Time for Some OPINIONS: Let's Chat About the Supreme Court
Things Cannot Stay The Same.
That’s sort of an inevitability of the world we live in. There are some things that are universal, of course. The vast majority of humanity believes that murder is wrong, for example. But even the definition of what counts as murder has been changed over the centuries.
I believe in change regarding language. Computer is a word now that didn’t used to exist. iPad is a word now that didn’t used to exist. The internet is a word now that didn’t used to exist.
Things change. Language changes. And it’s necessary to do so, or we’d still be using sticks to stab mammoths for our dinner. Or trying to, anyway.
We’d still have our life expectancies dependent on our dental longevity. Because of change, we are living in a world where we can literally have our third molars removed, instead of depending on them for a few extra years of life.
We’d still be erasing women and non-white people from our history, instead of slowly (too slowly, sometimes) working to recognize all of the forgotten people who did amazing things for our species.
Change is necessary because we didn’t even used to know what germs were, let alone how to prevent their spread. We could still prescribe cocaine for ghosts in the blood as a diagnosis, or we could look through microscopes and work to understand the micro world that affects us every day.
Things cannot stay the same.
Politics Is No Different.
It is important to not only accept, but welcome political change constantly, because we as a species are constantly learning and growing. We’re all trying to do better. Times change. Science changes. Knowledge changes. Politics must, by its very nature, change along with it all.
It has to.
I’m sure everyone who has ever scrolled through the internet has come across one of those humor articles about outdated laws that make no sense anymore. (If they even made sense when they were created.) Here are a few:
In North Carolina, a bingo game cannot last more than 5 hours.
In Texas, it's illegal to change the weather.
In Maine, it's against the law to have Christmas decorations up after January 14th.
It's illegal to drive with an uncaged bear in Missouri.
In Connecticut, a pickle can only be called a pickle if it bounces.
It is illegal in Georgia to eat fried chicken with utensils.
It is illegal to throw snowballs in Topeka, Kansas.
It is prohibited to dance to the “Star Spangled Banner” in Massachusetts.
In Nevada, it is illegal to use an x-ray device to determine someone’s shoe size.
In Oklahoma it is illegal to wrestle a bear.
Vermont passed a law just to say there would never be a law prohibiting the use of clotheslines.
It is illegal to poach a Sasquatch in at least two Washington counties.
Most of these are goofy and more funny than anything else. But without laws and government and politics changing with the times, you get stuff like this sitting on the books well past the time when they’d ever have been useful.
Sometimes that’s all it is. Funny. Sometimes there is still segregation between white and black students clear into the 21st century.
If political change never happened, we’d still have chattel slavery.
If political change never happened, 80% of the people I know wouldn’t be allowed to vote, because they fulfilled some, but not all, of the requirements to be white, wealthy, cis, straight, male, landowners.
If political change never happened, the American Revolution would never have even existed.
Amy Coney Barret’s Stances are Trash
Yeah. I just said that bluntly. In the wake of a manchild crying at me about feeling this way, I’m not very inclined to sugarcoat that opinion. People who agree with her are gonna feel * “dehumanized” by my disagreement anyway, so I might as well just say what I mean.
**Note: No, I don’t actually think that disagreeing with someone dehumanizes them, but the guy who yelled at me the other day about this literally said it did, as he screamed into the void against comments I wasn’t making. So these are his words.
I feel this way because Barret does not believe in change. She describes her stance toward the Constitution, and toward officiating laws in a court, in this way:
In the very first question put to her in Day 2 of her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Amy Coney Barrett was asked to define, "in English," the meaning of the legal concept of originalism.
"In English that means that I interpret the Constitution as a law," she said, "and that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn't change over time and it's not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it."
Both in the way I interpret this statement, and in the way she herself describes it in other places, this essentially means that she believes her job as a judge is not to have opinions about laws, but to just blindly enforce them, no matter what. And that the meanings to be enforced must strictly be only the meanings instilled in them upon creation.
Which is suspect to me. I don’t really understand how a person of any conscience can bold-facedly say that the only way you’ll accept new ideas in government is to be micromanaged about it through laws and amendments.
