“Things Were Better In the Old Days”: Why Gorsuch and Scalia Are Dangerous Judges

One of our most common human traits is the belief that “Things Were Better In the Old Days”, referring to the “days” of our youth. As disquieting as the idea may be, for individual human beings, Reality is in the eyes of the beholder.  Our brains create our view of our environment based on our personal experiences, many of which harken back to our earliest childhood perceptions.  These experiences may be moderated by education,  reading, watching and by hearing individuals to whom we attach credence and importance.  However, these moderating influences are always mentally ingested in the context of our own individual pre-judgments. Thus to many, the Sports Stars, Movie Stars, Celebrities and even politicians of our youth are seen as being superior to those in our present day. By the same token, the ideas and the ideologies of our youth, or teens, are seen as superior to what is around today. The easy example of this is the powerful, lasting impact of Ayn Rand upon so many of today’s politicians.  This despite the fact that Rand was a banal writer of bodice bursting romantic fiction, who was stupidly pretentious enough to believe she was a philosopher in the mold of Aristotle.

The Constitution of the United States was the greatest political document of the 18th Century. The creators of that document, whom we Americans deem our Founding Fathers, were men of genius and shining examples of their era, The Age of Enlightenment.  The Founding Fathers time saw great intellectual and political upheaval, as the primacy of Kings and the primacy of Religion was being replaced by new models, the scientific revolution and general intellectual fervor.

Yet most of our Founding Fathers were among the Thirteen Colonies wealthiest people, living in a primarily agrarian society. As intellectually gifted and farsighted as most of them were, their perceptions were those of their time and place.  In their conception and in the actuality of the document they created,  the United States would remain an agrarian society, run by landowners and limiting suffrage to “men“ who owned land.  They created a Republic in the Roman and Athenian mold and definitely not a representative democracy.  Other than being bogged down in foreign entanglements,  the greatest threat our Founding Fathers perceived to this country of their creation, was that it would, as Rome had done, allow the Republic to be usurped by an Emperor.  The Constitution as a document was expressly designed to thwart the ambitions of those who would name themselves King.

Now as much as we humans revere and cherish the Good  Old Days, for humanity change is inexorable. As the United States and humanity, were overtaken by the world wide innovations of the scientific, industrial and technological evolution’s, the pace of change ever quickened. With that quickening came a sense of danger, dread and fear by the many who could not intellectually and emotionally keep pace.  Those upset by the pace of change at all levels of human society began to cling to their common human notions and emotions, that “Things Were Better In the Old Days” and we humans should cleave to the “Old Ways”.  Which brings me to Constitutional judicial philosophy and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

Antonin Scalia is the intellectual and judicial role model for our newest SCOTUS Justice Neil Gorsuch. The judicial philosophy of Scalia and Gorsuch is called Originalism  “a way to interpret the Constitution‘s meaning as stable from the time of enactment, and which can only be changed by the steps set out in Article Five of the Constitution.“  Before I delve into what is to me the irrationality, cupidity and stupidity of Originalism, let’s take a brief look at these two Judges who are champions of originalist judicial philosophy.

Scalia was a devoutly conservative Roman Catholic. He was aghast at Popes Like John Paul and Francis, who worked to modernize the doctrines of the Church and make it into a less judgmental and demanding religion. Scalia unashamedly allowed his religious belief to color his judicial rulings. A good example of that is Scalia “defended his pro-death penalty stance by claiming that the Bible forgives those who wrongly apply the death penalty to innocent persons  on the grounds that the wrongly convicted will have an opportunity to set the record straight in the courthouse of the afterlife.” here.  By using the pretext of Originalism being the way that Judges should interpret all law,  Scalia was able to justify the insertion of his ultra-conservative belief system into his Judicial rulings.  Make no mistake about it for Scalia “Things Were Better In the Old Days” of his youth,  where people of color “knew” their place; women remained in the Kitchen;  homosexuals remained in “the closet”;  and Corporations were allowed to be as capitalist as they chose to be.

