First, a confession. After submerging my personal, metaphysical beliefs beneath the shield of journalistic objectivity (which I believe was the professionally ethical thing to do) for twenty-five years, I feel compelled to object to SCOTUS’s conservative supermajority banning abortion and stripping away the little protection we have had against yahoos bristling with deadly firearms in public places. My confession is that, unlike the conservative justices, all of whom either are or were raised Catholic, I see myself, first and foremost, as a human being, part of the only human race that appeared on Planet Earth.
Like billions of human beings before me, I have wondered how we got here, the two major explanations being evolution, which I studied in school, and “creation,” which was drilled into me at home and at church (Protestant). If you ask me if humanity arrived via this route:
Or this route:
I’d have to go with the chimps, given that evolution is based on rational, scientific research and the creation story is based on oral traditions of ancient Hebrew people, written down by very, unscientific scribes and shamans. Christians made it even harder to believe when, as Michelangelo did in his classic rendition on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, they insisted that the Almighty was white and –poof!—his “Adam” was, too, even though it all happened in the Middle East, where the natives were and are all people of color.
No human being alive or long dead ever asked to be born. But here we are. And contrary to the Christianized Justices, I believe the mere fact of our existence automatically entitles each and every one of us to certain “human rights.” (I am so convinced of this I wrote a book about it: This Mere Existence, available from Amazon Books :–)
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” written as the dust settled from the horrors of WW II, laid claim to those, self-evident rights. The framers, world citizens all, recognized that every person is born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that those rights cannot be withheld on the basis of race, colour, sex, language, religion or political opinion.
The Conservative Supremes should be reminded that every human being has the right to life, liberty and the security of person and that no one should be subjected to interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence. Justice Thomas has begun the drive against LGBTQ human beings and same-sex marriage. He should be reminded that, as the UNUDHR proclaimed, men and women have the right to marry and have a family, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion. The UN’s list forcefully asserted that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the only justifiable reason for getting anywhere near those rights is to ensure that every human being can exercise them.
The Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion and gun possession run roughshod over the United Nation’s vision of humanity. Giving states the power to control a human being’s body (ban abortion) does great violence to the right to “security of person.” Justice Thomas’s goals of stomping out the right for certain human beings to marry and have a family, and erasing the right for human beings (including those of varying sexualities) to live lives free of fear of discrimination or worse, promise significant harm to millions of Americans. The conservative majority’s rejection of state laws intended to protect all of us from the threat posed by the unfettered presence of firearms at all times in all places virtually mandates more injury and death from guns.
What lies ahead is an uneasy future in which white, Christian nationalists (Protestants and Catholics) work to accomplish more and more of their decades-long, undemocratic, highly discriminatory agenda for trashing the UN’s (and the U.S. Constitution’s) guarantees of freedom of religion and thought and person. This conservative, Christianized Supreme Court appears ready and willing to make those right-wing Christian dreams come true. I read an article the other day by a writer who already fled this country because he didn’t want to live under the iron hand of white, Christian nationalists. I’m not ready to do that, but I’m at a loss for how we can prevent it. I argued in This Mere Existence that we should be able to subdue the conservative, Christian wave, and other threats to humanity, because there are simply more of us—people willing to share our country and the world with human beings of all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities, schools of thought and religion—than there are of the intolerant conservatives. If we’re going to do that, we’d better get our act together, because this Supreme Court, and those who obviously have their ear, aren’t wasting any time in their crusade to remake America in their own image.
This situation with right wingers (especially evangelical Christians) and abortion is just completely out of control. Below is a letter I hope my local paper will print, trying to get their attention and appeal to their inherent, empathic human nature or whatever is left of it. I welcome your thoughts.
Let me admit up front that when I learned the Supreme Court was about to give government the power to control a woman’s body, I panicked. But then I remembered the scene in Lancaster County and elsewhere when government tried to dictate what people could or couldn’t do with their bodies in the battle against the deadly coronavirus. I pictured the Republican woman who demanded I remove my mask and shouted “Freedom!” with her fist in the air. I saw Republican Congressman Lloyd Smucker rushing home to join the Republican county commissioners to condemn state-imposed health measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus. I hear the words of (mostly) evangelical Christian ministers who vowed to fight restrictions on freedom to worship with a gun, if necessary. Those freedom-loving souls were furious that the government was trying to tell them what to do with their bodies in response to a health threat. Surely they will rise up now against government efforts to deny women the freedom to control their bodies’ reproductive functions. They were adamant in their belief that government-imposed health measures violated their freedom to control their own bodies. May that clarity of vision persist as government threatens another basic freedom—a woman’s right to choose. I look forward to seeing LNP photos of the freedom-loving Republican woman I met, the county commissioners, Lloyd Smucker and all of those evangelical ministers in the front row of protests against this Supreme Court denial of one of humanity’s most basic human rights.