Not just in social matters, either, which is clearly where this is the most problematic. But even in things that are opinions, like taxes, traffic, trade, etc. The world changes too much to be rigid in how you apply rules. A world that only had trains, and hadn’t invented the minie ball yet is not going to react to travel and weapons laws the same way as a place with robots on Mars, clear pictures of Pluto, and extremely powerful drone strikes.
Not only does Barret seem unable to believe in change, but she seems uninterested in the equal application of justice. Odd, considering the way she talks about trying to set aside her personal faith in order to exercise the laws.
“I see no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a judge. In fact, we have many judges, both state and federal, across the country who have sincerely held religious views and still impartially and honestly discharge their obligations as a judge…. I would decide cases according to rule of law … I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law.” (U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, 9/06/2017)
“It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else on the law.” (U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, 9/06/2017)
“I don’t think that faith should influence the way a judge decides cases at all. As I said, I don’t think that a judge should twist the law to bring it into line or to help it match in any way the judge’s own convictions. And that’s true, whether they derive from faith or, everyone has convictions, everyone has beliefs. That’s not unique to people who have faith. And so somehow people seem to think that I said the opposite of what I said, but I think that one of the most important responsibilities of a judge is to put their personal preferences and their personal beliefs aside because our responsibility is to adhere to the rule of law.” (The Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 Podcast, 2/27/2020)
Actually, I partially agree with her, here. But only partially. You see, I do agree that it is not a judge’s responsibility to make laws, and that it is a judge’s responsibility to uphold justice in the face of laws that the legislature has passed. Yes, even if you don’t agree with the person whom you are protecting under that law.
If you are anti-gay, but there is a law that protects the rights of everyone to get married, your job as a judge would be to rule in favor of justice. And justice would be that people get rights, even if you religiously don’t like that type of person.
If you are racist, but a black person comes before your court having been falsely accused of a crime, your job as a judge is to administer justice to that person, even if your personal convictions are that they are a lesser race. To not do this is to fail in your judicial duties.
But based on every quote I have read of hers, Barret believes a court’s duty is to the law, not to justice under the law. And that is something I can’t get behind.
I Believe That a Judge’s Highest Purpose Is To Administer Justice.
Not to administer the law, mind you, but to administer justice under the law. Through the law. By means of the law.
As a judge—especially a member of the highest court in the land—I believe that your sworn duty is to take the laws created by the legislature, and ensure that they are applied in such a way that justice has been done, to the very best of your ability.
That’s the entire point of checks and balances: to ensure that the things done by one group of officials protects the country’s people as they’re supposed to.
And yes, that means that your morals and convictions DO come into the picture. To believe otherwise is to destroy the entire purpose of the judiciary.
You must make rulings that you may not personally like, because a just law says you have to. Justice must be served, despite your religious, cultural, or familial ideals.
But you must also make rulings to repair, rescind, or reapply unjust laws because your moral convictions say you have to. Justice must be served, despite the legal precedents that have come before you.
Change is vital. Things cannot stay the same. But they will, if no one ever pushes for new and better things. Women’s suffrage would never have happened if suffragettes hadn’t gotten out and made noise about it. Civil rights advancement would never have happened if activists hadn’t gotten out and made noise about it.
Part of your responsibility as a judge, on any level in the land, is to enforce things when they should be enforced, and to MAKE NOISE when they shouldn’t. You have power that a lot of people do not have to make that noise.
If your job is to check and balance the legislative and the executive branches of government, you must, by very definition, check those laws and decrees to make sure they are fair, balanced, and just. You must take the laws placed before you and make rulings on how they are applied that ensure they stay fair, balanced, and just.
It is a failing in your duty as a member of the judicial portion of the government if you enforce unjust laws.
Barret Seems To Only Believe In Half Of That Sworn Duty As A Judge.
Her quotes are full of soundbytes about how the law must be upheld, and it’s not her place to make laws. And she isn’t wrong. But they’re also full of statements on interpreting the law that convince me she cares about the legality of a ruling more than the justice of it. (And that if she could change the legality of things she doesn’t like—without making too many waves—she’d do it.)
For me, her words about trans rights are the perfect example:
"When Title IX was enacted, it’s pretty clear that no one, including the Congress that enacted that statute, would have dreamed of that result, at that time. Maybe things have changed so that we should change Title IX, maybe those arguing in favor of this kind of transgender bathroom access are right. That’s a public policy debate to have. But it does seem to strain the text of the statute to say that Title IX demands it.”