Neil Gorsuch. like Scalia, is a devoutly Conservative Roman Catholic, who was educated in Catholic Private Schools.  His mother,  Anne Gorsuch Burford, a Colorado statehouse representative, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be the first female Administrator of United States Environmental Protection Agency in 1981.  While in the Colorado Legislature Anne “was considered to be a member of the “House Crazies,” a group of “conservative lawmakers intent on permanently changing government.”^[2][3][1] The “House Crazies” are analogous to today’s  “Tea Party”.  During her time at the EPA, Neil’s Mom, did everything she could to emasculate the Agency, accommodate polluting corporations and hire industry lobbyists to oversee the industries they formerly lobbied for. Neil’s Mom, who he idolized, looked back at her EPA days as her greatest accomplishment.

Thus Neil Gorsuch grew up in a radically, ultra-conservative home environment, which was deeply steeped in very conservative religious values.  Although he declined to be forthcoming about many of his more radical judicial views during his confirmation hearings, his past ruling  at lower courts were examined by Democratic Senators. Famously Gorsuch ruled for the corporation that ordered a freezing driver to remain by his truck in sub-zero weather and then fired him when he didn’t.  Many of his other radically conservative judicial opinions can be found here.  Make no mistake about it for Gorsuch “Things Were Better In the Old Days” of his youth,  where people of color “knew” their place; women remained in the Kitchen;  homosexuals remained in “the closet”;  and Corporations were allowed to be as capitalist as they chose to be.

Which brings us back to Originalism, that judicial philosophy that believes that the Constitution should be interpreted only within the mindset of the Founding Fathers and applied only how they intended it. On its face Originalism is a silly and dangerous idea because in the 237 years since our Constitution was implemented, the changes in humanity and society have been so broad, as to confound and possibly give a stroke to those who wrote the Constitution, were they brought forward to today.  As much genius as we may ascribe to the Founding Fathers of these United States, the great document they created, as a necessity must be interpreted and re-interpreted in the light of today’s  reality. I am certain that a constant re-interpretation was the intent of our nation’s founders.

Let’s be clear though as to what is afoot behind this adherence to Originalist belief.  It originated in the 1980’s,  as the Reagan Revolution swept the country, led by a group of Corporatist, Conservative radicals intent upon destroying most of the accomplishment’s of FDR’s New Deal. They had chafed under a SCOTUS, led by liberal Republican Chief Justice Earl Warren and its’ rulings on Civil Rights, Abortion and against corporate power.  These radical conservative revolutionaries needed a Judicial philosophy that would repudiate the Warren Court and favor the issues these radical conservative revolutionaries held dear.  So they invented this specious philosophy of Originalist belief, couched in false pseudo-intellectual argumentation and seriously foreign to all the history that preceded it.  Behind all the cant and the vapid argumentation, using obscure language to add cachet and lack of clarity, what we have left is that Originalist Philosophy is merely a way of saying “Things Were Better In the Old Days”,  by people unable and unwilling to accept that life is constant change.

To Filibuster or Not To Filibuster? That is the Neil Gorsuch Question

Democratic Party Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced his intention to Filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch,  which I believe is the right decision (the 3 previous links provide the details needed to follow my argument). Media Pundits wring their hands disparagingly at such a bold strategy;  Conservative extremist media predict failure;  and 10 Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2018 are dithering.

The Supreme Court seat is available because of the death of the late,  un-lamented by me at least,  Antonin Scalia.  That horrible man, who some said was warm and funny, was the intellectual leader of the Originalism movement of judicial interpretation.  While the Wiki link provides the schematic of the originalist concept,  in truth this theory is an exercise in Right Wing extremism searching for an intellectual justification that sounds meaningful.

Scalia for instance, was an originalist when it served his underlying religio-conservative political philosophy and something else when it served his partisan political preferences as in Bush v. Gore.

