Originalism is a pleasant sounding word
It replaces 'bigotry of the assholes'
To this day, the bigoted assholes insist the Civil War was not fought about slavery, but about ‘state’s rights’. They still mean state governments should have the right to make some people slaves and white men the owners and bosses of everyone else.
When you hear bigoted assholes complain about judicial activism or legislating from the bench, it appears to mean that Congress and state legislatures get to write all the laws. But in reality, it means courts and judges have to be restricted from giving rights to people that Congress or state legislatures have not specifically given to them.
The bigoted assholes still carry the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee rights for the majority of adults in our country, who are women. ’Oh you girls don’t need that,’ they say, “the anti-slavery amendment has you covered.” But they know the loopholes in that coverage would make a shady insurance agent proud. The bigoted assholes still want their women to be subservient to men, providing - among other things - sex on demand.
Originalism didn’t allow women to own property or to divorce their husbands or to say no to sex with their husbands. And they certainly couldn’t use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy or choose to abort the fetuses contained in their bodies, even if the odds were high that the fetus would never be fully healthy outside their bodies. Even if the fetuses would live short, physically painful lives outside their mothers’ bodies. Even if the fetuses grew into children that re-kindled the trauma the women endured when they were brutally raped by some man.
Originalists claim the founding rich white guys intended that to be the law forever unless two-thirds of the state legislatures decided to change the original constitution.
It’s a very useful rug, originalism, that bigoted assholes keep trying to sweep a lot of dirt and filth under. Originalism means you can take away all the human rights that free white men possess, claim darker skinned people aren’t even human, but to share tax revenue, we’ll count them as 2/3rds of a person without giving them 2/3rds of the rights. That’s exactly what the convoluted logic of the founding fathers created. What was their original intent?
To create a federal government so the states could unite against governments elsewhere to forge a nation of common destiny. Without that 2/3rds rule, there was no way to make the states unite. Similar logic was used to create the Senate and the Electoral College, both of which grant unequal representation. The founders didn’t want voters choosing every officeholder even. They cobbled together a document that would get the most bigoted assholes to sign on because they couldn’t persuade the bigoted assholes to be less bigoted assholes for the common good.
All the absurdities, myths and outright lies become highly visible now every time there’s a Supreme Court nomination. The nominees have to be very precise about what they say, bowing to the bigoted assholes, swearing not to actively promote human equality that legislatures didn’t grant while upholding laws that are equal for everyone. Which is impossible.
And the bigoted assholes invent whatever myths suit their purposes, like claiming all the founders were Christian (they weren’t) so the charlatan extremists in specific denominations can direct legislatures to write laws they like, that fill their coffers with cold, hard cash. In return, they browbeat their parishioners to vote for bigoted assholes. And this country has seen lots of bigoted assholes in every branch and level of government.
Yet somehow, the United States has persisted and thrived, offering a few more rights and economic opportunities than most other countries have done. Bigoted assholes exist in all countries. In world history, we’re not the first to promote a representative democracy. Ours has lasted a little longer than most because some of our founders and some of our elected lawmakers and some of our judges have been a little smarter and a little more ‘woke’.
But we could do so much better. We don’t have to have bigoted assholes like Strom Thurmond hanging on to office after dementia has stolen his brain and his aides are doing all the work. We could set a sensible retirement age for Congress and should. We should do the same thing for the Supreme Court, limiting them all to 20 year terms. And should.
And we really need to overcome this fake worship of most of our founders and most of our early government members. There’s lots of slaveholders in that crowd and I’m not at all sorry if that makes you feel guilty or sad. Guilt and sadness are healthy human emotions and more guilt and shame might help temper the bigotry of assholes.
Instead, we’re faced with the absurd spectacle of government censorship sponsored by bigoted assholes who don’t want you seeing our real history and want to keep impeding your right to vote unless you lean strongly to voting for bigoted white male assholes.
Fortunately, we’re likely to soon have a new Supreme Court Justice who’s a Black Woman because bigoted assholes are not the majority of the Senate and the majority still rules there, unlike the vote for US President. So in the meantime, while TV pundits take the process of grilling the SCOTUS nominee VERY SERIOUSLY like a logical drama script with open debate by sensible people, I recommend other TV fare.
Because the politics of the Republican party now is rooted in bogeymenism. What’s the crime that turns most everyone’s stomach the worst? Pedophilia. It doesn’t matter what your politics or religion is, as most are still sickened and outraged by the sexual abuse of children. And for the past half dozen years, the GOP game plan has been to claim that everyone who is NOT a Republican is probably a pedophile.
Q-Anon whackos believe Hillary and Biden and all elected Democrats are pedophiles. And useless legislators like Cruz and Hawley and Cawthorne and Greene and Boebert and Jordan and Gosar want you to believe there’s pedophiles everywhere in government. And offer no evidence, just allegations that they mostly make up because they don’t do any of the normal legislating stuff that’s in their job description.
There’s lots of evidence that they’re bigoted assholes so I recommend letting your ears cancel them. Fill your hearing holes with good music instead. I mean what’s the point of creating a perfectly sound cancel culture if you’re gonna waste your sensory organs listening to hateful liars that you already know to be hateful liars?
I look forward to the day that the only judicial philosophies that matter are neutrality and adherence to the laws and we can end all this bullshit about originalism and activism. People in power, in government and business, are always trying to rip us off. It’s important to monitor them, regulate them and jail them if they get too rapacious. And you can always spot the worst ones. They’re the ones trying to distract you with bogeymen and fake threats that aren’t threats at all.
Humans, all humans, should have equal rights. There’s nothing complex or hard to understand about that. And if they don’t, none of us is really free. Which is how bigoted assholes want things to be.
So if you’re gonna follow more of these hearings, I encourage you to determine which of the bigoted assholes is the worst. Then go help their opponent’s campaign toss that bum out. That would be the most productive use of your time and it’d make the country a whole lot better.
Those who impede equal rights for any human are a pox and a drag on freedom. Life’s too short and contains too many sadnesses to let the bigoted assholes make America worse again. So don’t let them. It’s as easy as that.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, Putin is losing. Which doesn’t mean anyone is winning because most wars are never won. Thousands have died on both sides. Entire cities have been flattened by the world’s 5th largest army (Russian). Four million people have been displaced for no damn good reason at all. And Russian troops are taking the greatest casualties of all because their leader is a serial killer without a conscience.
This is why no country should ever put a bigoted asshole or a billionaire in charge. Can you name an example in history where it worked out so well to have either in charge? It’s even worse when your leader is both addicted to greed and compulsive
about their bigotry, as Russia got with Putin and we got with Trump, who’s still pushing the Big Lie.
Let’s not make it a habit.
(Also, some breaking news Wednesday morning: what caused Trump’s campaign manager to get his passport revoked?)
Meanwhile back at the pandemic… have you heard there’s a new omnicron variant that transmits more readily? Fortunately it appears to be less lethal for the vaccinated. Still, China and Hong Kong and several European countries are fighting hard to contain it.
There’s also another variant called ‘deltacron’ that features the strengths of both variants. It hasn’t been spotted in the US yet, but it’s potentially pretty bad. People who compare covid to the flu are wishful thinkers. If more don’t get vaccinated here and globally, nobody can predict which future variant will do what. Politicians can claim we’re done with masks and lockdowns but nobody can honestly predict that too.
If it’s the agenda of governments and lobbyists and businesses to not protect the populace, then it’s up to us to protect ourselves against the virus. And to create new variants among governments and business who won’t surrender so many of us because they’re cowards.
Here’s a good thread to catch up on all the covid news.
Update: 5:50 pm on 3/23/22. Corrected three spelling errors.