On Supreme Court hearing on Feb 9, 2024

 

The authority to decide how elections are conducted was given to the states in the Constitution.  SCOTUS can leave it with the states to determine whether somebody should be on their ballot by just defining an insurrection for everybody. The court simply has to create a legal test for what is an insurrection, as they have with so many other issues.

Stop quibbling over the definition of insurrection. Let’s use our common sense!

We’re losing our vitality as a country when we can’t even call something that’s as plain as day a nationally televised insurrection, that resulted in hundreds of convictions, and that we have evidence that the president both planned and looked the other way when it was happening. 

And don’t forget Trumpster was impeached for trying to create an insurrection and overthrow the government.  And he very nearly was convicted - 57 in favor of conviction! 

 And what about the Dobbs decision which left it to the states? Let's at least be consistent! 

Do not undermine our ability to hold someone accountable who tries to illegally grab power . 

And to the court's whining about having to rule on this matter, Madame and Mr. Justice don’t take this job if you’re not willing to handle the big issues.  That's the job description.

US Supreme Court was very disrespectful toward the Colorado Supreme Court. We have a federal system. There are some exceptions when it comes to the Supreme Court but don't be so goddamn condescending.  Their counsel handled the justices questions very well, too.

Jan 6 unintended consequences, or not?

 

Jan 6 question – if the coup had succeeded what were their plans?  They would have seriously damaged the constitutional order.  Were they going to write a new Constitution – these jamokes, these political adolescents?  Such action often leads to unexpected calamity, and sometimes deadly consequences.  There was a high risk of a anti-democratic outcome.  So is this the sort of country you want to risk emerging?

1- Unequal justice – different laws for some, usually party in power and friends. Party preferences determine how you are treated, even in the courts

2- Elections Interference “even violating the secrecy of elections in order to identify citizens who oppose those in power”

3- Press freedom curtailed – “forbidden to publish newspapers which do not conduce to the national welfare”, or outright censorship

4- Faking gov’t economic data or distorting reports to the public

5- Suspension of individual liberties to “protect” the threatened State

6- Freedom of religion impaired for those who do not conform   “liberty for all religious denominations that don’t offend the morality and moral sense” of America

7- Suspension of the rights of unions and union members in deference to industrial supporters of the State

These have all happened before, tragically.  A successful coup could dismantle a 240 year old success story.

Those Dangerous Genius'

 

So now we have loosed the untamable AI in the world.  Advantages impress, but here sit those creators with dire warnings.  When someone actually begs for their creation to be regulated, you can smell real trouble.

What an aimless genius who would threaten us with this Frankenstein!  The mad glee of “it’s alive!” brings triumph and menace – all at once.

It seems no one strolls the hallways of these inventive folk and asks “yes, but should we build it?”  Does the light of these creations hold a treacherous dark side we have not explored?

It brings to mind those Facebook youths with no historical references to chill them about what bad people can do with their handicraft.  To pose a “what could Goebbels do with such tech power” question simply echoes in their unschooled skulls.

And those who developed neonics surely dodged any questions about the threat of killing the bees, insects, and our spring birdsong.  Perhaps the possibility was never on the meeting agendas. 

Is this the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper?

The STEM and the tree

 When your kids go off to college, advise them to go beyond their STEM or Business major in the courses they take. The 30 credit hours needed for a major leaves lots of room in the remaining 100 credit hours for literature, government and other subjects that make better, more informed citizens.

Madison Amendment - a focus on "militia"

There was little support for a standing army.  Patrick Henry’s June 1788 speech argued forcefully it was not necessary, and was dangerous to individual liberty.  Since the federal government was in charge of the militia under the Constitution, maybe Madison was saying to the states do not limit or infringe on the right of the people to bear arms, especially since it was in the interest of the national government to be able to regulate how the militia would be armed and organized once called into national service

Or maybe he wanted the states not to infringe on citizens' right to bear arms to facilitate a nationally called up militia.  

Alito opinion errors

 

This qualifies as merely a dissenting opinion to Roe.  Roe gives a 3 step test for how states should craft their legislation regarding abortion.  That is surely within the purview of the courts when reviewing legislation.  If you allow Mississippi to set up a test, why not the federal courts?  It is a privileges and immunities issue to give citizens some protection against the impact of a broad array of rules, and disparate impact, state by state, on a matter of private consequence.

It is true that no right to abortion appears in the Constitution’s text, but neither does the right to carry an AR-15, or authority for the FAA.  So are we to jettison all of the jurisprudence that has sustained the relevance of the Constitution because 5 people find Roe offensive?  Or should we heed Edmund Randolph’s guide to the drafters of the Constitution – “to insert essential principles only, lest the operations of government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accommodated to times and events”.  (The right to privacy is at least provided for in the 4^th amendment.)

Roe provides a standard for crafting state laws; it does not approve of abortion in all circumstances.  It does not prohibit states from passing laws that prohibit abortion.  With Roe gone, there will be no standard available to states in considering legislation.  What about exceptions for incest and rape?  What about other cases where the Court has intervened in state legislative matters to correct issues?  Are we reverting to the Reconstruction Court which disemboweled the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments?

Stand Up Boomers!

So now we know.  An inept and corrupt political class has nearly sundered our heritage.  Faction, that destroyer of republics past, about which James Madison warned us, has fractured and polluted our lives.  Citizens are dying and our national government struggles to marshal the necessary resources and cooperation to beat COVID.

Our parents and grandparents learned first-hand the cost of untethered political passions.  The impulse to dominate, to crush bodies and souls, was loosed on the world.  An entire civilization, astounding achievements, darkened by the hateful ideologies of Naziism and its accomplices.  Our greatest generation beat them back, at terrible cost, and bequeathed to us a country reclaimed from Depression, saved from tyranny, and rebuilt for the modern world.

Then we took over, the boomers.  In spite of high points and achievements of technical wizardry, medical advances that astonish, we neglected to sustain and defend the political structure and norms we enjoy.  We allowed our political parties to congeal into the factions that even Adam Smith warned us about.  We took our good fortune for granted.

Now we suffer from busted norms, the intrusion of fierce ideologues into the business of government.  We elect people incapable of governing.  Worse, they enter government with no intention of actually governing but only to promote a hard agenda that doesn’t allow for compromise.  Their disease of certainty has bedeviled humankind, and we boomers allowed all of this to happen on our watch.

We don’t even teach our children civics any longer, something our parents and grandparents would find disgraceful.  After all, America is built on the idea of informed citizens choosing good leaders, and making sure they follow the rules.  But civics, the Constitution, and history are neglected - and we inherit the wind.

We have only ourselves to blame; but it’s not too late.  A vast restoration project should follow upon the defeat of the COVID, including of our civic life.  Teach your children; teach your grandchildren what it means to be an American, and how to “keep” our republic.  Let’s not, finally, disappoint our Moms and Dads.