Of Bush v. Gore, Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz,  wrote:

“[T]he decision in the Florida election case may be ranked as the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history, because it is the only one that I know of where the majority justices decided as they did because of the personal identity and political affiliation of the litigants. This was cheating, and a violation of the judicial oath.”^[56]

For instance, regarding the political positions of some SCOTUS Judges in  Bush v. Gore.:

• On several occasions, William Rehnquist had expressed interest in retiring under a Republican administration
• On the eve of the election Sandra Day O’Connor had made a public statement that a Gore victory would be a personal disaster for her.
• Clarence Thomas’s wife was so intimately involved in the Bush campaign that she was helping to draw up a list of Bush appointees more or less at the same time as her husband was adjudicating on whether the same man would become the next President.
• Finally, Antonin Scalia’s son was working for the firm appointed by Bush to argue his case before the Supreme Court, the head of which was subsequently appointed as Solicitor-General.^[59]

The Supreme Court of the United States, despite the protests of Legal Experts who extol the impartiality of the “The Law” and the intellectual rigor of “Justice Is Blind”,  has always been a supremely political institution.  Every Law School teaches its’ acolytes how to successfully argue each side of every issue.  Every good, or great lawyer can supply cogent legal arguments in favor of their personal predilections and prejudices and make them sound as if they were the result of intellectual dispassion. Originalism is merely the intellectual window dressing used by those who believe in what we know as the current conservative viewpoint, which believes in unfettered corporate freedom,  choosing Christian religious doctrine as if ordained by the First Amendment and most of all that money equates to freedom of speech.

Neil Gorsuch  proudly proclaims himself an originalist.  Gorsuch also has related that he idolizes Antonin Scalia.  Despite the Judges pleasant demeanor, Judicial good looks and pleasingly soft-spoken manner he is a judicial radical of the extreme Right Wing variety, who is partial to religious tinged decisions like Hobby Lobby.  Given this, he will again give extremist conservatives a working majority on the Supreme Court.

In a display of partisan political petulance the Republican Controlled Senate refused to even hold hearings on Barack Obama’s nomination of politically centrist Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Scalia vacancy.  While advancing many specious arguments about a President not having the “right” to fill a SCOTUS vacancy in the last year of his term, enough Republican Senators stated their opinion that the “Scalia Seat” was theirs by right and that they would not even allow Hilary Clinton to fill it if she was elected. In my own opinion as well, I saw it as a final racist, finger salute to the President many so hated because of his skin color.

With all of this history and with all of the political posturing around this seat I believe that the only correct position, for Senators who claim affiliation with the Democratic Party, is to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination, even though they will eventually be beaten by Mitch McConnell using the Nuclear Option, the mechanics of which I explained here. The media pundits and Democratic Party centrists who caution against the use of the filibuster against Gorsuch argue it this way:

“But holding firm on Gorsuch carries real risks for Democrats. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pushed over the edge to get rid of the current rules — for which he only needs a simple majority — then all bets are off. Gorsuch would be confirmed, also with a simple majority vote.

If that’s how things go down, Democrats would have zero leverage in the event of a new court vacancy — if, say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires.

“If you think things with the Supreme Court are bad for progressive[s] now they can get much, much worse,” Richard Hasen, a longtime Supreme Court observer who teaches law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in a blog post. “Better to save the firepower for that fight.”” See here.

The argument about having “zero leverage in the event of a new court vacancy”  simply makes no sense to me.   The idea is that the Republicans don’t really want to invoke the Nuclear Option and so allowing the nomination now, will buy Democrats negotiating leverage for the future.  This viewpoint is premised on the same old noxious notion of the need for Bi-Partisanship collegiality inside the Beltway.  As illustrated by the current battle over Trumpcare, the Republicans are warriors for Class Warfare against everyone who is not part of the American One Percent. Their ultimate intention is to strip any vestige of the “social safety net”, any constraint on the economic strip mining of all non-wealthy Americans and the institution of Fundamentalist Christian morality in our legal system.  The Republican leadership have proven themselves to be the enemy of all the aspirations for equality of people of color and willing to use people immigrating to America as demagogic scapegoats.  This is not partisan speculation, but merely a re-statement of what the Republican leaders have already openly expressed regarding their intent.  Bi-Partisanship is a phony aspiration when one Party is actively making war against those represented by the other Party.

As far as the Nuclear Option goes I welcome its’ use.  While it is true that the filibuster is an old Senate tradition,  the fact that a Senator no longer has to actually speak and hold the floor has rendered it ridiculous and dilatory.  Although traditionally it has existed to protect their rights of a minority of Senators, its use in the past has primarily been to stymie progressive legislation and to provide cover for Senators who did not want to be associated with opposing progressive legislation.  In recent decades the Democrats who have had a Senate Majority have professed helplessness in the face of being able to muster 60 votes for cloture to stop filibusters.  The constitution mandates that passing votes in the Senate requires only a simple majority, let us go back to the constitution when it comes to the Senate and then let us make damned sure WE are in the majority.

