Two Views Of Protection Of Rights
The Supreme Court Has Always Been Terrible. In Chapter 2 of How Rights Went Wrong, Jamal Greene selects three examples of terrible cases: Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Lochner v. New York. These three cases are so blatantly horrible that no one can support their outcomes and be considered acceptable in academia. Or in polite society, if you ask me.
Greene sees Dred Scott as a case about who is entitled to rights under the Constitution.
At stake in Dred Scott were the boundaries of the political community entitled to the law’s protection and able to claim rights under it.
…
Chief Justice Roger Taney acknowledged that the Declaration of Independence had emphasized the “self-evident” truth “that all men are created equal.” But, Taney continued, “it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration.” P. 36.
Plessy is equally horrible. Henry Brown’s opinion says that being forced to travel in separate railcars isn’t a badge of inferiority but the “colored race” chooses to feel insulted.
Greene says that the Framers saw Constitutional rights as necessary to protect the rights granted by states and local governments from federal intrusion. On that theory, state and local majorities were free to grant or deny rights to people as they saw fit. The views of the Framers failed to protect people when those local majorities trampled on the rights of Black people and others. Local majorities can be just as tyrannical as any unaccountable monarch, and frequently are.
Reconstruction Era cases repurposed the 14th Amendment to protect capitalists from regulation by state and federal governments. Lochner is the example frequently given. The bakers of New York persuaded the legislature to pass health and safety laws concerning their work hours and other matters. Lochner sued, saying that the laws interfered with his right to contract, which he alleged was guaranteed by the Constitution. The holding, that the right to contract prevails over state and federal laws, lasted until the 1930s when Franklin Delano Roosevelt threatened to expand SCOTUS.
There were two dissents in Lochner, by Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Marshall Harlan. Holmes took the view that there are Constitutional rights, and these must be given maximum protection. But laws that do not implicate Constitutional rights are in the province of the legislature and must be respected and enforced by the courts.
For Holmes, the Constitution protected very few rights—and certainly not the right to contract—but those it protected, such as freedom of speech, it protected strongly. P. 54.
Harlan took the view that all rights, including those enumerated in the Constitution, must be respected. The question for courts is the extent to which rights are respected when they conflict with other rights or the rights of society. Harlan agrees that the Constitution protects the right to enter into contracts. But.
The right to contract “is subject to such regulations as the state may reasonably prescribe for the common good and the well-being of society.” P. 55.
The job of a court in a case like Lochner is not whether there is a Constitutional right to contract. It’s to determine whether the state is acting reasonably in regulating that right. Greene notes that it might have helped if the Courts had considered the right to labor, a right protected by political action .
Holmes’ views prevailed, for reasons we learn in Chapter 3. Greene sees this as the birth of what he calls “rightsism”, the fetish for rights that we see all the time now.
Discussion
1. I’ve skipped all the material that makes this chapter so persuasive. Greene gives detailed and clear descriptions of the cases, and of the backgrounds of Holmes and Harlan. This isn’t just a dry theoretical lecture, it’s a lively picture of important documents and the people who crafted them. It’s a good reminder that we are persuaded not just by logic but by the perceptions we have of the facts and issues in cases. I found myself persuaded that he was on the right track long before we got to the meat of the arguments.
2. I’ve tried to read Dred Scott and Plessy, but failed. The mindset of the writers is jarring even through the somewhat difficult language of that era. The bias is blatant. And yet I’m sure these judges were, in the words of William Baude about the current right-wing majority, “principled and sound”, with some blemishes.
Baude explains that all the recent controversial decisions “… rightly emphasized the importance of turning to historical understandings in deciding Constitutional cases rather than imposing modern policy views.” Of course, Dred Scott, Plessy, and Lochner are soundly reasoned and in accord with historical tradition. That’s not my idea of a good way to justify any Constitutional decision. Maybe it’s relevant that Baude is a member of the Federalist Society, the organization founded by Leonard Leo.
I discussed my view of good judging in this post. Start at “Let’s begin with this question” for the general discussion. Needless to say, it has nothing to do with anything taught by the conservative legal movement.
3. Lochner logic shows up in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership.
Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous job. With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. P. 595.
4. In The Nation That Never Was Kermit Roosevelt says that the meaning of the term “all men are created equal” changed through the efforts of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and many others. Greene does something similar with the idea of Constitutional rights. He explains the shift in our understanding of the Bill of Rights as protecting the power of the states from the central government, to our current view that it protects individuals from all government action.
Language and grammar change, sometimes quickly. So does our knowledge and understanding of history. That’s why originalism and textualism are suspect methods. I do not think the legal academy has given this enough attention.
Kermit Roosevelt is right — Lincoln transformed the rhetorical landscape by highlighting the Declaration of Independence. In an era where the very existence of the United States was at issue, to go back to the original document proclaiming the existence of the United States was critical.
In 1776, the issue was the relation of the colonies to the British crown, and the *united* view of the colonies was that “these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” In 1860, the issue was whether these United States were indeed united. Lincoln’s genius was to lift up the “united” language from the Declaration, as well as the “all men are created equal”, thus putting himself (and the cause of the Union) on the American moral high ground. To this, the South had no coherent response.
Lincoln had the bizarre idea that the United States in some mystical fashion predated both the Constitution and the Declaration. He had need of such mysticism to oppose secession with violence since secession was neither unconstitutional nor illegal.
At no time during the War Between the States was the existence of the United States itself ever at issue, despite Lincoln’s propagandistic claim to the contrary in the Gettysburg Address. Even Lincoln’s characterizing of the conflict as a “civil war” is disengenuous, since the goal of the Slave States was never control of the whole of the United States unlike in the English Civil War, the Russian Civil War, the Irish Civil War, or some others. No one refers to the Algerian War of Independence as the French Civil War, even though Algeria was a département of France.
Not sure about your understanding of history.
The confederacy declared war on the union by demanding surrender, not receiving it, and then firing shots at Fort Sumter.
Also, Lincoln believed if secession was successful, it would lead to other states deciding to leave the Union over time. “A house divided cannot stand.” Therefore, I do not agree that this was a propagandistic claim as you claim.
Lastly, your claim that the southern states had no goal to turn the rest of the United States into slave holding states is also not completely accurate. The southern states did everything possible to propagate slavery in increasing numbers of states since with western expansion, as the southern control of the Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court was weakening. The southern states even composed armies to attempt to overthrow Governments in central and south America as well as Cuba in order to increase the numbers of slave states.
