Of Leopards and Hypocrites
By adolescence, Bill Barr, Sam Alito, Stephen Miller, …, …, and lord knows how many other young boys, knew that they saw things somewhat differently than most. More, they felt that they alone knew how these things should be. Many of this grouping went on to graduate from some of our very best universities. Neither education nor anything else that happened in their lives seems to have altered their way of seeing these things somewhat differently than most others. By adolescence, the die was cast. It is hard to imagine that someone could graduate from the likes of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and come out with the mindset of a twelve years old; but, to a man, they did.
It wasn’t as if they had bent by home or parish schooling. More likely than not, they attended a really good prep school. There are few universities better than Princeton and Harvard. In other words, they were smart and well-prepared. It is as if though at university they inhaled, then promptly exhaled, the wisdom proffered them; did so with honors. Rather change, they would use their acquired scholarship as a weapon against a world that didn’t see things as they did. They knew that it was the world and the ages that got it wrong; that only they and others of like mind were right.
Many from the group have risen to positions of power. Barr, Alito, Miller, …, and …. Elon Musk come from this group. Just as Musk’s cars and rockets are products of his boyhood imagination; Alito’s Supreme Court decisions reflect his way of seeing things when he was about ten or twelve. Any teachings along the way about the necessity for separation of church and state were wasted on Sam Alito.
The phenomena is not gender bound. Federal District Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon was commissioned to the United States District Court for the Southern District on 13 November 2020, six days after then-President Trump had lost the election to President Joe Biden. Judge Cannon, owes her judgeship to the Federalist Society, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Judge Cannon is obviously very bright; was probably born that way. She is also well-educated. Unfortunately, Judge Cannon is neither honorable nor wise.
No doubt, Judge Cannon called upon both her good education and intellect while composing her decision to appoint a Special Master for Trump’s purloined secret papers (Trump v. United States ). Yet, the decision was neither wise nor scholarly. It was a rather poor rationalization for what she wanted to do. Her decision was not so much in accordance the law as it was with her ideology (one which she shared with the Federalist Society); and, her wish to do whatever she thought Trump wanted her to do.
Judge Cannon is but the tip of an iceberg. Judge Cannon was one of 226 Federal Judges nominated by former President Trump who were commissioned to the Federal bench. All 226 were promoted by the Federalist Society. Of late, the United States and its people owe the Federalist Society for a lot of things. None of which are good.
As with the luminaries listed above, the Federalist Society began with an ideology in search of legitimacy, or at least, a means of imposing it on America. First, they would seek out any weaknesses in those laws that stood in the way of the implementation of their ideology. Then, they would develop an alternate interpretation of such laws and widely propagate that interpretation under the guise of scholarship. With more than a little help from TV news readers everywhere, they have managed to give these constructed alternate interpretations some degree of acceptance; of perceived legitimacy. From balderdash to a majority on the US Supreme Court in less than forty years.
They named their interpretation, ‘Originalism’. What a crock! A crock of BS that the Constitution was to always mean what it meant in 1788; one that ‘Originalists’ alone were capable of discerning. De facto, declaring that their anointed Justices and Judges alone were capable of deciding what was, and what was not, constitutional. In the Heller, Citizens, Rucho, Shelby, and Dobbs decisions, the Federalist Society Justices have shown us that ‘Originalism’ means whatever they find necessary to justify a decision in accordance with their ideology. Seems ‘Originalism’ is, and always was, but a smokescreen for an ideology.
‘Originalism’ was a means for the Federalists to impose their ideology on the Nation. An ideology that allowed for limiting access to the ballot, denying others their rights, imposing their beliefs on others, …. Via control of court appointments and ‘Originalism’, they, an unelected minority, could rule the nation.
We now have a Chief and five other Justices on the United States Supreme Court who call themselves ‘Originalists’ who do not understand what those 1770 founders understood so very well — the essentiality, the necessity, of maintaining separation of church and state. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson*, George Read, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, …, et al must be churning in their graves.