Any Democratic Senator who votes to break the filibuster and confirm Gorsuch, should be marked for defeat,  since their presence in the Senate,  only dilutes the liberal cause and confuses the voters into thinking they are on their side.When it comes to politics I am sick and tired of Democrats Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight.  We are probably facing the greatest threat in American history towards the operation of a Constitutional Republic. We have a President and Administration who seem to want to institute full blown Fascism into our country and who extraordinarily seem to be under the thrall of a murderous Fascist Foreign Dictator. Against such opponents we cannot win by showing bi-partisan moderation and allow their bullying. We must stand up to the bullies even if we initially lose, because from that loss will come the strengthening of our backbones and our cause by knowing we have and we will express truth to power.

Supreme Court Battle: Warring TV Commercials for/against Neil Gorsuch

Popping all over the cable news networks in the past two weeks have been TV commercials for and against Neal Gorsuch being confirmed as the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice replacing Antonin “Fat Tony“ Scalia. The last piece of a total Republican takeover of the three branches of our Federal Government would be to appoint a Justice of the Scalia type to give conservatives a 5 to 4 majority on SCOTUS. When President Obama nominated a Judicial moderate Merrick Garland,  he did so because previously many Republicans looked favorably upon Judge Garland and therefore hoped to get the nomination confirmed.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,  continuing his eight year campaign to neutralize and de-legitimize President Obama,  refused to even consider the Constitutional nomination. It was in effect Republicans stealing the nomination from Democrats. My opinion of this attempt to keep SCOTUS as a bastion of extreme Right Wing Conservative ideology is contained in this link, Neal Gorsuch, suffice it to say it is an angry opinion.

Because our illegitimate President is basically a lame “Reality TV“ Star, we see that even in the important process of nominating a Justice for a supposedly impartial SCOTUS,  our politics have become dominated by TV commercialism.  Below is an ad by someone named Jane Nitze,  about whom little is known except that she is a Harvard Law Grad from a wealthy family and whose husband is from an even more illustrious and wealthy family.  The ad implies that she is of the Democratic Party persuasion because she worked in the Justice Department of the Obama Administration,  yet she occupied a decidedly non-political position which would be no indicator of her political sympathies. Nor would her being a Clerk for Sonya Sotomayer indicate political preferences, since Judicial clerkship’s tend not to focus on ideology. The “Jane“ ad is sponsored by the extreme right wing Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) a well-funded group of hidden sponsorship, whose aim is a conservative (Republican) dominated judiciary.

Here is the JCN “Jane“ followed by the ad from People For The American Way (PFAW). Personally I feel so strongly about this issue that I will join any movement to defeat any Democratic Senator that votes for Gorsuch.  As my link Antonin Scalia shows, Scalia was a bad Justice and essentially an evil man, caught up in his own prejudice and bigotry. Gorsuch has stated he idolizes Scalia and I take him at his word.

In Judge Neil Gorsuch Fat Tony Lives, Only in a More Distinguished Appearing Package

When Antonin Scalia breathed his last I was so elated I wrote Who Says We Can’t Speak Ill of  the Dead? Antonin Scalia Was a Horror as a Judge.  In that piece I provided much background evidence on why I felt so good about Scalia’s departure.  However, the only quote I need to illustrate this horrible man’s blithe inhumanity is:  “Justice Antonin Scalia “defended his  pro-death penalty stance by claiming that the Bible forgives those who wrongly apply the death penalty to innocent persons on the grounds that the wrongly convicted will have an opportunity to set the record straight in the courthouse of the afterlife.” here.  This blindly pious,  religious fanatic displayed in that defense that he was incapable of feeling empathy for those wrongly murdered by the State, nor for their grieving families.  What the scabrous Scalia also showed in that statement was that he was a person capable of rationalizing any egregious behavior on his part by bending logic to suit his prejudices.