In short, the confederacy was a toxic mixture of racism, exploitation, violence, and crass adventurism. My only complaint with Lincoln is how easy he wished to go in punishing the southern states and their leaders.
And in no way to undermine your points, but to reinforce them:
Harold’s pro-rebellion revisionism chooses to conveniently ignore the precursors to Civil War, especially but not confined to Bleeding Kansas.
The efforts mythologising and legitimising to this day the Confederate treasons, is much more than academic quibbling, but is a conscious, persistent and pernicious endeavour to undermine and delegitimise American democracy.
It leads one to wonder whether the world would have been a better place had there been a proper reckoning with the Confederacy- large scale court martials for the entire political leadership, and all the senior and middle ranking officers, with suitably condign punishments.
To add to your short list, treason.
Harold must have received their education in history from a Texas textbook, one of the notable contradictions in terms.
Those of my points that you have not ignored, you have misread.
1. A civil war is a conflict between two factions for control the entire state as in the examples I cited. At no time during the War Between the States did the Slave States have the military goal of seizing Washington D. C. The War Between the States was not a civil war any more than the American Revolution was the British Civil War. Lincoln’s claim otherwise in the Gettysburg Address was war propaganda.
The firing on Sumter did not indicate an intention of the Confederate government to overthrow the federal government. Just by the way, Lincoln had been warned by the military that Sumter was indefensible and the troops there should be evacuated, which Lincoln refused to do, because he needed a casus belli.
2. Prior to Secession, the issue of contention between the North and the South was indeed the extent to which slavery would be permitted in the new states. Indeed, the actual cause of the the Secession, in my opinion, was the threat of the loss of control of the federal government by the Slave States in the person of the new, anti-slavery president. Prior to Lincoln all presidents had been slaveholders, excepting only the Adamses. Through the anti-democratic provisions of the Constitution (the Three-Fifths Compromise, the structure of the Senate, the Electoral College, the Second Amendment, etc.) the Slave States had been assured of controlling the presidency, the Congress, and the courts. Nevertheless, Secession itself rendered the issue of the control of the federal government beside the point.
3. Secession was not forbidden by the Constitution despite the fact that the threat of secession had been apparent under the Articles of Confederation, or more fully, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Why had the Framers both dropped any reference to perpetual union and omitted to forbid secession? For the simple reason that the Constitution would certainly not have been ratified had they attempted to outlaw secession. After all, the founding document of the republic is, in its entirety, a defense of the natural right of secession.
4. In fact, it’s apparent that after the end of the War the federal government was forced to recognize the fact that secession was neither unconstitutional nor illegal when it declined to prosecute Davis, Lee, and the other Southern leaders for treason or any other crime.
Reply to Harold Bridges
August 4, 2024 at 12:02 pm
Item 4: you’re living a post-insurrection and sedition history right the fuck now. Do you see the leaders getting prosecuted?
Do you think this has been a matter of recognition that what they did leading up to and upon January 6 was constitutional and legal?
Your apologia reeks.
Jubal Early might agree with so heavy a reliance on Texas textbook history, as he and modern scholars might object to so narrow definition a of civil war.
A conflict extensive enough to be called a civil war always involves an insurrectionist group that claims independence from the authority of the de jure government, as well as the right to militarily oppose it. Their control a subset of the state’s territory and population is a given.
DC and Richmond were the respective political and military capitals of the North and South. Both were targets of opposing forces. Several battles were fought in DC’s environs, including the First Battle of Bull Run and Jubal Early’s desperate attack on DC itself in 1864. Had the South been able, had it not lost at Gettysburg, for example, it would have captured Washington and reunited the Union under the slaveholders’ Confederate flag.
Harold Bridges
August 4, 2024 at 12:02 pm
Point 4 “in fact, it’s apparent that after the end of the War the federal government was forced to recognize the fact that secession was neither unconstitutional nor illegal when it declined to prosecute Davis, Lee, and the other Southern leaders for treason or any other crime”
Is a particularly bogus point. The non-prosecution of Davis er al was not on the basis of any acknowledgement of a legal difficulty or Constitutional lacuna.
Have you read Texas v White (1869) ?
It disposed of your point 3 (the constitution wouldn’t have been ratified if it didn’t allow secession)
Harold
Your persistently repeat variations of this argument ;
“Even Lincoln’s characterizing of the conflict as a “civil war” is disengenuous,
•since the goal of the Slave States was never control of the whole of the United States•” (my empasis)
It is your argument which is disingenuous since you (without citing respectable academic authority ) choose to define civil war in an unduly narrow manner, apparently for deceptive rhetorical and propagandist purposes.
James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as
“a violent conflict within a country
fought by organized groups
that aim to take power at the center *or in a region*
or to change government policies”
Ann Hironaka further specifies that:
one side of a civil war is the state.
Stathis Kalyvas defines civil war as
“armed combat taking place
within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign entity
between parties that are subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities.”
The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is contested by academics.
You also elide this disingenuous definition with a bogus etymological argument which I deal with in a different comment
Harold, I believe that you are entirely correct, although the issue is mightily clouded for near everyone by the thoroughly reprehensible nature of the economic basis of the states that constituted the CSA.
The right that seems to be entirely forgotten by Americans in the ensuing melee is the fundamental right to self-determination. The USA itself was founded by acting on that very principle, breaking away “illegitimately” from its “rightful” governance (as the British Crown would have put it, as indeed did many citizens of the colonies).
The continuing use of emotive words like “treason” in this context is particularly (and perhaps unintentionally) revealing, because it shows that for many, both then and since, the fight for emancipation was conflated with, secondary even to, a determination to thwart any repetition of the same self-assertion of agency as in 1776. For them, emancipation was a convenient rallying-cry. As the subsequent centuries of continuing travails of black US citizens rather painfully demonstrates.
That the CSA had the right of agency there is no doubt. The fact that its existence depended economically upon its own obnoxious denial of human rights does not detract from that principle. And what policies of internal and external relations a surviving CSA would have pursued between then and now we can never know, so can offer no evidence for judgement. We might as well wonder what better policies a remnant USA might have pursued, free of the toxic effects of a slavery-sympathetic South.
Treason is the appropriate word for armed insurrectionists, who wage war against their government. It’s a correct legal and political usage. There’s nothing unintended about it. Calling it an emotive artifice itself clouds debate.
