A Clear and Present Danger

[hntnhole]

The battle lines are now being drawn, over an age-old struggle.  The forces of repression are running rampant through the US now, and we must be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.  A certain so-called Justice of the SCOTUS is attacking women's reproductive rights via a very strict "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, justifying his repressive views with the argument that since women's reproductive rights are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, these long-held rights laid out in Roe vs Wade, and guaranteed for 50 years now, are, in fact, unconstitutional, and thus to be thrown out.  This miserable wretch is attacking the basis upon which RvW rests, namely privacy rights, upon which rests our right to gay marriage also rests, as well as a number of other rights.  

While this outrage is scurrilous enough on it's face, it is merely a harbinger of more attacks on our freedoms to come.  No one believes for one instant that - if successful - the hatemongers will stop with repealing women's rights.  Already the reputable major media are remarking about how the forces of repression will be coming for gay marriage (which, of course, is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or it's amendments), and men who do what we do are sure to follow.  

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv.  So if I have made an error in the descriptive text above, my apologies.  What I am, however, is politically active, I've seen a lot, and this is the time to take a stand.  Get registered.  Vote.  Vote these hatemongers out of office.  Every election - from the most local to the highest offices in the land - are absolutely crucial now.  Take action.  Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.  Write to your representatives in Washington.  Join organizations that support progressive causes.  And, do not fail to VOTE.

[Cumfilledbottomboi]

Not only will they come for marriage but sodomy laws too. 

[fskn]

Well said, @hntnhole. A succinct editorial in the New York Times quotes Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had pointed out potential consequences of originalism, like treating Black people as non-persons, just as the founding fathers viewed them.

The editorialist reminds us that the Supreme Court has often voted against progress. We're not just talking old cases like Dred Scott, but also recent decisions, like ending federal supervision of voting rights.

I say that none of this is surprising. Nearly the majority of Americans vote Republican. The Republican Party is clear in its official policies against abortion, against contraception (both domestically and abroad), against homosexuality, and so on. Even though I believe such policies are nonsense, I'm glad that there is a party to represent people who hold those beliefs.

The Supreme Court has never represented, understood or cared about ordinary people. That isn't possible.

Membership is closed to all but the most highly-educated lawyers and judges. By way of example, I always realized that the deification of Ruth Bader Ginsburg was naïve. Of course I agreed with her writings, but Democrats ignored the reality that she, like all Supreme Court justices, lived completely apart from ordinary people, and had no firsthand knowledge of their struggles.

Appointments last for life. Democrats  ignored RBG's lack of humility; a humble person would have retired voluntarily so that a young replacement could be appointed while Democrats still controlled the Presidency and the Senate. States' growing awareness of opportunities to control the mechanics of federal elections, coupled with the evisceration of federal voter protections, means that the combination of a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate majority (to say nothing of the 60% majority once required to appoint judges and still required to pass non-budgetary legislation) is unlikely ever to recur.

People are now seeing, on one hand, what a near-majority of their fellow Americans have always believed about them, and noticing, on the other hand, the fundamentally non-representative nature of structures like the Supreme Court (and the Senate, too, where one senator represents 20 million people from California, who contribute an average of $85,000 per person to the economy, while another senator with exactly the same power represents fewer than 1.5 million people from Mississippi, who produce just $42,000 each, on average).

These structures are now locked in. Agreement on a federal constitutional amendment about anything has been numerically impossible for decades already. And originalist justices believe it's correct for government's role, its perspective, and its very structures, to be frozen in time. Americans are getting exactly the government they signed up for.

For me, the real tragedy is seeing economically underproductive parts of the country wrest control from economically productive parts. Texans produce 20% less than Californians, and Texas is productive, as red states go. If progressive social policies like abortion access, labor laws, high local minimum wages, public health, Medicaid expansion, and so on were bad for economic productivity, California's per-capita GDP would necessarily be the lower one.

I don't mean to single out any states. Many different states fit the patterns I've mentioned.

[BlackDude]

I’m not seeing how Dread Scott and Thurgood Marshall tie into this. 