While it can be noted that Scalia was but one of five reactionary Supreme Court Justices making their own version of Law,  while pretending it was merely a return to Constitutional Originalism,  he was by acknowledgement the most erudite mind and skilled writer.  In the name of this spurious doctrine of Constitutional exegesis,  Scalia and his gang gave us the George W. Bush Presidency;  unlimited gun rights; dismantling of Constitutional protections from law enforcement overreach and disabling government’s ability to rein in political campaign contributions.  The latter relying on the preposterous notion of ”corporate person-hood”.

My elation upon the passing of Antonin Scalia dampened some months later when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a temperate Judicial Centrist to the Supreme Court.  This  was no doubt seen as a clever stratagem by the Obama team,  since Garland had previously won praise from Republican Senators like Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell.  Like many other Obama team strategies it came to naught because when it comes to politics, the Republican leadership carry Glock 9mm Automatics and the Democrats Swiss Army knives.  Destroying the Obama strategy the Senate Republicans simply used the unprecedented procedure of refusing to consider Obama’s  Supreme Court Nomination.  Now we see that this Republican ruse of waiting for a new President paid off and our puppet President made his SCOTUS nomination known,  in Prime Time on all the Broadcast networks.

On superficial impressions Judge Neil Gorsuch is a pleasantly distinguished looking man, who could have come out of Hollywood Central Casting to play a Judge.  He speaks nicely and has a pleasant affect and rich speaking voice.  He is certainly a scholar of Ivy League proportions boasting Georgetown Prep, Columbia, Harvard and even Oxford.  Gorsuch was even a Harvard Law classmate of Barack Obama.  Neil Gorsuch clerked for two SCOTUS Justices and did a stint in private law practice with an high powered law firm. He is currently a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.  This person no doubt has all of the superficial qualifications to be a SCOTUS Justice and yet……..

”Gorsuch has opined that giving money to politicians while running campaigns is a “fundamental right” that should be afforded the highest standard of constitutional protection, known as strict scrutiny.”^[29]

”Gorsuch advocates a broad definition of religious freedom and sided with Christian employers and religious organizations…..In the Hobby Lobby case, Gorsuch held that the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that employers provide insurance coverage for contraceptives without a co-pay violated the rights of those employers that object to use of contraceptives on religious grounds.”^[30]

In short, Gorsuch is a Judge in the mold of Antonin Scalia,  who he is said to idolize. Like Scalia, Gorsuch ”is a proponent of originalism, the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as perceived at the time of enactment, and of textualism, the idea that statutes should be interpreted literally, without considering the legislative history and underlying purpose of the law.”^[5][6][7]

Neil Gorsuch is a man coming from a wealthy and privileged background.  His mother,  Anne Gorsuch Burford was a lifelong,  Ultra Right Wing Republican activist who when in the Colorado Legislature  ”was considered by some to be a member of the “House Crazies,” a group of “conservative lawmakers intent on permanently changing government.”^[4] Anne Gorsuch serve a tempestuous 22 months as Ronald Reagan’s  EPA Administrator and was forced to resign due to various scandals and constant battling with Congress.

Here’s the thing though.  Barack Obama’s  nomination of Centrist Judge Merrick Garland was a reasonable attempt to compromise with the Republican Senate, which rejected it and rejected Obama’s right to even nominate a SCOTUS Justice.  The Republican attitude is that the majority of SCOTUS Justices should ”belong” to them and create a permanent reactionary conservative Court majority.  While there is no historical basis for this precedent,  Republicans are willing to use any means to enforce it.  This attitude has become so pervasive that in the Cable News lead-up to Trump’s  prime-time propaganda exploit a few network pundits were actually stating that this appointment was nothing for Democrats to worry about because it was a return to the ”status quo”.  The ”status quo” these simple fools were referring to was a 5 to 4 majority of reactionary Conservatives on SCOTUS.

While the probability is that if Democrats in the Senate filibuster the nomination,  Republi cans will exercise the  ” dreaded”  Nuclear Option and override the Democrats, I say ”bring it on”.  This SCOTUS seat was stolen from the Democrats in a Republican power play.  The rule requiring a 60 vote super majority was put into place as a Senate Rule to avoid individual responsibility.  It is time that we of the Left realize that the One Percent running this country are at war with us and if we lose most Americans will become peons of the oligarchy.  It is time that the Left starts bring Thompson Machine Guns to this political gunfight for the soul of this Nation.  Any Democratic Senator who votes for Gorsuch, should be shunned and opposed in their next election, because they are not allies, merely self-interested politicians.    