Southern society, politics, and laws were built around its slave economy and the small wealth elite that benefited from it. Calling the maintenance of that society through war a mere act of self-determination- while claiming to abhor its effects on the majority of the South’s population – is audacious but unsupportable.
To say that the consequences of a Southern victory are unknowable ignores that we already know many of them, courtesy of Jim Crow. A victorious South would have robustly expanded them, if for no reason but to pay for its war. Predictably, the South would also have been less tolerant of its Northern territory, in a united Confederacy, than the North was in accepting its reunited Southern states.
Your statement that I have ignored and/or misread your statements are not correct. I fully understand your perspective as a person born to a southern family and who has lived in the south most of my life. I have met people like you over the years who argue these an other similar views.
I will counter each of your points in turn:
1). I know of no qualified historian who does not consider the war as a “civil war.” Please cite one know and qualified historian who has that view?
The confederacy attempted several times to capture Washington DC. This is a fact.
The American Revolution was between people who had been born and lived their entire lives in the north American and Britain. Specifically, the people in the colonies had virtually no connection with Britain.
When you say that the firing on Fort Sumter did not indicate the intention to overthrow the Federal Government, frankly how do you know the intent? The southern leadership openly stated that if they could overthrow the Union, then slavery would be protected forever.
When Lincoln or anyone in the Union military thought that Sumter was indefensible is not relevant. It was Union territory with signified by an American flag.
You skipped over the part that by firing on Sumter, was a clear act of war – period.
2. Again whether secession was a legal or illegal act is open to debate, and yes the south had too much control over Federal affairs for far too long, and we are still challenged by part of the country who have backward viewpoints. Nevertheless, when the confederacy fired on Sumter, that stated the war.
3. You say that secession was not “explicitly” forbidden by the Constitution. Again, I think there are scholars would be disagree with this statement. I certainly do. The framers made all kinds of compromises, some good, some bad, in order to form enough states into a Union that would have any chance to survive in a hostile world. As you undoubtedly know, many southern frames believed slavery was a horrible institution that would quickly die out.
When you say “After all, the founding document of the republic is, in its entirety, a defense of the natural right of secession,” is not correct. There is nothing in the founding document of that sort.
4. There were many complicated reasons that Davis and others were not prosecuted. Perhaps most importantly, the Union wanted to move on and most of the country wanted to forget about the war. The war had set back the south decades in advancement. Moreover, these confederates would have had to been charged and prosecuted in former confederate States with juries composed on both confederate sympathizers and southerns who had a grudge.
One person’s “treason” is another person’s “liberty”. The very origins of the USA itself attest to that. The winner writes the history. Even if many these days have convenient amnesia, the founders knew that reality very well. As Ben Franklin observed as events were unfolding, “We either hang together or we hang separately”. In the first case figuratively, and in the second case literally. As “traitors”. Instead they are revered as “liberators”. So phooey to casuistry over terms like this. They are merely self-entitled implicit assertions of ownership achieved by military might, not by right.
Like justice, the right to self-determination is indivisible. But as always, there are none so blind as those who will not see (especially those who are in power).
Yes, the right of self-determination does go to the heart of the matter. All the pious invocations of democracy based on the consent of the governed lost their validity in 1865, apparently without most Americans noticing.
The emancipation of the slaves was never a motivation for the war. Lincoln was quite clear that he didn’t care a fig for the slaves, the biggest moral issue of the day. The idea that an army of white volunteers could have been assembled at that time or at any other in the US history to protect Black people is ludicrous on the face of it. Lincoln’s hesitation on the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation was in part based on an expectation that the desertion rate in the Union Army would increase as a result, which is indeed just what happened.
Reply to Harold Bridges
August 5, 2024 4:20 am
This country has been a democracy which — unlike an autocratic monarchy — means voters can change both government’s size and reach and what government does. Voting is an expression of applied consent.
The southern states could have changed what they didn’t like by voting. Not enough votes compared to the north? Ensure every human in the south had suffrage.
But that’s the entire point, isn’t it. The south didn’t want to use constitutional democratic means because the key demographic with power would not have retained it.
Your continued arguments look like filibustering as a means to DDoS this thread.
Harold Bridges
August 5, 2024 at 4:20 am
Are we playing bogus trope bingo?
To Harold Bridges,
You might want to re-read (read?) the Declarations of Causes of secession.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states
Tangential to the central issue of Harold’s apologia for the “legal and constitutional nobility of the Southern Cause”(my sarcastic but accurate paraphrase of Harold’s hypotheses) is this point:-
“No one refers to the Algerian War of Independence as the French Civil War, even though Algeria was a département of France.”
You are correct that no-one refers to the Algerian war of liberation as a civil war. Nor does anyone make the gross historical error of comparing Algeria’s relationship with France as similar in any respect to the relationship of the rebel southern states individually or collectively with their federal Constitutional Sovereign, the USA.
Algeria was conquered by a French monarchical government
The initial conquest occurred over the period 1830-47, resulted in the deaths of approximately 1 million Algerians civilians , and amounted to a genocide.
Following the establishment of the 2nd Republic in 1848 Algeria was absorbed into Metropolitan France initially as 3 Departments.
The conquest wasn’t over and frequent insurrections were crushed.
1852 Napoleon III second empire strengthened the role of the military in government of the territories and gave a new boost to conquest.
Between 1860-1870, Napoleon III treated the territories as an independent Arab Kingdom, albeit a client state of France, ie militarily subjugated.
The French colonists objected to this policy and the restrictions it placed on European Colonisation. The policy collapsed under that pressure and the fall of the French Empire.
The so called pacification of Algeria continued till at least 1903, but with massacres and explosions of tribes and families occurred afterwards.
The government of Algeria, its political and social order was the Hegemony of the Colons, with systematic oppression of the Arab population.
So the bits of history where Algeria could be likened to the South, has nothing to do with your self serving distortion of supposed constitutional niceties.
Slight correction
The last part of the Algerian War conflicts ie summer 1961 to spring 1962, is referred to as a civil war:
“During the summer of 1961 the OAS and the FLN engaged in a civil war, in which the greater numbers of the Muslims predominated.”
I never thought I’d see a Lost Cause post at EW.
“At no time during the War Between the States…”
Please proceed, Mr. Foote…
Reply to Harold Bridges
“Lincoln had the bizarre idea that the United States in some ‘mystical fashion’ predated both the Constitution and the Declaration.”