[fskn]

1 hour ago, BlackDude said:

I’m not seeing how Dread Scott and Thurgood Marshall tie into this. 

Maybe search for the New York Times editorial, which is easy to find.

The editorialist explains, much better than I can, that the Supreme Court's anticipated decision eliminating the federal-level right to abortion does in fact reflect an "age-old struggle" (to borrow from @hntnhole's clear introduction) inherent to the institution.

The editorialist provides a scathing quote from Thurgood Marshall, who years ago exposed originalism for what it really stands for.

I will add that some other editorialists, and some legal scholars, are wondering whether originalism will now be used to eliminate the federal-level right of interracial marriage. That too is something the founding fathers would never have considered. They would not have been able to conceptualize it, considering that they believed that non-white people could not be citizens, were not people, and had no rights.

Edited May 12, 2022 by fskn

[fskn]

Sorry for another post, but I missed the editing window.

A US Senator, Mike Braun from Indiana (representing just 3.5 million people, each of whom produces just $62,000 on average) is now on-record saying that interracial marriage, just like abortion (in the leaked Supreme Court draft), should be decided by the states. I am actually happy that he had the courage to be honest about his position. Other Republicans are too shy to reveal their intentions to the rest of us.

[BlackDude]

5 hours ago, fskn said:

Maybe search for the New York Times editorial, which is easy to find.

The editorialist explains, much better than I can, that the Supreme Court's anticipated decision eliminating the federal-level right to abortion does in fact reflect an "age-old struggle" (to borrow from @hntnhole's clear introduction) inherent to the institution.

I read the article. I found it to be yet another attempt to use black peoples struggle to advocate for rights of other groups. Especially when many of these  groups advocated for, celebrated and benefited from the Dread Scott decision and other like it. 

We wont even get started on the anti-black fear mongering and propoganda around Roe v. Wade.

I don’t get why groups can’t use their own arguments and agreements without always trying to make some comparison to what Black people have gone through. Well I do know why. But that’s another story. 

[fskn]

@BlackDude, we'll have to agree to disagree. It doesn't seem that Thurgood Marshall, whose arguments against originalism anchor the editorial (if indeed you read the same editorial), represented groups (what groups?) that "can’t use their own arguments and agreements without always trying to make some comparison to what Black people have gone through."

It's not as if the editorialist, Charles M. Blow, equates the experience of seeking an abortion in a red state to being Black and a legal non-person as the founding fathers intended. He cites the legal non-personhood of Black people as just one example of a blindspot on the part of the founding fathers, and Dred Scott as just one example of the Supreme Court's history of regressive rulings. His other examples of regressive Supreme Court decisions have nothing in particular to do with Black people: forced sterilization of mentally ill people, internment of Japanese people during World War II, and upholding a sodomy law in Georgia as recently as 1986.

I would add that the focus of @hntnhole's thread, and also of the editorial I mentioned, is originalism, not race. Please consider leaving space for people to talk about originalism / keeping this thread on topic.

It might be a good idea to start a thread of your own where you could go into detail about your concern, which I think is that somehow the experiences of Black people are being misappropriated for purposes of criticizing the Supreme Court (?) or criticizing the Court's likely decision to eliminate the federal-level right to abortion. As a Black man myself, and because I enjoy learning about other people's perspectives, I'd be glad to hear more — in a separate thread.

Edited May 12, 2022 by fskn

[hntnhole]

11 hours ago, fskn said:

is unlikely ever to recur

unless people of honesty, character, altruism, empathy and all the rest get out to VOTE, in every election: the down-ballot races are at least as crucial as the Presidential elections.  As Tip O'Neill famously said:  "All politics is local".  

 

11 hours ago, fskn said:

The Supreme Court has never represented, understood or cared about ordinary people. That isn't possible.

Of course not.  Why?  Because Federal judges, and particularly SCOTUS nominees have always (until very, very recently) been drawn from the Ivy League (read: powerful, pale people) Institutions, whose only connection to POC is the fact that a number of their campus buildings were built by the same, and had no choice whatsoever whether to be a part of it.  More, even the brilliant young lady who just broke the color-barrier attended one of them.  Would she have had the chance had it been Howard, located in a city also largely built by the enslaved?  