 

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In the Age of Trump the Eternal Cluelessness of the Avenging Mind

The election of Donald Trump entails far more than our country being led by an angry, revengeful narcissist,  who only sees the world as a reflection of his needs.  Supporting this man, once you get past the greedy oligarchs demanding more of our nation’s treasure, the White Supremacists with their bigotry and hatred,  are legions of Religious fundamentalists wanting revenge upon all who would not worship THEIR GOD as THEY command. The pardon of the loathsome Joe Arpaio and the nomination of Roy Moore for senator,  both popular among Trump’s voters,  indicates the angry, vengeful mindset abroad in our land.  The ultra-radical theocratic direction of this Administration become all the more clear with Mike Pence as VP, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary and Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.  What Trump, his appointees and his followers all have in common is that they see Government and the Law as a vehicle for them to exact revenge upon all who disagree with them.  They see themselves as pure and Godly vessels, empowered to take Gods revenge upon all they define as sinners. They are prime examples of the the Eternal Cluelessness of the Avenging Mind.

Perhaps the real original sin of humanity is the concept of sin itself. There is of course evil in the world and there is good. To me there is little equivocation about some evils and I am hardly a moral relativist. Although these terms become subjective when viewed from the perspective of an individual, there is a wide general acceptance among diverse cultures as to their general definitions.

We consider murder in all cultures evil, as is robbery, assault, rape (in most but not all cultures), and a host of familiar others. For at least five thousand years, cultures established legal systems to deal with bad behavior and with those systems came the need for punishment. The history of punishment has always been rather draconian and bloody. While today punishment is perhaps more humane in many places, it still caries with it significant cruelty in its application throughout humanity.

“A woman and her three children had just gotten off the bus at a stop across from their apartment building (in Marietta, Georgia) in October 2010 when her 4-year-old son, A.J., broke away from her and ran into the street. A car struck the boy, causing fatal injuries. Nelson (the woman) and one of her two daughters also suffered minor injuries. Nelson was charged with three misdemeanors: second-degree vehicular homicide, failing to cross at a cross walk and reckless conduct, according to court records. A jury convicted her. Although prosecutors did not recommend jail time, each count carried a potential sentence of one year in jail”.

What is behind this prosecution? Who among us who has raised young children wouldn’t be chilled with the vision of this happening to them? Why do we see such prosecutorial zeal in our society to find someone to punish when accidents occur?

The other salient aspect of this case is:

“The man driving the car, Jerry Guy, fled the scene after the accident but later admitted being involved, according to CNN affiliate WXIA-TV. He was sentenced to five years in prison but served only six months. He is serving the remainder of the sentence on probation.”  Here is the full story from CNN.

My proposition is that the increase in fundamentalist religious thought in the world and the influence it has had on us as a society, has led to a rash of unneeded prosecutions, motivated by the need to find an answer to each tragedy that comes to the public’s attention. The disconnect is that while our legal system and Constitution do not talk of sin as an offense against society, those believers in the concept of sin have the belief that we are punishing people for their sins and not for breaking the law. So deep is their dedication to fighting sin, that they believe our legal system is the proper venue to deal with it. In Christianity and Islam sin is to be punished by God/Allah’s judgment at the point of an individual’s death. Nevertheless, there is the idea that society should also punish sin, pre-Deity so to speak and in effect revenge itself on those miscreants who violate God’s Law. Judaism doesn’t talk of sin per se, but the harsh judgments prescribed in the Torah for various acts of breaking the 613 Commandments, may as well be the same as terming them “sin” by the popular understanding of the word.

When a society begins to judge criminality based on the notion of punishing sin, the roster of things to be punished is an ever-expanding one. With this goes the notion that society must avenge itself on those who commit sins and that punishment should be harsh. In this mindset, the law is meant to avenge wrongs and provide punishment as revenge. Not only is this notion inimical to our American legal system and Constitution, it is a foolish one that perverts our system and undermines our laws.