Yes….listen carefully to The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Something about…His truth marching on…very mystical.
From which ivory tower has this discourse fallen from?
John Brown’s body (still) lies a-mouldering in the grave
Harold’s use of the term “War Between the States” is a dead giveaway to his mindset and prejudices. Don’t need to go any further.
It is only to a coarse mind that any disagreement must be due to prejudice and not reason. Not only have I given reasons for my opinion, but the fact of the matter happens to be that I detest slavery and the provisions of the Constitution protecting it with which we continue to be saddled to this day.
Slavery was a moral question, but secession was just a legal and constitutional issue.
Oh, my. Sure, slavery was moral question. Of more immediacy, it was the bedrock of the Southern economy – and a good chunk of the North’s. It was the foundation of its wealth, and its social, political, and legal order.
Defining “secession,” by which I assume you mean war, as a mere legal and constitutional question seems a tad Jesuitical. A lot of people died and had their lives ruined over it.
Reply to earlofhuntingdon
August 4, 2024 at 1:29 pm
He’s utterly ignoring the reason for succession itself, as if succession occurred in a vacuum, as if virgin birthed. I don’t know how much more codswallop I can handle in this thread.
You’re on the losing side here, as you were in 1861-65.
Why are you defending the War of the Rebellion?
Harold wrote:
“The firing on Sumter did not indicate an intention of the Confederate government to overthrow the federal government”
South Carolina Militia artillery fired from shore on the Union garrison.
Harold wrote:
“It is only to a coarse mind that any disagreement must be due to prejudice and not reason”
Ad hominem is logical fallacy, however disguised.
In response to Mike Stone:
1. Apparently you find the Argument from Authority persuasive, but I do not. As a matter of history, it is worth noting that the term “Civil War” did not come into general use to refer to the conflict until the 1890s prior to which “insurrection”, “rebellion”, “War Between the State” were more popular.
In common parlance the term “civil war” is often used to refer to any conflict between the citizens of the same state, but that usage fails to make an important distinction between two kinds of internecine conflict. The first is of the English, Russian, Irish, Angolan, etc. type, which is that two factions contend for complete control of the state. The other is a war of independence. While the historians whose opinion you would like to regard as dispositive do not use the term “civil war” with the precision that I believe is required, nevertheless there is no historian that holds the view that the war objectives of the Confederacy were to occupy and subjugate the Northern States to establish a new national government to the Southerners’ liking. That would have been ridiculous on the face of it then and now. The only rational way to view the American “Civil War” is that it was a failed war of independence. That fact was not changed by the firing on Sumter or raids on Washington or into Pennsylvania and Maryland.
However, Lincoln’s government had a need precisely to deny that the Southerners were engaged in a second War of Indepence, since that goal would have been legitimized by the foundational document, the Declaration of Independence (not the Constitution as you apparently misread above) which, in its entirety is an argument for the natural right of secession.
2. The firing on Sumter did start the fighting. It’s clear now that Lincoln manipulated the situation at Sumter to produce the casus belli that he was seeking, which by the way implies that mere secession itself was not clearly a sufficient cause of war in itself. Lincoln was continuing what was to be a long American tradition of initiating war by getting itself fired on, as in the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and the First Iraq War, to name a few.
3. The Constitution clearly does not forbid, or even mention, secession, which, as I pointed out, is a surprising omission, since the issue had already appeared under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. You engage in hand-waving on this point, since you do not cite whatever text supposedly forbids it. Your Argument from Authority is not effective here either.
4. You are evidently unfamiliar with the history of the attempted prosecution of Jeff Davis for which I refer you to “Secession on Trial: the Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis” by Cynthia Nicolleti. It’s a complex story, but the decision to abandon the prosecution essentially came about because the prosecutors realized that since Davis would have to be tried in Richmond under his Sixth Amendment rights, no jury there would convict him resulting in an undermining of the federal government’s contention that secession was illegal.
My argument is for a clear-eyed view of the War and especially the lying of the victors. As I have said I have no enthusiasm for the South then or now. The Union would have better far better off without them if Lincoln had let them go.
If secession was neither illegal nor unconstitutional then after secession the citizens of the Confederacy were no longer subject to US domestic law, including treason. To those who regard such considerations as mere pettifoggery I invite to consider the possible end to the rule of law after the November election.
Harold Bridges
August 5, 2024 at 1:43 am
Apparently you find condescension an attractive way of defending the belligerence of slaveholders and their lackeys
“1. Apparently you find the Argument from Authority persuasive, but I do not. As a matter of history, it is worth noting that the term “Civil War” did not come into general use to refer to the conflict until the 1890s prior to which “insurrection”, “rebellion”, “War Between the State” were more popular.”
Citation ???
Let’s try this one — which even you might consider a not uncongenial, indeed gentlemanly source
https://www.etymonline.com/word/civil%20war
“battles among fellow citizens or within a community,” from civil in a sense of “occurring among fellow citizens” attested from late 14c. in batayle ciuile “civil battle,” etc. The exact phrase civil war is attested from late 15c. (the Latin phrase was bella civicus). An Old English word for it was ingewinn. Ancient Greek had polemos epidemios
Early use typically was in reference to ancient Rome. Later, in England, to the struggle between Parliament and Charles I (1641-1651); in U.S., to the War of Secession (1861-1865), an application often decried as wholly inaccurate but in use (among other names) in the North during the war and boosted by the popular “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War” series published 1884-87 in “Century Magazine.”
[then long quote from Basil L. Gildersleeve, “The Creed of the Old South,” 1915 which includes
“ The war between the States,” which a good many Southerners prefer, is both bookish and inexact. “Civil war” is an utter misnomer. It was used and is still used by courteous people, the same people who are careful to say “Federal” and “Confederate.” “War of the rebellion,” which begs the very question at issue, has become the official designation of the struggle, but has found no acceptance with the vanquished”
Who is Basil L Gildersleeve?
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve (October 23, 1831 – January 9, 1924) was an American classical scholar. An author of numerous works, and founding editor of the American Journal of Philology, he has been credited with contributions to the syntax of Greek and Latin, and the history of Greek literature.[1]…
After service for the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War, during which Gildersleeve was shot in the leg, he returned to the University of Virginia.[4]
How odd that Jim Crow became a pervasive formalized arrangement about the same time that you say the Civil War became the preferred term for the War of Northern Aggression, which also corresponds to the start of American higher education’s formalization and rapid growth. Plessy v. Ferguson was also handed down in 1896. As for pettyfogging, the archaism reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn.
