The voting rights case (Shelby County v. Holder) went five
to four with the “conservative wing” of the court on top. Chief Justice Roberts spoke for the court,
with the usual band of idiots in tow (Alito; Thomas; Scalia) and Justice
Kennedy to round out the five. They seem
to believe that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in America, so no
one needs to be protected from it anymore.
An amazing level of detachment from reality if you ask me, and four
justices agree with me.
Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissent, and it contains the best
metaphor that I’ve heard in a long time.
Canceling the voting rights law now, she suggested, was like throwing
away your umbrella in the middle of a rain storm for the simple reason that it
had succeeded in keeping you dry thus far. That’s
a good one.
The other case (U.S. v. Windsor) had to do with the great non-issue of our
time, gay marriage. I say “non-issue”
because it really shouldn’t be an issue at all.
What’s the big deal? They’re born
that way, whatever bullshit you’ve heard about “choice.” I was taught that the law does not favor
“status crimes.” If homosexuals want to
buddy up to make life more worth living, why not let them? Give me one good reason, I dare you. Lots of people disagree, most notably Justice
Scalia. He wrote the dissent for the
four losers who voted no on the issue.
This case was five to four as well, with the “liberal wing”
taking the honors. The usual band of
heroes, Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer
and Kagan, plus Justice Kennedy again (he’s a mixed blessing, that
one).
And boy, was that Scalia guy angry! He went on a rant about “homosexual sodomy,”
evidently he’s really upset about that stuff.
Interesting that he singled out “homosexual” sodomy; does he have a very
different opinion about sodomy in general?
Is “heterosexual” sodomy okay? You really need to be careful what you write
for public consumption, you may unintentionally release information that you
would rather have kept under wraps.
I have left out the technical details of these decisions,
this is a “big picture” blog after all.
The point is that there’s a problem with both of these decisions. Any “five to four” decision means that the
court is split, and the issues involved may be revisited many times as the
composition of the court changes. People
do die after all, and too often the wrong people. When the decision is graced by a particularly
scathing dissent the split is even more pronounced, especially if all of those
on the short end sign on.
The problem is that the moral calculus of the issues in each
of these cases was crystal clear. Of
course the voting rights act is still necessary to protect certain people who
shall remain nameless, to think otherwise is to mark yourself as a vicious
partisan politician, an OG racist, or just plum stupid. (Excuse me, “low functioning,” the new PC
designation.) Of course homosexuals
should be allowed to get married, there is no non-religion-based argument to
suggest that they should not be allowed. There
should have been general agreement on both of these cases. Instead it was World War Fucking Three, with
name calling.
And as usual, as we are being distracted by all of this
ephemera, the man behind the curtain is ruining our happiness day by day,
manipulating the real issues, sucking up all of the money, getting our children
killed, insuring the ascendance of poverty, disease and hunger, and generally
making of mockery of so-called “representative democracy.”
As one of my Facebook friends says after a rant like
that: “And y’all have a nice day!”
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