Letters: What’s ahead for the Supreme Court?; A fable for our time
What’s ahead for the Supreme Court?
Reading about the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, I kept thinking about 2022 after Roe v. Wade.
The book is the new biography by Peter S. Canellos, “The Great Dissenter — The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero.”
Eight of those justices were white lawyers, men who had become wealthy as corporation lawyers during the post-Civil War, Gilded Age industrial boom. The ninth justice was Harlan, a lawyer from a prominent slave owning family in the divided border state of Kentucky. He chose to fight in the Union Army.
Challenged with cases resulting from the three so-called Civil War Amendments intended to give freedom, voting rights and commonplace civil rights to freed former slaves now terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan, the court chose, in a series of decisions, to set as Constitutionally sanctioned law Jim Crow — and informally, Lynch Law — and also interpreted the 14th Amendment into a weapon against industrial reforms for workers Black and white.
Harlan’s lone dissents became the reasoning underlying Constitutional law we live by in 2021.
Poised to end a woman’s choice for a safe, legal abortion, is this Supreme Court about to embark on another series of decisions — today reflecting the rightist “values” of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party?
Already having castrated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, what would be next? Denying Jefferson’s concept of separation of church and state? Validation of Republican state laws designed to block — or annul — votes of people the party does not like?
A fable for our time
Pigs can fly. Italian lasers altered votes. Fish ambulate on beaches. Bamboo on ballots is evidence of vote tampering. Cows smoke grass when nobody is looking. Dead people arise from their crypts to vote for Democrats. Vaccines cause shrinking man-parts. De-wormer works better than bleach. Socialist cats speak French in clandestine conversations that mock us. Trees talk revolution. Oceans plot rebellion. The wind cries in expletive. Pinocchio was framed. Falsity is truth. Mean is kind. Stupid is smart. And the once Grand Old Party of Lincoln never tells a lie.
Friendship across political parties
My best friend is a staunch Republican. I’m an independent who leans to the left. Through the pandemic, the 2020 election, January 6, et al, we remain best friends. The current narrative would suggest this is an anomaly, but it needn’t be.
It’s not even that hard. We just see each other as people first, we actually talk (in person! Wow!) instead of dashing off haphazard knee-jerk responses in the Facebook comments section, and we’re OK with the fact that we’ll never agree on everything. Disagreements aren’t inherently bad, which is something we seem to have forgotten in the age of social media.
If there’s someone in your life you were once close to but find that the current political climate has driven a wedge in that relationship, reach out to them. Meet for coffee and remember that you were drawn to that person once before, and were once able to see them as a person and not an ideology. Be OK with not agreeing on everything. Our divisions benefit only mass media shareholders and politicians who have clearly forgotten that serving the state and country is public service, not a career path.
Protect your ears at Monster Trucks
Part of the fun of Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live is that they are loud, but you should also protect yourself and your family if you are attending this weekend at the Bryce Jordan Center. Everyone going should have either ear plugs or ear muffs, particularly children. Ear plugs are the in the ear type that you can buy inexpensively at any pharmacy. Ear muffs fit over your entire ear and look like big headphones. You can purchase ear muffs at sporting goods and hardware stores, and muffs are often easier for kids to use. With either plugs or muffs, you will have hearing protection so you can fully enjoy going and not worry about your ears ringing during or after. Also, don’t be surprised if you smell the exhaust fumes. Enjoy the show!