Rayne, I kinda hate to say it, but I think you should leave these vile posts up. They’re very good reminders of a particular kind of thinking, the weird, creepy circumlocutions of logic and fact employed by modern conservatives to work their way around basic definitions of words like ‘civil war’ or well-known historical knowledge like what caused the civil war – that is, an argument about slavery in which the south was on the side of unholy moral bankruptcy.
You can see the same abandonment of the principals of logical thought, and the dedicated effort to ignore real history and science in any conservative ‘apologia’ (and yes, they should apologize, even though that’s not what ‘apologia’ means.)
It’s also a worthwhile reminder that modern conservative thought (at least in the U.S.) is all about Whiteness and the desperate need of deranged, cowardly people to have an inferior class. I’d also note the rather bizarre idea that ‘being truly American’ is inherent in skin-color rather than culture.
As to Mr. Bridges, if he truly believes in equality and despises prejudice perhaps he should STFU and reflect on how poorly he was educated, (maybe if he is religious with a side order of what the Bible says about the ‘foreigner in your midst,’ like maybe Leviticus 19:34.)
As for myself, I call it the Treasonous Slaveholders Rebellion.
Reply to: Harold Bridges
August 5, 2024 at 1:43 am
“ 3. The Constitution clearly does not forbid, or even mention, secession, which, as I pointed out, is a surprising omission, since the issue had already appeared under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.”
That should have been your first clue. As well as showing one of the differences between a confederation of independent sovereign states and a constitutional republic, where the state(s) in being admitted into the union require they give up that sovereign right to arbitrarily dissolve the relationship. Besides, if that was an unintended omission, it would have been added with an amendment.
IMHO based on years of working with lost causers and studying the machinations occurring at Appomattox Courthouse the day after Lee’s surrender, is that the Lost Cause would have not taken hold had US citizens fought against the women’s hate groups that formed during the war. While people claim the Ladies Memorial Auxiliaries sprang up after the Civil War, they were already in place during the conflict and became the torch bearers of hate when Lee was defeated.
These LMA’s morphed in the United Daughters of the Confederacy who kept the racist hearths burning in the South and they really found their calling when black men returned from WWI. These hate groups have proved to the the backbone of support that ensured the South’s lies would be perpetuated. (Fort Bragg was established on September 30, 1922)
I will do a little more research into whether current Women’s Studies curricula even mention the LMA’s or the UDC, but this writing seems to be the foundation for Harold’s belief set.
https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/04/twisted-sources-how-confederate-propaganda-ended-souths-schoolbooks
in reply to Shadowalker:
The omission of any reference to either secession or “perpetual union” in the Constitution is indeed a tell, but not the kind that you imagine. In my opinion, the Framers didn’t dare forbid secession since the Constitution would never have been ratified had they done so. Hence, there is nothing in the Constitution that requires states admitted to the Union to foreswear any right to secede. Indeed, in 1814 during the war with England some of the representatives at the Hartford Convention were planning to propose secession of some Northern States. The war ended before any such action could be taken. So, it would have been news to the generation after the ratification of the Constitution that they had somehow lost in the interim their natural right of secession assured to them by the Declaration.
In any case, the Tenth Amendment assures to the states that what is not forbidden is permitted, including secession.
If anyone close to President Joe Biden reads this, please pass along for his consideration: LOCK THE DOORS.
https://www.rawstory.com/news/or-what-experts-snap-on-neil-gorsuch/
‘Or what?’: Experts snap back at Neil Gorsuch after he tells Biden to ‘be careful’
David McAfee
“Journalist Jim Stewartson said, “Neil Gorsuch is a fraud who lied in his confirmation hearing and was only installed after Mitch McConnell *changed the number of Justices on SCOTUS from 9 to 8*.
“If [President Biden] allows them back in the building, they WILL overthrow the election,” he added. “LOCK THE DOORS until next Congress.”
…….
https://www.mind-war.com/p/lock-the-doors-zoom-noon-pst-3pm
Lock the Doors Zoom…
We must learn from history, or be doomed to repeat it.
Jim Stewartson
Jul 07, 2024
“1863: Lincoln ignores Dred, issues Emancipation Proclamation & Congress EXPANDS SCOTUS
“The President should issue an Executive Order shutting down the Supreme Court building until the beginning of the next Congress when Democratic majorities can impeach criminal Justices, expand the court, and create term limits.”
…………….
https://www.rawstory.com/get-pretty-wild-jd-vance-urged-republicans-to-ignore-courts-and-do-what-they-want/
‘Get pretty wild’: J.D. Vance urged Republicans to ignore courts and do what they want
“Lochner logic shows up in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership.
Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields … ”
Oddly, the same Law and Economics crowd doesn’t ask why, if there is a worker shortage, the owners of these businesses don’t raise the wages to a market clearing price, rather than running to K Street or the courthouse for an intervention.
There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch for thee but not for me.
“If only those young kids would work for free while I train them on how to do the work, things would be much better for all concerned.”
Better still, turn secondary education and even university education (except for the elite) into job training paid for by taxpayers, students, and parents. With the side benefit that the population will remain forever unaware of larger issues that might lead to activism.
They’re already doing that, while withdrawing much of the taxpayer funding for higher education – while increasing state funding, through vouchers, for private secondary education. An additional side benefit is that having withdrawn state aid, those job-trained youth will be forever in debt, which makes it easier to keep them in line.
It’s all about “parental choice” over “government oppression” and “job killing regulations.”
And don’t tell me about vaccines or helmets; I know what’s best for my little MAGA.
Why do you hate liberty so much? /s
In the view of Project 2025’s authors, if there are dangerous jobs to fill, young people should be encouraged to fill them. The guardrails they rely on are “training” and “parental consent.” LOL
Those guardrails are Dixie cups in the hurricane winds driving capital to extract profit. The authors attempt to distract from that by using the context of a family-run businesses. But even parent owners of small business need to pay the rent, stay in business, and out of poverty. They have a conflict in determining whether to allow their children to engage in dangerous work. That’s why there are government regulations to restrain them.
Training is also undefined. Consider that some states allow adults to own and use a gun with zero training, while others mandate a week or two of supervised instruction. But what training would prepare a child, or even an adult, to handle a ridiculously fast-moving chicken processing line, with knives, machinery and guts whirling about? Young minds do not develop adult reasoning until the late teens. It’s one reason for age limits to obtain a driver’s license. Presumably, toppling those age limits will be next.