The tremendous increase in our prison rosters are due to what are essentially victim-less crimes dealing with drugs and alcohol. Hundreds of million are spent to dissuade drug abuse and after you parse  the message past the personal harm to the individual, the message is clearly that “getting high” is sinful. If we took the sin out of judging and dealing with the effects of drug use, perhaps we might even reduce it, or at least cut the cost in money and human lives it now represents.

Drugs are just one aspect of the problem of viewing our legal system as existing to punish sin and enforce religious based morality. Sin bespeaks the need of society to avenge proscribed behavior. A rational legal system is not about revenge as punishment, but should be about protecting the citizenry from predation and maintaining a safe environment. As such, our law should be dispassionate about meting out justice and compassionate in its application.

The human mind strives to make sense of the randomness of tragedy, seeking reasons for why they occur and trying to pin blame for the devastation on someone, or something. We know intellectually that “stuff happens”, but we find it hard to accept that sometimes there is just no reason for bad things to occur. If one is a Religious Fundamentalist, believing an omniscient God controls everything, since God is good it must be Satan controlling the supposed perpetrator. Therefore, when bad accidents occur to innocent, little children, someone has to assume blame. In this case, an overburdened mother, coming off from a bus and a four-year old behaving as four-year olds do and pulling away.

We can imagine the indignant feeling of a judgmental public wanting her called to account and the avenging feelings of Cops and Prosecutors, disdainful of her carelessness. This is what I call the “Avenging Mind”. This mindset believes that people deserve harsh punishment for their transgressions, not as reformation, but simply for the satisfaction of revenge. It is an angry, narrow-minded mindset, which internally treats itself with undue harshness and guilt. From a Fundamentalist perspective, we are all sinners, some restrained only by their certainty of punishment in the afterlife. God’s wrath though is not enough for them, because they will never see the punishment to occur. They need the vicarious thrill of seeing it happen.

Isn’t this the reason people were fighting to get into Casey Anthony’s trial and that the television ratings for the verdict were astronomical? It was a need to see her face, as the verdict was delivered and the punishment pronounced. They hoped for the sadistic satisfaction that tears or a pained expression on her face would give them. This isn’t about her guilt or innocence, it is about the fact that many humans take satisfaction in revenge. There are millions of children, living and dying in this world in horrible circumstances, yet we avoid that macrocosm with its attendant crying out to our emotions and focus upon the death of one in millions.

This woman above, faced with the devastating loss of her child and the overwhelming guilty feelings accompanying it, was made to stand trial for vehicular homicide. She was convicted, but in a seeming show of mercy sentenced to no jail time. She never should have been tried on that charge in the first place, or put through the torture of a trial, to make sure that revenge was provided for the human mistake of an instant. The only crime we have here is the Driver’s, for his fleeing the scene. He was treated more humanely for his crime, while a grieving mother who will never forgive herself, was forced to undergo public humiliation and trial.

How do we educate the part of the public so inundated with the notion of sin and retribution, that revenge is not the purpose of the law? In theory, our legal system exists as an extension of our Constitution, to safeguard us all and to protect our society from those who would willingly do harm to others. Somehow, it has gotten all confused with God’s wrath and that is to our detriment.

 

A Sad Tale of a Bad President: Trump Accomplishments After His First 6 Months

Let’s look back to last summer as a “Hero” arose to “Make America Great Again“:

Yes, it seems enough people believed that Trump was the “Only One Who Could Fix America“, that with the aid of Vlad Putin,  the bumbling of James Comey and an Electoral College that skews racist,  this incompetent boob got elected President.  Let’s look at the “accomplishments” of this Presidential fraud as presented by the conservative leaning Dallas Morning News,  which while deep in the heart of Red State Texas, endorsed Hillary Clinton.  This paper’s former Washington Bureau Chief Carl P. Leubsdorf outlined Trump’s achievements during his first six months in office  and this is what he found:

“President Donald Trump’s first six months have been defined by his often angry and tasteless tweets, his ham-handed efforts to denigrate and undercut the multiple investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 election and the stalemated legislative battle to repeal and replace Obamacare.

But Trump is right in saying he has significantly influenced government and the nation’s image — though much of his impact has been negative. His most significant clear-cut triumph was installing conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. He can take credit for slowing the inflow of illegal immigrants. And his impact has gone well beyond that:

FOREIGN POLICY

-Embraced autocrats in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Egypt and abandoned longtime U.S leadership in seeking to enhance democracy and human rights.