It’s nicely worded. I’ll give her that. She certainly makes it sound like she cares about trans rights, and is just trying to be reasonable about the law, with phrasing like “maybe things have changed, so that we should change title IX”.
But we’re talking about a human’s ability to live unharassed in this country, not some offhand statement on finances or election districts. Human rights are not political opinions.
This quote makes it crystal clear that she’s extremely chill about denying rights to trans people as long as the wording of protection laws is teeeeechnically non-inclusive. She needs everything spelled out for her in explicit legalese before she’s willing to be cool with protecting a group of people that apparently don’t qualify under the ‘everyone should be equal’ part of what America claims to be about.
Saying “it’s really a stretch to read those rights into this document” is exactly the same as old timey politicians saying “I mean, yes, it says that all men are created equal, but it doesn’t say that this includes black men. It does seem to strain the text of the statute to say that the Declaration of Independence demands it.”
See where I’m going with this?
We should be able to say that “all men are created equal” does, in fact, actually demand that we listen to the “ALL” part. It should be inherent in our empathy and humanity that we include rather than exclude. That we not need to be micromanaged, in order to believe in the equality of all humans.
We should not need a law written out to say that “yeah, bro. Stop discriminating” includes trans people along with everyone else. Because they, too, are humans trying to get along in society.
But, ya know, Amy thinks we do. To her, trans folks are a policy, not a people. An opinion, not a human rights issue. And anyone who can believe that about one group of people, whoever they are, loses all credibility in my eyes. If you can dehumanize trans folks, you can dehumanize anyone else. All you need is the right propaganda.
I Don’t Think Barret Is Fit For the Highest Court in the Country
To me, someone who’s good at their job of adjudicating and administering justice under the law would care more about a person to be protected than the minutiae of the phrasing. We aren’t toddlers trying to get away with stuff by finding loopholes. (Or at least, we shouldn’t be.)
**Fun Note: I actually love the idea of de-bloating our government. Smaller sounds great. So much is legislated that sometimes I feel like I need to find a little island that can be my own country, where no one can tell me what to do with my rainwater.
But the truth is that people are stupid. We shouldn’t have to be instructed on every small and simple thing in order to just not be dicks to other people, but here we are with a potential supreme court judge that will literally discriminate against a whole group of people different than her, until she is legally made to stop.
The fact that we even need laws to tell us not to discriminate against women, people who aren’t white, and people who aren’t cis or straight is just depressing, tbh.
And because I’m not safe in the presence of other humans unless stupid people are explicitly told that murdering me is bad, I’ll go ahead and live with the lots of laws bit.
Now, back to Barret, and her bad takes.
Most of what I’m talking about here has nothing to do with whether other people like her or not. It isn’t about believing false memes or hating her based on her party affiliation. All of it is entirely centered on actual phrases that she, herself has uttered, and which I have read and thought about more than once.
Given all that, Barret, based on her own words, reads to me as someone who:
Thinks that human rights are an opinion, just like taxes or traffic laws.
Claims that faith shouldn’t affect her administration of justice, but would overturn just laws if given the chance, in favor of policy that fits her personal ideas.
Would enforce unjust laws with nary a qualm, because they’re the law.
Believes in enforcing laws, but doesn’t care much about the justice of that enforcement.
Would use her platform of power and influence to encourage anti-LGBTQ+ policy, even if she didn’t technically create or sign those laws herself.
Would, despite her assertions to the contrary, rule more in favor of her personal party lines than in the neutral and unbiased way she espouses to believe in.
Follows the Trump line of thinking: Loopholes are where the smart people live. If something isn't airtight, it should be exploited to personal benefit.
Which, in turn, makes her seem like someone who doesn't like being micromanaged because she can't make her own life choices, but likes being micromanaged because it's an excuse to get away with things through those loopholes.
Now, you’d be right to say that we don’t necessarily know that these things would happen. We’ve only seen her be an actual judge for 3 years, and that’s not a lot to go on, when considering the Supreme Court. It might turn out that she’s just terrible at expressing herself, and she really is devoted to justice.
Buuuuuut she sounds pretty well-spoken to me. And well-spoken people, I find, rarely just misstep in their words to that degree. I believe that she said what she meant to say. And what she meant to say is not something I can get behind.
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