Project 2025’s reasoning is as full of holes as a Trump financial statement. In reality, theirs is a ruthless attempt to break into an unused pool of cheap labor, regardless of the cost. Upton Sinclair wrote, The Jungle, about meat processing in Chicago, c. 1906. After more than a century of government trying to rein in capital’s hunger to employ anyone to do anything for a pittance, Project 2025 and Republicans are all-in on child labor. Family values be damned.
It’s a safe bet that none of the people who put “Project 2025” together would let their own children work in a dangerous job. It’s for “Those People” – the ones who aren’t wealthy white conservatives.
We already have proof — need only watch for the reports of businesses which have been busted when children were injured on the job.
Meat packing is a particular example, and it’s not just the business which benefitted. I eat more vegan meals because of this.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department
Verdad.
Please forgive me if you’ve safely moved on from thinking about her but remember this?:
“Arkansas Gov. Sanders signs a law that makes it easier to employ children”
Kaitlyn Radde
NPR
MARCH 10, 2023
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-huckabee-sanders
The lede waters down what she did, imho.
Reply to Clare Kelly
August 4, 2024 at 1:04 pm
She’s a monster. Can’t help think of one child worker who lost their hand. You can bet Huckabee Sanders doesn’t want to pay a cent for that child worker’s future care and training.
“Black jobs.”
There will always be willing ‘business’ that support such a regime envisioned in the transition document known as Project 2025.
Who does anyone suppose built concentration camps, serviced them, benefitted from their free labour?
I have told MAGAts I’ve known: “The Republicans had their heart’s desire in this country, all the things they’re whining about, and struggling for. Before the Pure Food and Drug Act; before any worker safety laws. Just read ‘The Jungle’, and ‘How the Other Half Lives’. People had to fight and die to wrench control away from such ‘fine people’.”.
And let’s not forget the exception to slavery for prisoners. In my younger days, I saw chain gangs out on the highways cutting the grass manually with sling blades.
Me too.
“New California law to make it easier for former inmate firefighters to turn pro
It will streamline the process to expunge their felony records, helping clear the way to pursue careers in the field.”
NBC News
September 11, 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/proposed-california-law-would-make-it-easier-former-inmate-firefighters-n1239833
There is a lot more to be done, a bit held up in legislation.
Californians are grateful to these firefighters and support further action on their behalf.
Two groups of folks provide the “extra support” to the professional firefighters across the West: prisoners in minimum security prisons and college students. The former can often earn extra “time off for good behavior” and the latter can earn a whole lot of money (plus room and board while fighting fires) and be too exhausted to spend much of it.
Of course, when the fire season extends past August, the students go back to school and governors have to start calling out the national guard.
From a recent KQED Forum show:
No wonder they want lots of children. As a great job creator once told us, “Arbeit macht frei.”
Headline :10 states roll back child labor laws. That’s where conservative leaders are taking us – back to Dickens era.
we will have labor shortages if we toss out 20 million illegal looking people so we’ll have to force people to remain working longer (by reducing Social Security) and encouraging child labor, even if dangerous.
Longer term we’ll have to increase the labor force by outlawing abortions, restricting birth control, imposing tax penalties on those not providing children to the work force – and maybe yanking their voting rights as Vance alluded to. It’s time to send those miserable cat ladies to the delivery rooms.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/national/2023-10-20/from-arkansas-to-new-hampshire-states-are-rolling-back-child-labor-laws
This is much bigger than just the republicons trying to destroy any regulations in the U.S.
These are frequently multi-national companies that will use whatever venue allows them to exploit the resources (including children) to make a profit.
My favorite example is fish and shrimp harvesting in South-East Asia. The owners of these enterprises and operators of their boats care zero about human life. Multiple tales about sick and or injured workers being thrown overboard with no records kept.
I frame the conflict in these terms: The right to be an asshole – sometimes necessary, as reluctant as I am to admit that, vs the right to be free from the ravages of assholes.
Conservatives are almost always on the side of assholes.
Yet I am amazed that so many people in this country, who stand to be at the receiving end of the ravages, are the loudest supporters of the efforts to dismantle the social fabrics in place for their advantage. They’re told that public schools are a form of communism and immigrants are going to soak off Social Security, so they support the ideas to get rid of them. All to the delight of the richest 5%.
If I may, and not by way of criticism: I see this argument a lot, and I often lapse into it myself; the idea that the folks who are at the receiving end of oppression are somehow not seeing that they are acting against their own self-interest. I have to catch myself, and recognize that I’m framing the argument the very way that my unregulated-free-market interlocutors would, and so I’m actually on their side, not my own.
It seems to me possible that humans are not rational, profit- or utility-maximizing machines, but rather imperfect organisms who act and react from admixtures of thought, emotion, culture, context, etc.
I guess I want to try harder to get out of the habit of seeing everything through the Econ 101 lens.
Well said. It’s likely that their perception of what’s best for themselves and maybe the rest of us is not the same as our own.
I tend to think we all benefit from cooperation and mutually beneficial action. Other people may not agree with that.
We should apply J.S. Mill’s view of the purpose of political systems to economic:
“The most important point of excellence which any form of [economic system] can possess is to promote the virtue and intelligence of the people themselves. The first question in respect to any [economic] institutions is how far they tend to foster in the members of the community the various desirable qualities, moral and intellectual…”
(Mill has [government] and [political] for the bracketed replacements in the original)
Self interest extends well beyond profit and utility maximization.
Troutwaxer, I agree 100%. Even worse, they justify their assholeness with “personal choice/freedom/because I can.”
Why am I thinking of Trump and MTG right now?
You guys are being pietistic. It is not adopting a Law and Economics posture to criticize MAGA workers for voting against their own interests. They do it (largely) out of bigotry. They would rather give up a benefit than run the risk of the « undeserving » getting it too. Anytime a MAGA opposés their own interests, five will get you ten it’s racially motivated.
It’s also out of a need to belong, to be part of a movement, to be a follower of a leader, who seems to represent them, despite normally doing the opposite. Rationality often has little to do with it, which is also a good critique of much of establishment economics.
Stacy: this is not the first time I’ve asked this. Your last three comments still contained TBA in the website URL field thereby creating a new identity. It’s also one of the triggers which can hold up your comment in auto-moderation.
