♫ I said there is no justice as they led me out the door
The judge said, “This isn’t a court of justice, son.
This is a court of law.” ♫
Stephen William “Billy” Bragg expressed no original sentiments when he set the above lyrics to rhyme, meter, and melody in the mid-1980s. In fact, the insufficiency of courts and judges to protect the rights of men1 motivated, at least in part, pretty much every reformative and revolutionary movement since the dawn of recorde history.
Credit Hammurabi with coining the phrase, “A man got to have a code.”
Moving that discussion two millennia along, the Founding Fathers2 of the United States got two things precisely correct. First, they listed problems with the judiciary in the Declaration of Independence. Second, they enshrined myriad protections against police and judicial overreach in the Constitution.
Washington, Jefferson, et al. also prosecuted a war against the English monarchy with the goal of investing political and administrative power in representatives of the people rather than avatars of a deity.
Good story. How did it end?
Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court Rules
So, yeah.
Rehashing the history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states would only try the threadbare patience of Politics Thread header readers.3 It does avail, however, to call particular attention to the Supreme Court of the State of North Carolina and its recently constituted far-right supermajority telling victims of racial discrimination they have no recourse to legal remedies when said discrimination occurs for an explicitly partisan reason such as gerrymandering electoral districts.
Democracy does not die in darkness. It gets sledgehammered at 10 am on the courthouse steps as life members of the Federalist Society pass around cigars.
♪ To live outside the law
You must be honest
I know you always say that you agree
All right
So, where are you tonight, Sweet Marie? ♪
Substitute “any rightwing judge” for “Marie” and you find the *ahem* the honorables:
- Accepting bribes,
- Laundering money through real estate transactions,
- Violating the 13th and 14th Amendment rights of people who can become pregnant,
- Ordering the execution of indisputably innocent people in the interest of preserving the integrity of the abattoir,
- Upholding the illegal expulsion of elected Democratic lawmakers from state legislatures,
- Colluding with a Roman Catholic Archdiocese to rig child sex abuse trials, and
- Affirming state-imposed bans on gender-affirming care for trans—but not cis-het—people/
Busy beavers those salacious Solomons. But then, do what you love and never work a day in your life.
These cosmic juridical jokes enamor themselves of nothing more than violating their oaths of office to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me … under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Allowing courts to continue running roughshod over rights while flouting responsibilities will results in the establishment of a fascist theocracy that looks for all the Old World like an absolute monarchy operating according to the whims of an avowedly divinely chosen king.4
Now, for no reason at all, indulge your fill-in PT header host in sending out a long distance dedication to the regent-in-waiting for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Enjoy your ascension, Chuck. Make it reign,5 playa.
All McSquirrel Rules apply.
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