Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Not a Happy Fourth

Here is an excerpt from Jennifer Rubin's recent column in the WAPO.  

On this Independence Day, we should reaffirm the twin pillars of democracy: Voters (not the mob) pick their leaders, and elected leaders (not unelected judges) make policy decisions for which they are held accountable. Just as we need to preserve the sanctity of elections (by prosecuting coup instigators), democracy defenders need to address judicial radicals’ gross distortion of our system, resulting in the current Supreme Court’s subversion of democracy.

Unhinged from judicial standards, the court now roves through the policy landscape, overturning decades of law and reordering Americans’ lives and institutions. It upends women’s health, revamps college admissions, snatches student aid from millions and redefines public accommodations (allowing egregious discrimination). In aggrandizing power, the court illegitimately dominates policymaking, undermining democracy to an extent we have not seen in nearly 100 years. (Ronald Brownstein pointed out that similar constitutional collisions in the 1850s and 1930s took a civil war or threat of court-packing to resolve.)

Something must change if we want to preserve rule by the people’s elected leaders responsible to voters.

It's a good piece, unfortunately behind a paywall.  Between the large number of shootings Jim just read to me, the fires in the boreal forests, the heat domes, the thinning pack ice, the increasing sea temperatures, it's difficult to see any good in the future.

So on that happy note I wish all of you who celebrate a Happy Fourth.

 

8 comments:

  1. I enjoyed the meal our over worked kitchen staff prepared, in spite of the number of college student servers and kitchen helpers who didn't bother to show up. We are going to hell in a handbasket at the lowest levels, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sad state of affairs our country is in. There will be an uprising when people have had enough. While I have had enough and am old enough to see what will be, I am too old to fight the battle brewing. I worry about my grandchildren and what their world will look like.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I did put my flag out but I thought about not doing it. I never put it out the four years the orange menace was in the White House. people, states, and institutions should engage in civil disobedience and ignore the Court's rulings.Arizona (I think it was Arizona) gave a big fuck you to the SC announcing that they would continue to enforce their non-discrimination laws.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't disagree, but of course the conservatives would say the same things, pointing to past SupCo decisions on gay marriage, the original Roe vs. Wade, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, etc. They're always complaining about activist judges. I guess the main difference is those decisions didn't come virtually all at once.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have to agree, I found it difficult this 4th of July to muster the Patriotism I normally feel, given the condition of our Nation at the present time and how many Fanatics, Lunatic Fringe, Domestic Terrorists and Fascists have eroded Human Rights and threatened Democracy. As for the Climate and Mother Earth, we need to start becoming better Stewards, otherwise future generations will not be able to run enough damage control behind us. Most indigenous people's who live in Harmony with Nature have always ascribed that the Earth does not belong to us, it is merely loaned to us by the 7 Generations of future descendants and The Creator. I think if we thought ahead that far, we'd be more Careful and Mindful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I find that from time to time I just need to switch off from all news. There is hope , I believe, in the good people across the world, if not in our world of politics.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I do enjoy Jennifer Rubin's comments. I've thought many times about the comment you make in the last paragraph. I heard a quote from David Cornwell aka John LeCarre shortly before he passed. He was asked his thoughts on getting old, he said "It's the feeling of going down with a sinking ship, piloted by lunatics and disaster addicts." It struck me so much I wrote it down.

    ReplyDelete