The appeals court has issued its unanimous ruling on the impostor President’s Muslim ban–the ruling basically rejected Trump/Bannon’s arguments for a stay of a judge’s order lifting the ban:
The court said: “[We] hold that the Government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay.” [from NPR.org]
Trump, of course, got busy with his thumbs (and not his head), as usual:
My favorite part was the appeals court’s response to Trump’s contention that the actions of his gold-plated presidency could not be questioned, effectively discarding the other two branches of our government. Think again, Donald:
“In their ruling, the judges were unequivocal. ‘There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our democracy.’” [from NPR.org] I like the sound of that, it has a solid ring to it: “…this claimed unreviewability…runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our democracy.”
Yes, this thing will go to the Supreme Court, but Mitch McConnell’s refusal to allow Obama to fill the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia’s death means there’s a good chance the Supremes will add up to a draw, in which case the appeals court decision stands, and “Loser Trump” loses again. Maybe he’ll get all pissy and resign and try to rescue his daughter’s sagging shoe sales.(I wish :–)
As we all watch the hyper-ambitious candidates step up to run for President in 2016, I find myself hoping (naively) that there will be at least one whose character and morality have not been eroded by the rough-and-tumble, brutal process that is American politics. I have to admit, at this point, that I really don’t expect a truly sterling individual to risk their mortal soul by joining the fray.
As pessismism descends on me once again, memories of past elections rise to haunt me: Richard Nixon’s criminal shenanigans in 1972, Chris Christie’s Bridgegate skulduggery in 2013, and the Bush family’s corruption of the system all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to get W. the presidency in 2000.
I was trying to convince myself that each of these dark moments was an exception to the rule, that the United States has a basically honest political system, when I happened to read volume two of Robert A. Caro’s stunning biography of Lyndon Johnson (Means of Ascent). Caro does not spare the rod in documenting the means by which Johnson rose to power and ultimately the Presidency. In brief, he accuses Johnson of doing whatever it took to get what he wanted, whether it be lying, cheating, or stealing. Along the way, Caro introduces us to the man Johnson had to take down to get to the top…former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson…a man Caro describes as adamantly conservative and honest. Contrasted to Stevenson, Johnson looks like a two-bit hustler, willing to work any scam that will take him where he wants to go, including buying enough votes to make sure he wins.
Reading about Johnson’s foul deeds and Stevenson’s adherence to a readily defined sense of right and wrong, I was unprepared for Caro to admit, in the course of the story, that the upright, decent Coke Stevenson also bought votes and manipulated the process to ensure his own victory. That’s the way they did it in Texas, Caro says. So we’re left facing the reality that there was then, and likely now as well, no truly righteous “man” in Sodom, or Texas, or maybe anywhere in the U.S. political system.
Where does that leave us as the cast of characters is whittled down to one Republican and one Democrat and whatever other third party candidates push all the way to November, 2016? I’m really tired of falling back on the idea of voting for “the lesser of two evils,” as some of my friends say they’ve done in recent elections. But barring some miraculous transformation of the American political landscape, that’s probably the only option that will make any sense on election day.
I first discovered the correlation between identifying with the Republican Party and racism while reading a textbook on attitudes in grad school. Subsequent studies I’ve read found the same connection. I wrote about it on this blog earlier, after U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pronounced Republicans not guilty of bigotry, anymore. Well, the justice was wrong, racism continues throughout the country, and now no less a Republican authority than former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s top aide has confirmed it (at least based on his experience). Here’s a link to a recent interview with him:
As we head into the turbulent waters of another Presidential election, I hope sincere, well-intentioned, non-racist Americans who normally vote with the Republicans will give it a second thought.
Donald J. Trump
the 65 year old journalist 