Democracy Has Had To Be Carved Out Of The Oppression Of The Original Constitution

As I've upset some people by saying, the presence of the so-called liberals on the Supreme Court at the swearing in of Brett Kavanaugh is their endorsement of putting a known perjurer, a judge who has lied under oath on multiple occasions on the court.   For anyone looking for that crisis of credibility for the Court we were all warned of, that's it in full view.  And I'm not the only one who was disgusted at that and, even worse, all eight of the other members of the Court showing up at Trump's phony pantomime swearing in of the perjurer and sexual assaulter on the court.  For me, that means anything any of them say against the Democrats trying to save democracy and the vestiges of it from what the Court has been and will continue to do to destroy it, if they don't like it, they can go fly a brief.

As so often, Charles Pierce said it very well.  Here's the whole thing:

If there ever was a give-up moment in this whole sorry business of the American republic, it was that revolting puppet show at the White House Monday night, at which Justice Brett Kavanaugh was "sworn in" as part of the Republican effort in the 2018 midterm elections. It wasn't the new Justice himself, although he's still pretty revolting. It wasn't the half-mad ghoul "apologizing" to him, and declaring him "cleared" of the charges brought by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford—who still can't go home, by the way—although that was pretty revolting, too.

The Saturday end was the presence of the rest of the justices of the Supreme Court. (RBG, how could you?) Chief Justice John Roberts is often referred to as an "institutionalist," which in turn is often cited by people who now believe John Roberts—the man who's dedicated his life to demolishing the achievements of the civil rights movement—as the new "swing" vote on the Court. His presence at the puppet show blows that theory to smithereens.

Imagine what a strong image for judicial independence it would have been had Roberts and the other seven justices declined to attend. Given the self-evident fact that Kavanaugh is a safe one in the bag for the next 30 years, it would've been reassuring to note that the other eight justices still maintain a minimal self-respect in their jobs. This was just a terrible moment.

I am not hoping for that "image of judicial independence" to mask an actual reality of judicial independence, certainly not from the Federalist fascist Society or the American Enterprise Institute that has chosen so many of its members or from the billionaires and millionaires who staff those groups dedicated to making sure the Supreme Court is a ratfucking operation on behalf of their pet Republican Party.  I am expecting that all of the members of the court will express dislike for the necessary remedies whether that is diluting the fascists with Court members who aren't in the pocket of the Federalists and their patrons.  They certainly would be furious if a Democrats in the other two branches pointed out that there are nine of them, there are Five Hundred Thirty Eight plus whoever is involved in the Executive Branch and if the nine UNELECTED of them want to overturn the will of the ELECTED congress and executive THEN THEY SHOULD BE UNANIMOUS IN WHAT THEY'RE DOING.  It is absurd to assert that five unelected members of the court, all in the pocket of the billionaires, should be able to thwart Congresses such as those who adopted campaign fiance reforms in a desperate attempt to prevent crimes such as those Nixon committed against democracy.

Egalitarian democracy is the only legitimate form of government, government by the just consent of the governed.  There is egalitarian democracy and there is coercive or violent governance by gangsters, those are the only two categories of government.

Government under the 1787 Constitution was not legitimate even by the formulation of those Founders as given in their Declaration of Independence.  American history has, among other things, been one long struggle by people to insist on chiseling a democracy out of the stone of oppression that enslaves us, otherwise.

If the original Constitution, idolized, deified by conservatives and originalists had not been a web of anti-democratic oppression for so many, the United States would not have had the history that it has had.  That history is all the proof anyone needs to know that any "originalism" under any name is a call to reimpose inequality, oppression and slavery. 


The present Supreme Court is bent on reimposing that original oppression by, to the best of their abilities, destroying all of the progress wrung out of the established order by enormous struggle, untold numbers of lives, untold lives spent in struggling against oppression.  We have no moral obligation on the basis of the traditions surrounding the Supreme Court, almost none of them even based in the Constitution they will cite to oppress us, including that which says that they get to do things like overturn campaign fiance laws.  There is no number set for how many members of the court there will be, there is nothing in the Constitution that says that a holding by five unelected judges not agreed to by all nine should be able to overturn laws ambiguously asserted to be unconstitutional.  If they want to do something as destructive of democracy as their recent rulings, they should have to have unanimous agreement to do it.

Someone I was talking to this afternoon said,  "Well, if Democrats "pack the court" what's to keep Republicans from packing it even more when they can."  The answer to that is they already have packed the court, they held the number of Justices to eight for more than a year in order to pack it so their asserted devotion to the number nine is a clear and obvious lie.  They've already packed the Court and it's not the first time it's been packed.  After the display of support by even the liberal justices for the installation of Kavanaugh, I'd say the court is already packed against democracy, what do we have to lose?

I am under no illusions that whatever we come up with, lawyers and law professors and judges and - using the word now makes my gorge rise - "justices" will try to rig it in favor of the billionaires they so often work for and favor.  I'm not under any illusion that the same people who used the "free speech" language of the 50s and 60s porn magnate lawyers and ACLU to drive us ever farther into fascism won't set to work, immediately, to ratfuck any new things we devise to thwart them.  I think this is going to be a constant struggle, one which will have to force the conclusion that anything that thwarts democracy, whether it is the peddling of broadcast lies and libel or that violates what should be set into stone, one person, one vote, must effectively nullify any interpretation that has those effects.   The idiocy that "justice" is and should be impartial instead of always in service of the right of people to cast a free and informed vote is poison to legitimate government and is, itself, illegitimate.  The result always has to be egalitarian and that the arch of justice which doesn't bend in the direction of equality, good will and a decent life for all is bent in the wrong direction   Our justices are bent in that wrong direction, certainly five of them and I would keep a close eye on the other four, at times.