 

11 hours ago, fskn said:

and Texas is productive, as red states go.

Your capacity for good manners is simply awesome .... I'm sorry to say I would probably have been far more blunt.

[hntnhole]

8 hours ago, fskn said:

They would not have been able to conceptualize it, considering that they believed that non-white people could not be citizens, were not people, and had no rights.

And this is the basis for repressions of every kind, tolerated, reinforced by many through the history of this nation.  This, excused by their perverted conception of their religion, which adherents now gladly embrace a whoremonger, caricature of a human being, without a shred of honesty in his enormous body, proven liar, and surely - if I believed in such things - the very spawn of the traditional "evil one".  I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore.

[ErosWired]

13 hours ago, fskn said:

Nearly the majority of Americans vote Republican.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that nearly the majority of Americans who vote vote Republican.

I believe we are living in a watershed intergenerational transition period in which an older generation is realizing its time is almost done, the world is changing around it, and the end of their ability to hold onto the world they knew is within sight. They are desperately trying to wind back the clock in an exercise that will ultimately be as effective as sweeping the tide back out to sea with a broom, because they are going to die and there is not one damn thing they can do about that.

These old, rich, pale men trying to ensure that the world keeps on doing what they say after they’re dead may make a great deal of trouble in the process, but another generation is rising now, one which polls suggest does not share their worldview and is very likely to simply say, “Fuck that noise,” and change the laws to suit themselves. Don’t believe me? Try raising a couple of twentysomethings and we’ll talk again.

My greater concern by far right now is Elon Musk buying Twitter and turning it into a no-holds-barred cage-match arena for misinformation, slander and lies in the name of free speech. There’s such a thing as one person having too much goddamn money.

[evilqueerpig]

That's why shy of adding more judges to SCOTUS, we need to have a maximum time of service or mandatory retirement.  Granted, when our nation was founded, life expectancy was lower, so lifetime appointments didn't seem a bad thing.  Of course, if men got pregnant, abortion would never have stood a chance at being illegal.

[onlyraw]

And when it comes time to vote - I know a lot of people (especially on the left) think - “oh that candid is not pure enough” or -“ there is no real difference between the democrat and the republican candidate”

and those arguments may well be very true … however I saw a great quote awhile ago

“A vote is not a valentine. You are not confessing your love for a candidate. It is a chess move for the world you want to live in.”

so yes I am sure there are some very good people in Maine who voted for Susan Collins with the understanding that the Republicans needed a few moderate voices- but Sen Collins is also one more vote for Majority Leader McConnell  (NOT a moderate voice)

so remember even if your specific candidate is not perfect- or even near perfect - remember who they will be voting for for speaker of the house or what party will be in control of the senate (where all the judges are  confirmed)

and yes it is “only” abortion rights now - admittedly something that doesn’t really impact most of “us” … but yes the same philosophy can do away with gay marriage and bring back the sodomy laws (which certainly DOES impact us)

So come voting day remember that clothes pins can be used for more than nipple play (or cbt) they can also be used to pin your nose while you vote for a democrat who you may find repugnant- but will keep in power the only party that will protect our rights 

[wyobtmbnk]

1 minute ago, onlyraw said:

So come voting day remember that clothes pins can be used for more than nipple play (or cbt) they can also be used to pin your nose while you vote for a democrat who you may find repugnant- but will keep in power the only party that will protect our rights 

Agreed

[hntnhole]

2 hours ago, ErosWired said:

Elon Musk buying Twitter

Well, don't use it.  I never joined Twitter or Facebook or any of those time-sponges.  I get enough crazy bullshit forwarded to me from friends to know if I'd partake, I'd turn into Don Quixote - railing against it all.  I'd much rather spend what computer-time I have here - on BZ - exchanging ideas, viewpoints with my Beautiful Barebacking Brothers !!!