I have often repeated America's embrace of increased Socialism began with President Wilson. Then came the expanded demands on our nation due to The Depression followed by WW2. These events were both preceded and coincident with FDR's 3 plus terms and his, mostly successful, endeavor to impose more Socialism followed by that of President Johnson. For those who remember, FDR tried, unsuccessfully, to pack The SCOTUS.
In every instance, progressives have used our constitution as the basis for expanding and embracing Socialism by buttressing their political philosophy on 'how can citizens enjoy our constitutionally guaranteed rights to pursue happiness, without turning every desire into an entitlement? Why? Because the right to pursue does not guarantee happiness. Pursuit entails personal responsibility whereas, entitlement does not.
I have discussed in previous memos how those who seek power are more likely to physically move to the actual seat of power, in other words to D.C. I also have discussed how conflictual is the progressive's desire for power in concert with the need to grow government when, empirically, it is evident , most of the time, government solutions fail to accomplish their stated goal and bigger government simply creates bigger, more costly failures. Consequently, progressives, to my mind, seek power not solutions. In fact, government failure generally begets more demand for additional power.
Furthermore, I have discussed the effect of government spending and the progressive's argument that virtually every failure is somehow connected to insufficient largess. Green the path and pave the road to happiness.
Emotionally, progressives seem perpetually angered by the fact that what they seek confirms how caring they are yet, lack of funding frustrates efforts to pursue/accomplish their worthy goals.
Since there never will be enough funding to satisfy progressive demands expanding the power of government becomes the fall back position they embrace.
What does this commentary have to do with Kavanaugh. We know two things for sure:
a) Kavanaugh, being young and serving for life, buttresses his potential legal and philosophical impact and b) it is believed his appointment would swing decisions away from those sought by progressives who have no concern about throwing dictates of our constitution overboard, namely in this case, lawful rights of an accused.
As noted above, if America remains a nation respectful of the law. pronouncements by The SCOTUS carry finality and thus the only way to accomplish pre-determined outcomes is to disregard and/or radically alter the constitution and pack The Court
What progressives cannot achieve through legislation they have been able to do through Justices who legislate.
I believe the smell test fails because of consistent efforts on behalf of progressive Democrats and their displayed and repeated willingness to win at all costs. Thus, I find what is occurring, literally as I type, is beyond belief, is dangerous and as Henninger writes will alter the course of our nation forever and in a direction that reinforces the drift away from our constitution which has served us so well, is why radicals seek to destroy the foundation on which our republic rests.
Though physical defeat is not likely, defeat from within is not to be dismissed. Citizen participation is critical and that hearkens to the need for maintaining a sound education system. This is why progressives have sought to take over most university humanity departments and have been successful at infusing courses that have weakened our knowledge of our own amazing history etc.. Second, it is evident the more government fails the more distant citizens become and this perversely increases the power of politicians and the bureaucracy while diminishing our freedoms. Distant government equates with increased citizen disinterest, further disconnect and thus greater loss of power and freedom.
This is where we are and the current hearings are so disjointed it serves the questionable interests of progressives. Whether Kavanaugh can overcome a terrified feminist is doubtful. If evidence has been allowed to supplant emotion then, in that case, emotion wins hands down.
Time will tell. Stay tuned.
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Dick
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1) The Kavanaugh Standard
A defeat based on these accusations will divide the country for a generation.
By
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to replace Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court is a watershed event that will define America’s politics for years. If the Kavanaugh nomination fails because of the accusations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford and others, America’s system of politics, indeed its everyday social relations, will be conducted in the future on the Kavanaugh Standard. It will deepen the country’s divisions for a generation.
The Kavanaugh Standard will hold that any decision requiring a deliberative consideration of contested positions can and should be decided on just one thing: belief. Belief is sufficient. Nothing else matters.
Rape is already a prosecutable crime. Definitions of sexual harassment are undergoing a reconsideration that may yet produce new legal standards to determine liability or suitability for employment. Right now, we are not close to a consensus.
Then something new happened. Half of the Senate Judiciary Committee created this standard: “I believe Christine.”
It is an inescapable irony that the Kavanaugh Standard—“I believe”—is being established inside the context of a nomination to the highest U.S. court. This new standard for court nominees (and surely others in and outside politics) would be that judgment can be rendered in the absence of substantive argument or any legal standard relating to corroboration, cross-examination or presumption of innocence.
In fact, the Kavanaugh Standard would have less intellectual content than liberalism’s previous judicial gold standard—agreement with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. The new, operative standard, assuming two Republican senators abandon Judge Kavanaugh, will come down to a leap of faith.
For a political cynic, like Chuck Schumer or Dianne Feinstein, all these considerations are pointless and irrelevant. Just win, baby. A bloodless political actor such as Sen. Schumer would say: Look, if there’s a problem of some sort with compromised legal standards, we can make adjustments later. They won’t do that.
If Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency, this is how they will govern—with belief alone sufficient as justification for imposing policy.
Something like a politics-by-belief emerged with the Obama presidency’s remarkable number of broadly applicable executive orders issued by the Labor, Education and Justice departments and the Environmental Protection Agency. But even these orders, however coercive, permitted challenge as a misreading of available facts. The defeat of this Supreme Court nominee would be simply asserted. It would have about as much political legitimacy as a one-man-rule decree.
I have been wondering what the rest of the nation’s sitting judges are making of the Kavanaugh proceedings. Or more specifically, what Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan think of what they imply for the future of the law’s role in the U.S.
Looking at what has happened recently to university professors accused and then abandoned by their schools and colleagues for alleged racial offenses, or at the spectrum of proof in #MeToo incidents, it is clear that the political and academic left are contesting centuries-old standards of evidence.
Liberal jurisprudence and its arguments with conservatives, for example over Fourth Amendment search cases, is being displaced by a Democratic left—there is no other way to describe it—that prefers rough justice.
Rough justice is what the political left and the media left, notably the New Yorker and New York Times, is meting out to Brett Kavanaugh. Hawaii’s Sen. Mazie Hirono has emerged from this hearing as a hero of the new rough justice.
Professors at Yale Law School canceled classes this week so that much of the student body could travel to Washington to support Ms. Ford’s allegations, which suggests that the most popular class at Yale these days must be “Legal Principles from the Stone Age to the 10th Century.” It’s not a joke. In 20 years, a President Ocasio-Cortez will be naming these advocates of faith-based reasoning to the federal appeals courts.
In a more conciliatory atmosphere, one might say that even if the claims of a high-school offense were true, surely there is a case in adulthood for forgiveness. But these are unforgiving times, and that virtue is out the window.
Ultimately, this drama comes down to the choices about to be made by Republican Sens. Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The question is whether the Senate’s advice and consent for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court should be reduced to simple secular belief. More important is that the entire country is watching now, and we’ll find out soon what the American system of law is going to look like for the next 25 years.
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