SCOTUS and Our Democracy™

With virtually no judicial actions restraining the “fundamental transformation” of the US, we have arrived at the present state of affairs. In our increasingly bizarre and decreasingly coherent “democracy” the wishes of the voters are - as has been the case for around 60 years - irrelevant, at least as expressed through election of a President. Suddenly, the courts and especially the SC, are possessed of concern for exercises of Presidential power.

Trump’s EO’s are primarily aimed at UNdoing former EOs by Presidents like Obama, who knew with malice aforethought just what their “transformation” meant. By doing it piecemeal planned in advance and implemented over many years, it was aided and abetted by the permanently lefty deep state, a colluding ‘media’, weaponized courts (before we even knew that term), and Republicans who were either incompetent, inept or asleep - the fundamental transformation had been fully accomplished and in place when Trump started term 2.

Just as a f’rinstance, we have Saint James Comey, sufficiently knowledgeable and mentally agile to shut down a clear felony case against Hillary, claiming to not know what ‘86’ means. Take your pick between stupid and mendacious - as the media (and likely soon the DOJ and or the courts make it all go away.

But that’s small potatoes compared to the Supreme Court today suddenly re-discovering all the fine points of law which somehow were not operant as most all our liberties were excised piecemeal by democrats and their henchmen. Where were the mills of justice grinding ‘exceeding fine’ for 50 years or so?

I’m afraid our compliant ‘supreme’ rulers in robes are content to preside over the final deconstruction of an American experiment which includes individual rights. More accurately, that has already happened with their assistance/permission. Now they are actively and knowingly preventing the undoing of much of this tyranny by Trump.

If the learned judges leave the existing tyrannical structure intact (as it appears they are about to affirmatively do), all that will be necessary in the near future will be to dial in incremental tightening of the extant thoroughly unconstitutional restraints. The judges have made it clear they are prepared to again look on from afar, either approvingly, or somehow oblivious to the fact of their dithering, even while presiding over the irrevocable end of what used to be a working representative democracy.

The intentional complexity of the weave of the restraints (painstakingly woven by our Maoist/Stalinist betters over many years) on individual agency and liberty is no excuse for judicial obstruction when it comes to undoing it. Tyranny by any other name would smell as foul… (where is Gertrude Stein when we need her?). We are watching - in excruciating detail and over years - just how a decent classically liberal republic dies; commits suicide really.

It’s as if someone wanted to kill themselves by GSW, opioid OD, hanging, stabbing, poison, and jumping from a bridge - even as the courts discuss the ethics of self-determination while on a space station in high earth orbit, breathing air infused with particles of pulverized parchment on which the Constitution was once written. Maybe Comey could recognize “86 76”? Or maybe more accurately, “86 89”?

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We can blame the Far Left for the Supreme Court’s total loss of respect – most egregiously when they discovered a Constitutional right to an abortion in the face of the plain facts that (a) the Constitution does not mention abortion, and (b) the Constitution in the 10th Amendment makes it clear in Black Letter Law that an unaddressed issue like abortion remained with the States or the People.

But we really need to take a step back and recognize that the actual fault lay with our absolutely worthless CongressCritters, who politicized the appointment of Supreme Court Justices and thus politicized all decision of said Court – effectively destroying respect for the institution. We now are ruled by a permanent Political Class, quite analogous to the French aristocracy pre-Revolution.

But let’s not stop at the worthlessness of Congress. We the People, with universal suffrage, elect and re-elect those unrepresentative Representatives and Senators. We are getting the government we deserve.

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I didn’t see right away that this was posted in May, so I was confused given SCOTUS’ rulings yesterday.
I am…cautiously pleased with the nationwide injunction ruling. Well, relieved: the principles involved are stuff I learned in law school, fuggod’s sake; I would really be at sea if it had turned out they no longer apply!

I’m going to force myself to read,or at least read about, Chemerinski’s book “No Democracy Lasts Forever:How the Constitution Threatens the United States”. To my horror, our state bar magazine (which I was awaiting since my article on ecclesiastical sanctuary is in this month’s) published a long review of this book, although to my knowledge they’ve never published ANY book review before. One of the things I’ve gleaned so far is that the author doesn’t seem to think our country should be made up of “states”; only that it should be “united” . Wants to get rid of the Electoral College and anything which guarantees representation to all states including the small ones.
But it seems another problem he has with the Constitution is —not that it was only meant to govern a moral people—but that it was written to govern people with shorter individual lifespans. Our Founders were so young, relatively speaking. People used to have to peak pretty early; they’d strut and fret their hour upon the world stage and then be considered old and soon dead.
I reckon one way of looking at this is, there was at least a limited amount of harm any one individual could do in the time allotted. But now, well, look no farther than Ol’Bygone who made a career or being wrong in the Senate, then as VP, and finally at the Resolute Desk.
Of course the “juvenocracy” meant a leader might die or be forced into retirement long before he had done all the good he might do, as well, but on balance, the Bard was right:
“The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.”
Of course this author wants term limits for the Supreme Court! But I have a better solution: an upper age requirement for appointment, say, 67 minimum. By that time we could be fairly confident of a judges judicial philosophy and he/she’d be unlikely to morph into an entirely different creature while on the bench.
So far my impression of the book is that this bozo is a Lefty, and beginning with Trump’s first term things haven’t been going his way, so he’s very much afraid we ll just have to totally scrap the Constitution, and start all over.
Anyway dear @civilwestman : do you feel any better after the week we’ve just experienced?

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Rear guard actions only, I’m afraid. Too much damage has already been done. I’m afraid the cake is baked.

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I suspect that he is wrong about this too. If a person made it to adulthood, I suspect they lived to 60 or 70. If they were not poor, the average might be higher. Of course we have the geriatric crowd now, but that is due to something else.

My guess is that when the government was limited in power (actually followed the Constitution), scumbags didn’t enter politics to gather power and money.

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It’s my fear that at 250 years, we may give in to the voices saying we should….”reimagine” the Constitution. We have a hard time resisting that appeal: “NEW!!” is probably the most powerful word in every aspect of our society. Maybe our country will cut all its moorings, drift and be tossed on oceans of change. The thought scares the crap outta me, but…it isn’t up to me.

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250 years seems to come up quite often as the length of time that any particular society can last. When we look at the unrepayable National Debt and the several times larger unfunded entitlements obligations and the de-industrialized economy which does not produce enough of a surplus even to pay the interest on the debt … we have to recognize that it is already all over. Our current society is a Dead Man Walking.

I am not so worried about people wanting to reimagine the Constitution – coming events are going to force us to revise the Constitution. I am more worried about the one or two generations of poverty & chaos before we get serious about revising the Constitution.

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I hope you’re wrong. But:

Ah, love! Could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire—
Would we not shatter it to bits! —and then
Rebuild it nearer to the Heart’s desire?

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I’m afraid the model for “reimagining” the Constitution is already in place with money. The nominal value of one dollar is still one dollar. What you may purchase with it is another matter entirely. As with dollars, so with words. Remember, one of our learned justices - whose job it is to announce the meaning of words - is on record as unable to define “woman”, because she is “not an expert”. If “woman” and “man” are un- or variably- definable, what hope is there of other words and combinations thereof??

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https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71459121/united-states-v-comey/

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