SCOTUS JUNE 2022. A BAD DAY AT BAD ROCK

 

In the moments following the irresponsibility, morally degraded, and ultimately illegal SCOTUS decision on Roe v Wade I posted:

A few words for you, Amerika. Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. Shame!

It's not about abortion, stupid!

If you are infected with the illusion that "logic" is a once and only historical phenomenon, that there is only ONE logic, that logic isn't a function of culture and values, read the SCOTUS "reasons" for overturning Roe v Wade.

Hermann Lotze (1817-1881). There is no Logik, only logics.

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). There is no Mathematik, only mathematics.

Sal Restivo and other science studies scholars: There is no Science, only sciences.

I then shared the following post by M.J. Fleck

Micah J. Fleck, Ed.M.(He/Him) • 1stAnthropologist, Curriculum Designer at MIDAS Multiple Intelligence Research, M.S. Candidate at University of North Texas1d • Edited 

Fifty years of precedent has been wiped away today in an instant. A band of unelected judges has decided that what the majority of the American people want isn't what should be protected, but instead the biologically illiterate, ignorant screeds of a dying out extremist demographic.

The "honerable" Clarence Thomas has already stated on record that he thinks they now have a precedent to reconsider Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. So, this is just the beginning. Now, anything that can be defined as contractual relating to a person's personal choices can potentially be called into question. One's right to marry, one's right to have access to contraception, and yes, one's right to legally identify as their own gender identity, are now all back on the table. If you think that is outlandish and that it could never happen, you haven't been paying attention the past five years.

This is a terrifying day, and I know it might feel really attractive for us more privileged demographics to simply wash our hands of politics and give up. But I urge you, fellow allies, we *cannot,* under any circumstances, do that. The state we are currently in arrived precisely because far too many people who could afford to had already checked out. Even more people doing so is only going to put up even less resistance to the future freedom assaults coming our way. Don't give up like they want us to. One day, we won't be able to afford to, and right now, those we love and cherish who are members of persecuted groups already haven't that luxury. Don't let them down. One day, we will bring back justice for people with wombs to have choice. Right now, we need to keep looking out for everyone else.

The following NYT op ed puts things in Constitutional context: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/opinion/supreme-court-constitution.html?referringSource=articleShare

One of the most brilliant observers of the American experiment saw things in terms past, present and future with greater insight than many contemporary and later observers.   I offer some excerpts that bear on SCOTUS '22

De La Démocratie en Amérique, published in two volumes, the first in 1835[1] and the second in 1840)[2]  by Alexis de Tocqueville; in English: Democracy in America (2000, Chicago).

“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”

“When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.”

there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment 

“[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.”

“In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes...”

“Without common ideas, there is no common action, and without common action men still exist, but a social body does not. Thus in order that there be society, and all the more, that this society prosper, it is necessary that all the minds of the citizens always be brought together and held together by some principle ideas”

“if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.”

“when the Americans lose their republican institutions they will speedily arrive at a despotic government,”

AND A FEW WORDS FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON:

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."  AND IN A SOMEWHAT LESS SOBER MOOD:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."