“It’s also out of a need to belong, to be part of a movement, to be a follower of a leader, who seems to represent them, despite normally doing the opposite.”
And the billions of dollars that have been spent reinforcing prejudice, destroying education, and convincing people to be afraid, purely so they’ll vote against their own interests.
The right wing has been trained to love negative sum thinking. “I’m fine doing something that hurts me, as long as it hurts the OTHERS more.”
Thank you for this excellent post.
Americans need to remember that the original, unamended Constitution did not even apply to women or enslaved people. So, over half of America did not enjoy the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights until after the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, 129 years later! So, “Constitutional originalists” are, by definition, enslavers and misogynists. Antonin Scalia should burn in Hell, for all the damage he did to American jurisprudence with his backasswards morally constipated views!
I recently learned of this Roger Taney guy. Disgusting.
https://www.renametaney.com/
https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/taney-street-in-philadelphia-renamed-caroline-lecount/
Perfect reason for MAGA to sue the city to leave the street named Taney in the name of “tradition” and “historical significance”. A$$holes.
It is my opinion that folks need more protection from state governments than from the federal government. It is the genius of conservatives to use race and victimization to convince them that their lot in life is the result of an oppressive federal government. Time and again this plays out, be it fighting for the 1%’s right to own people like cattle or the never ending fight against the social safety net.
And, yet, conservative state actors are the principal ones oppressing their fellow citizens. Jim Crow is a nasty example, but it’s only one of many.
yes, this is absolutely true
How conservatives interpret the law:
Black = less than human
Trump = more than human
A fine post as always. And I know this ruling wouldn’t have fit into the narrative, but I have to give a shout out to Buck v. Bell (1927) as possibly the most hateful Supreme Court decision of all. Authored by Holmes, no less!
Here we find the nation’s highest court endorsing forced sterilization of people with potentially heritable intellectual limitations or psychiatric disorders, using stirring language such as: “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind … Three generations of imbeciles is enough.”
This from the era when barriers to immigration were also being raised in the name of preserving perceived racial superiority.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200#:~:text=It%20is%20better%20for%20all,unfit%20from%20continuing%20their%20kind.
The ruling dovetails with the narrative. As Mr. Walker noted, he omitted a lot of Greene’s background material, including on Holmes. Greene noted Holmes’s support for eugenics. Per Greene “Holmes’s social Darwinism is crucial to understanding the later development of the American rights tradition. He believed that political combatants were best left fighting it out; for him, judicially enforced rights distorted the playing field.”
Later in the book Greene notes Frankfurter’s sychophancy to Holmes.
Eugenics infests a lot of material from before 1960. As in, you can’t escape it. Racism. of course, and sexism, and the idea that mental problems are from poor genetic backgrounds. (I’d love to point them at Carlos II of Spain, the Habsburger who was extremely inbred but of the highest class in Europe. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Habsburg-60 )
“Three generations of imbeciles is enough”, applies nicely to the Trump clan!
Oh, snap!!
@Ravensclaw makes an excellent point. Greene points to Holmes’ views on eugenics as evidence of his callousness, as @Epicurus points out. Holmes had many flaws, and they influenced his decisions in many cases. Kind of like today.
We like to think the courts are neutral arbiters, and they are in many cases. But in the most controversial cases their flaws, personal, moral, and intellectual are a dominant factor.
I’m fine with eugenics laws as long as anyone can propose, (with legal help if necessary) the sterilization of a resident in the U.S. who’s behaved in a deranged fashion. People like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance come to mind…
Proposing and doing are not the same thing. Control over that sort of thing tends to swing toward the radical right.
But it’s not a funny topic. Along with IQ testing, eugenics laws were an attack on immigrants and people of color. It formed part of an attempt to maintain white supremacy as a response to a pre-WWI surge in immigration from largely Catholic and Jewish, non-traditional immigrants from countries in Mediterranean and eastern Europe.
Re: “I’m fine with eugenics laws as long as anyone can propose”
This is the kind of comment that makes its way into RW rhetoric as ‘radical liberals want to sterilize you’.
I find it unhelpful, at best.
I would count on the commentariat here to know I’m not serious. But for those to whom the obvious isn’t, I’m appalled by any form of eugenics and find IQ testing ‘iffy and shallow’ at best.
Replying to Troutwaxer
August 5, 2024 at 2:31 pm
“But for those to whom the obvious isn’t”
Breathtaking.
Digital comments last seemingly forever. It is painfully easy to take text out of context and use it for unintended purposes.
I don’t think I’m remotely important-enough for anyone to quote.
How did democracy react to the decisions of the Supreme Court?
In 1860 an ant-slavery President swept the paid labor states, and that caused a war.
In 1934 the Democrats swept the Republicans from power, more or less ending the 19th century version of the Republican party.
When elections are closely contested the Supreme Court can perform a holding action for one coalition. But as the 1964 election demonstrated, the voters keep moving and eventually they will be heard.
Ed Walker is right to note there is no intellectual basis for social conservatism. The Republicans are not just a cult whose only goal is keep the leader from facing the consequences of his actions.
Didn’t the British eventually remove all the ecclesiastic seats fron Parliament and the House of Lords over similar types of issues?
Your last sentence. In a word “No”. Bishops of the Church of England still sit in the British House of Lords.
To add,
the most recent proposals to reduce the numbers of Lords Spiritual (from 26 to 12 in a stepped process) of 2011-2 were dropped.
The Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 is designed to increase the proportion of women bishops in the House, resulting 6 appointments (1 now retired).
So much for democratic reform../s
The House of Lords is despised by a sizable chunk of the population of the UK. On the other hand, it serves a purpose: instead of nominating generous donors to various position they have no qualification for in the administration, you make them Lords and Lady Baronesses. That bloated institution has no real power, but it puts all these deplorables in one place.
I won’t get into the discussion above of the right of the slave states to secede, or the legal question as to whether their leaders were traitors.
To me, the point is that comments like those of @Harold Bridges and @grizebard can be made at least plausible. That supports my view, set out in Discussion points 2 and 4, that history is always a contested source for decisions. In every significant case in which history is invoked by the FedSoc SCOTUS majority, the history cited is contested by professional historians. Those histories are derided with the term law-office history by lawyers and academics not part of the conservative legal movement.
We all think we know stuff, but it’s important to remember that everything we think we know comes from someone else. If those others have an agenda, we may never be able to learn or understand what actually happened.