Collaboratively, the Republican Party and the Federalists Society invented this ‘Originalism’ BS, then constructed the John Roberts Court with the intention of dismantling the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) Acts — two of America’s greatest achievements; of negating the 14th Amendment — the best thing to come out of the Civil War. And more. They are working a list! On to the handiwork of Frances Perkins and FDR, Ho! Can Justice Jackson, with help from Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, the three, with intelligence on their side, expose these Hypocrites? Make life a living hell for Sam and Clarence? Stay tuned. This could be a very interesting session.
*One of Jefferson’s to Kercheval in re Originalism:
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl246.php
did we omit Chief J Powell who is thinking shoot inflation first ask employment later?
The answer to the question is “no” the 3 real SOTUS members will not have any impact on the majority and based on Dobbs neither will Roberts. I am thinking that Kavanaugh could be a wild card, but he sure was not his own man in Dobbs.
Ken Melvin
I agree with you about Alito et al, but I have my own feelings about Harvard and the people who go there which raise questions about what “great universities” means. I suspect it means overweening ambition, superficial thinking shallow schoarship, and unconscious arrogance.
But most importantly I think you and I and everyone else also suffer from “I am right and everyone else is wrong except those who agree with me” thinking. The difference is that we are not in positions where what we think matters to other people.
There is no cure for this, but keeping it in mind might tend to reduce pointless and destructive argument. Of course any five Justices don’t have to worry about what anyone else thinks. And that is a problem for the rest of us.
Consider Justice Holmes “free speech does not give you the right to shout fire in a crowded theater,” but Eugene Debbs was not shouting fire in a crowded theater. He was protesting the draft, which is political speech and if that is not protected by the Constitution, what is? lap dancing?
Coberly,
Yes sir. Our thinking is entirely rational whereas their thinking is nothing but rationalizations. It is the good ol’ us-and-them-kabob on a grill. I will have mine over wild rice, if you please.
Seriously though Dude, there is a difference between those that pander and lie to secure power with some deference to needs of others rather than those that pander and lie only to manipulate others to their own ends. Unfortunately that difference is not so monumental as to secure a different political outcome for those of us that live within the domain of these powerful political forces. According to Lord John Acton this is not anything new under the sun.
Ron
no, knowing that we might be wrong does not relieve us of the duty to try to tell right from wrong and try to uphold the one against the other.
Coberly,
Not sure what our “no” disagreement is here other than the dichotomy between good and evil wherein good is almost never absolute, but evil can come pretty damn close to absolute. However, that extreme case does not generally apply to politics even here in the questionably good ol’ USA. The dichotomy between right and wrong rhymes with good and evil, but is different, more fuzzy grey and even less pure. God may forgive our sins since we actually care about those whose lives we harm as He judges us only on the goodness of our intentions, but voters will not. OTOH, if we were half as right as we like to think, then we would not be having this conversation and we would not have such blogs as where the conversations take place because all these problems would have long been solved.
However, if one does not believe in God, then there is no forgiveness for the social dysfunction that we have wrought.
Ron,
the “no” was agreeing with your “no.” btw god does not juge us. he waits patiently (many reincarnations) for us to figure things out. some never do.
it is our own love for what is bad for us that is “sin.”
If this doesn’t make any sense to you, it is probably because your “no” was implied, or I only assumed you were thinking that I thought that not being able to know for sure that we were right meant that we had no right to disagree with what we thought was wrong.
the “god…sin” bit is just my own theology. sometimes i feel the need to stop blaming god for the punishments we inflict on ourselves and others.
Coberly,
My formative years of training in both comparative religion and martial arts has deeply ingrained the concept of duality in my thinking. The key concept in the named simple symbol and a single sentence is at the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang
“…The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section…”
yeah. i ran into that about a hundred years ago. never thought of it in terms of martial arts (which gave my hands some ideas thy might not have figured out on their own).
much later i was struck by reading about Eve’s sin: she wanted to know good and evil.