-Insulted U.S. allies in Europe, especially Germany, and undercut longstanding U.S. treaty commitments.

-Compromised Israel’s intelligence sources.

-Spurred more divisiveness in an already divided Middle East by setting off a squabble between Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally, and Qatar, home of the region’s biggest U.S.  military base.

-Undermined U.S. global leadership on climate change by withdrawing from the Paris agreement, joining only Syria and Nicaragua as nonparticipants.

-Reversed decades of Republican support for free trade, ceding leadership in Asia to China by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and elsewhere by encouraging the British exit from the European Community.

DOMESTIC POLICY

-Proposed a budget with massive cuts that would shred the social safety net and cripple longstanding governmental functions.

-Created uncertainty in the nation’s health care system by sending inconsistent administrative signals and supporting legislation that could deprive millions of people health insurance coverage, undermine Medicaid health support for lower income Americans and give wealthy taxpayers a massive tax cut.

-Mismanaged the federal government by failing to fill many top spots and installing an inexperienced, dysfunctional White House staff.

-Expanded the policy of deporting dangerous illegal aliens by including many people with minimal records, stable jobs and American families.

-Created a commission to investigate his unproven allegations of voter fraud because he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

-Reversed decades of bipartisan cooperation in extending environmental preservation of national landmarks.

-Hired foxes to watch the chicken coops by filling his administration with arch conservatives, many with records opposing the very agencies in which they work, and curbing civil rights and environmental enforcement.

INSTITUTIONAL DAMAGE:

-Committed potentially impeachable offenses of obstructing justice that prompted appointment of a Special Counsel by firing FBI Director James Comey, because of his probe into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia, and urging other intelligence officials to pressure Comey to halt the probe.

-Undermined the courts with denunciations of judges and their decisions affecting his administration’s policies, especially those curbing his hastily issued ban on Muslim travel from certain countries.

-Without evidence, accused former President Barack Obama of illegally wiretapping his phones.

-Repeatedly misrepresented his administration’s policies and trashed officials with whom he has disagreements, calling the  ousted Comey “a nut job,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer the “head clown” and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi an “incompetent.”

-Intensified racial and other divisions by reducing governmental civil rights guarantees and reversing protections for sexual and racial minorities.

-Violated his own self-proclaimed ethics laws by allowing officials to deal with issues affecting their former employers. Permitted multiple instances in which he and other family members benefit financially from his presidency.

-Waged a vendetta against news outlets subjecting his administration to scrutiny, calling the mainstream media the “enemy of the American people” and denouncing unfavorable stories as “fake news.” Undercut White House press institutions intended to facilitate dialogue between the presidency and the public.

Trump has failed so far to enact promised measures to increase economic growth, resulting in reduced long-term forecasts. Many economic numbers he touts exaggerate his impact and denigrate the carryover effect of positive Obama policies. Military progress against ISIS has not eased its terrorist threat.

The result: the least support for any new modern president, an exacerbation of domestic divisions, and unprecedented global disdain and embarrassment.”

Rather than “Making America Great Again“, this malicious and malignant person has done more harm to this country over a 6 month period than anyone in our long history,  other than perhaps the leader of the Southern Treason, Jefferson Davis.

The idea of a “Resistance” to Trump,  is not one born from partisan division, but from a deep love and thus patriotic feeling for our country.  If left unchecked, the harm this narcissistic incompetent  has inflicted upon our nation will endanger us all internationally;  subject us to a “Fundamentalist Sharia Law“;  oppress People of Color; destroy public education;  and strengthen the hold of Billionaire Oligarchs upon these United States. The most ironic aspect of this is that the “successes”  this fraud has achieved do not derive from a “Machiavellian Skill-set” because he is incapable of consistent thought,  but from the Right Wing ideologues and religious Fundamentalists that comprise his Administration.

The only clear choice for the majority of Americans who see this potential for turning our country into a feudal kleptocracy, eerily similar to Russia today, is to Resist this treasonous cabal and free ourselves of this malevolent clown who has stolen the Presidency and is corrupting our Nation.