It is not easy to live with the consequences of that view. It seems to lack stability, order, and clarity. It’s not much, but I would say that a lot of the things we reflexively believe are irrelevant to our lived lives, and that we can safely change them with no loss.
It seems to me that a lot of people see some or many beliefs, things like the Lost Cause. as critical parts of their selves, as self-definitional. They are anchors for the psyche. Those people will have much more difficulty questioning, let alone discarding, deeply felt beliefs.
Thank you for this erudite, and thoughtful comment.
There is also the “Rashomon” problem: Even when we do have firsthand knowledge of something, we have limited ability to acquire information about, and to understand the information we acquire, about that something.
For my part, I just try to do the best I can with what I’ve got, and seek a variety of information sources to gain perspective, and, hopefully, null out errors.
Yeah, ‘do the best with what you have,’ but it’s also important to remember that most sciences, including history, have a consensus point of view for a reason, which is that all the actual evidence points that way. So it’s also necessary to keep up an intelligent self-critique based on the consensus POV (of the actual sciences, as opposed to the consensus POV of a political movement, for example.)
The problem, of course, in these heavily propagandized times, is to figure out what the majority of scientists in a particular field believe. (The ‘debate’ over global warming comes to mind – of course it’s not really debate at all, just monied interests trying to convince the ignorant that a debate exists.)
A good example of this is the “lab leak hypothesis” for the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Its popular among right-wing conspiracy theorists, but (like most conspiracy theories) there’s no scientific evidence that supports it, and all of the credible scientific evidence actually points towards a zoonotic spillover from animals, just like previous pandemics.
We can’t definitively prove it was a natural spillover from an animal, but all the scientific evidence strongly suggests that it was. But conspiracists never let their pet theories die, and propagandists (including Russia) take advantage to try and increase divisions in open societies.
Good point. “It depends on who you ask.”
Also, to gain knowledge requires the will to question, to doubt, to ask “how do you know that?”. It requires learning the difference between knowledge and belief. Many people never do.
In 1861 people in the 5 border states and regions and Democrats in the paid labor states decided secession was neither constitutional nor wise. The rest of the issue was determined by violence. And there are many places on the internet where discussing secession is more appropriate than on Ms. Wheeler’s blog.
Topic policing? LOL.
AP today:
“Americans are ‘getting whacked’ by too many laws and regulations, Justice Gorsuch says in a new book”
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-gorsuch-regulations-ethics-term-limits-3369051d70ec67942d72b5f2afd078d8
Brought to you by *this* guy:
“When Neil Gorsuch put corporate interests over a man freezing to death
The supreme court nominee was the only judge to rule that Alphonse Maddin deserved to be fired for deserting broken-down truck in sub-zero temperatures”
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/mar/23/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-frozen-trucker-alphonse-maddin
The apple does not fall far from the tree. That was his mother’s Anne Gorsuch’s approach to the Environmental Protection Agency when she headed it from 1981-83. Take it away, wiki (with internal links omitted here):
Anne died back in the Dubya era, but she’d no doubt be pleased at her little boy’s new book.
Yup.
Gorsuch’s maternal avenge tour.
The Trump administration took a Fox/Henhouse page from the Regan administration playbook by appointing Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. IMHO, though, it was simply transactional for Trump himself.
“Grover Norquist, who founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 at the urging of President Reagan, declared in 2001: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
https://theconversation.com/the-shutdown-drowning-government-in-the-bathtub-111333
Scandals’ Family
Their creepy breach of duty
Imperious and snooty
They’ve gathered lots of booty
The Scandals’ Family
Their court is ad nauseam
When people come to see ’em
Six streams of effluvium
The Scandals’ Family
Neil
Sam
Clarence
So put your perfect pitch on
A ballot you can bitch on
We’re gonna scratch that itch on
The Scandals’ Family
Their court is ad nauseam
When people come to see ’em
Six streams of effluvium
The Scandals’ Family
Change
Long-range
The Scandals’ Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDvbGon1b_I
“The Addams Family Theme” (Instrumental Version)
Witty, but I’d have to say, as someone who’s hopefully a realist, that neither Gorsuch nor Comey* has shown any signs of accepting bribes, so maybe ‘four streams of effluvium” rather than six. Unfortunately, by any rational standard only Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Roberts count as bribed.
Also, I’d rather see an Addams on the Supreme court than any of the ‘Shitty Six.”
* I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that one or both of these objectively horrible people are gaining unexplained economic benefits from being on the Supreme Court, but I’ve seen no actual evidence in favor of this hypothesis.
I can’t figure out whether you are mansplaining or you just didn’t try, Troutwaxer.
“Gorsuch urged to recuse himself from supreme court case over ties to oil baron” – Martin Pengelly, 1/16/24
“Philip Anschutz has hosted rightwing justice at resort and stands to benefit if court strips power from federal regulatory agencies”
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/jan/16/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-case-recuse-philip-anshutz
“Law firm head bought Gorsuch-owned property
The Supreme Court justice did not report the identity of the purchaser, whose firm has had numerous cases before the court.”
Heidi Przybyla
Politico
04/25/2023 04:30 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/neil-gorsuch-colorado-property-sale-00093579
Thank you, Clare.
And for Coney Barrett there is this:
“The mockery of an unelected monarchy” – by Sabrina Haake, 11/24/23
“Alito and Thomas are in bed with donors protecting the lucrative-but-deadly NRA and fossil fuel agendas. Coney Barrett comes from oil too; her father was heavily involved with the American Petroleum Institute for decades. These justices, and any others with NRA or oil and gas connections, should automatically recuse from climate and gun cases. Their refusal to do so has had and will continue to have enormous life and death implications for the rest of us.”
https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/the-mockery-of-an-unelected-monarchy
Replying to
Savage Librarian
August 5, 2024 at 11:15 am
I hadn’t seen your response before I posted a reference, but was similarly perplexed by both the erroneous assertion itself, and the phrases “hopefully a realist”/ “by any rational standard”…in contrast to publicly available information.
In any event, I have found that challenging a librarian, savage or otherwise, is unwise.
Librarians: Not just for shushing.
Thank you both for enlightening me. I’ll add Comey and Gorsuch to my shit list. (I probably do less research than everyone else here for reasons I’m not interested in discussing.)
Coney Barrett, not Comey. For a moment I thought you were talking about James Comey former Director of the FBI.