“…A crock of BS that the Constitution was to always mean what it meant in 1778;…”
[That was a decade before it was written and ratified, so Lord only knows what it meant then. I believe they were thinking of making our George the king of the colonies instead of George III; our George I. ]
Ken,
Of course though I concur over the original intent BS. Rule by the whims of living men is bad enough, but no one should be ruled by dead men even approaching Halloween. Also, I was not a big fan of memorizing names and dates when I was in high school. However, a lot has happened to me since then, just as a lot happened in these British colonies between 1776 and 1788, but not near as much as happened between 1788 and 2022.
well, at the risk of both-sides-ism [i do not feel in the least wishy washy]
we cannot be bound by the past (Jefferson said that) but neither can we live without some respect for “the past” if only for the last Congress’ Environmental Protection Act, or Roe v Wade. We need predictability in the law, if only enough to recognize what might be truly bad in it and need changing. Just being able to change the law willy nilly because we won the last election is not a recipe for a happy country.
On the other hand worshipping the “Founder’s Intent” is a sickness of the mind if not a flagrant dodge for “what I say the Funder’s meant,” (oops, I meand Founders not Funders, but the truth will out) which just happens to correspond to what the bad guys who bought my seat want…that is, the ancient enemies of the Founders’ idea of freedom and justice for all. An Idea that was new in the world, and would take some working out, as they knew.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl246.php
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs. Let us, as our sister States have done, avail ourselves of our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates. By the European tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that period, then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other words, a new generation.
Melvin
is that Jefferson?
Ron
Lord Acton is worth looking up. What he says comforts me well, but is not immune from being misused by people with another agenda. Hell, even I can’t say anything that is always and eternally true, much less useful.
But the nice thing about Acton is that you don’t feel dirty after reading it. Can’t say the same after reading Alito.
Ken,
Your little outtake was OK, but the full letter from TJ added a lot. TJ was once my hero, but the outcome of the compromises made to get things going has had increasingly sour effects upon even the remote possibility of democracy from the start. Our republic is still better than a kingdom, but no where near what could be possible with modern communication now. TJ recognized the limitations of democracy accorded by the technology of his times in his letter, but the foundation established for the republic assured that even if times were different, then democracy would remain unavailable, at least premature of a long and difficult uphill struggle. This is not to say that freedom and justice for all will not prevail, but merely that it will still take several more centuries to occur.
Ron
i am not sure we will ever get to freedom and justice for all. but i don’t think that was because the Framers set out to assure we wouldn’t. If anything, they were the first best effort to put us on tht path.
modern communications seem to me to be making things worse.
Ken,
thanks, for some reason i did not see your 1:35 before I wrote my 1:46.
Coberly,
Yes sir. Acton was a giant among men in the mindfulness department. His famous “power corrupts” declaration can stand on it own, but is far richer when the outtake from the first letter is taken in the full context of his three letters to Archbishop Creighton. Acton was smarter than the average bear in the distinguishing right from wrong department, certainly in his day but sadly still today.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/acton-acton-creighton-correspondence
Acton-Creighton Correspondence
1887
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
In one of these 3 letters to Archbishop Creighton Lord Acton makes his famous statement about “power corrupts and absolute power absolutely”. He also makes other remarks about the proper role for moral judgments in history.
Copyright
The text is in the public domain.
“…I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science….”
[Most famous quote outtake from the first of three letter available at the link above.]
Ron
thanks. i am glad to see the famous quotes of Acton were contqined in a letter and not just isolated aphorisms that came unaccompanied out if his mouth as though from some Oracle.
I ended up contradicting myself in the “no” letter above. I was talking about two different things, but by the time I finished my comment I had lost track of that. happens. rest assured, when i said “no” i thought i was agreeing with your “no.”
Coberly,
Re: modern communications
If a four year attempts to drive a car and wrecks it, then the fault did not lie with the car.
Ron
re 4 yr olds driving cars
you get no argument from me.
on the other hand, if there were no cars there would be no four year olds driving on the streets
i was not suggesting, i hope, that modern communications were to blame for making things worse, only that they did. of course that is arguable. “things” have always been bad, even when kings and mobs did their thing by word of mouth.
i am at this very moment using modern communications myself.
A Republic if you can keep it.
And what of the Nineth Amendment? nineth amendment