in 2022. But now I'm seeing the claim that "if Pence didn't have the power to unilaterally determine an election, why'd the Dems change the law?"

    And now we have a synthesis of the issue of changes and how conspiracies spring forth from misunderstandings by lay people...

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