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A thread on #Barrett, Cloud Castles, and why I don't bother to debunk #Originalism:
1/ Not very long ago, as late as the 1960s and early 70s, conservatives argued honestly. Wrongly. Absurdly. Immorally. But honestly.
1/ Not very long ago, as late as the 1960s and early 70s, conservatives argued honestly. Wrongly. Absurdly. Immorally. But honestly.
2/ I was born in 1960. I remember the arguments: whites are morally and intellectually superior to POC, men are morally and intellectually superior to women. In @AdamSerwer's apt term, white men were the Herrenvolk: the master people for whom freedom must be preserved.
3/ William F. Buckley made that argument, explicitly: "[T]he White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. ... If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened."
4/ There were similar arguments about women, in academia ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12680306/ ), in politics ( http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/naows-opposition), and especially in churches and homes. #Barrett's 'handmaid' cult is fringe now, but it was the dominant view in white America until the 1970s.
5/ Patriarchy was so deeply embedded in white culture that, in analyzing how Black culture empowered women, Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it "a tangle of pathology." https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-moynihan-report-an-annotated-edition/404632/#Chapter%2520IV
6/ "In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is too out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole[.]" (Ibid)
7/ "Ours is a society which presumes male leadership in private and public affairs. The arrangements of society facilitate such leadership and reward it. A subculture, such as that of the Negro American, in which this is not the pattern, is placed at a distinct disadvantage."
8/ Let's be clear: in his time, Moynihan was a *liberal*. But even he presumed that "male leadership in public and private affairs" was an immutable fact.
Until the 1970s, White Americans didn't need a 'handmaid' cult like #Barrett's. White America WAS a handmaid cult.
Until the 1970s, White Americans didn't need a 'handmaid' cult like #Barrett's. White America WAS a handmaid cult.
9/ So yes, until the early 70s, conservatives could argue, explicitly, for white patriarchy as the 'natural order'. They didn't need arcane poppycock like #Originalism.
They could, and did, argue honestly. Wrongly. Absurdly. Immorally. But honestly.
They could, and did, argue honestly. Wrongly. Absurdly. Immorally. But honestly.
10/ But the Civil Rights Movement brought a cultural change. Arguments from mere bigotry - that whites are morally and intellectually superior to POC, that men are morally and intellectually superior to women - came to be seen as not merely false ... but also morally repugnant.
11/ Archie Bunker made those arguments in 'All in the Family,' in a setting where those arguments were *losing*. Archie was wrong, and each episode proved it. Thus the show's opening theme: "Those Were the Days".
"Were". Past tense.
"Were". Past tense.
12/ In the 70s, through the 80s, and into early 90s, the legal bugaboo was "judicial activism" - courts recognizing that laws grounded in mere bigotry must be overturned as violating the plain meaning of the Constitution's Equal Protection Clauses.
13/ Robert Bork decried such "activism" in 'The Tempting of America' ( https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4684&context=uclrev). Throughout the book, he argued that advances in equality should be achieved - if at all - by legislatures, in statutes, rather than by judges applying the Constitution.
14/ Congress and many state legislatures took up his challenge, and DID pass laws to advance equality. And ...
... conservative 'legal scholars' began building Cloud Castles like #Originalism: arcane poppycock to justify OVERTURNING (or undercutting) those laws.
... conservative 'legal scholars' began building Cloud Castles like #Originalism: arcane poppycock to justify OVERTURNING (or undercutting) those laws.
15/ When Congress drafted the 14th Amendment, they argued, "any Person" didn't mean ... well ... "any Person." It meant ONLY what people then understood it to mean. For example, Antonin Scalia argued that "any Person" didn't mean ... women: ( https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/constitution-protects-women-despite-justice-scalias-views#:~:text=In%20a%20recent%20interview%20with,on%20the%20basis%20of%20sex.).
16/ #Originalism isn't a legal theory in any meaningful sense of that phrase. It's mouth-noise, like the adults' "Wah-wah-wah" in Peanuts cartoons. It's a Cloud Castle of lies - tissue thin, hypocritical, arbitrary ...
... to justify a result conservatives want. Namely ...
... to justify a result conservatives want. Namely ...
17/ ... a legal system grounded in and upholding white patriarchy. They can't argue that explicitly anymore. It's become repugnant, as Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) bemoaned on Monday: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/live-blog/live-updates-amy-coney-barrett-confirmation-hearings-kick-n1242845/ncrd1242994#blogHeader
18/ Indeed all the whining about #PoliticalCorrectness and #CancelCulture is precisely about our culture recognizing the repugnance of arguments grounded in mere bigotry ...
... explicit arguments for white patriarchy that were the accepted norm only a few decades ago.
... explicit arguments for white patriarchy that were the accepted norm only a few decades ago.
19/ When #Barrett and GOP Senators wax on about #Originalism, they ARE NOT making honest arguments. They're not offering logical constructs to be dissected and tested for consistency or reasoned principle.
They're building Cloud Castles, mere mouth-noises ...
They're building Cloud Castles, mere mouth-noises ...
20/ ... because they can no longer argue explicitly that whites are morally and intellectually superior to POC, that men are morally and intellectually superior to women, that white patriarchy is the 'natural order' that the law must preserve and enforce.
21/ Ignore their Cloud Castles, the arcane poppycock of #Originalism and other conservative 'legal theories.' That's mere mouth-noise.
Look at the raw bigotry of the outcomes they advocate.
That bigotry is their ONLY 'legal theory'.
Look at the raw bigotry of the outcomes they advocate.
That bigotry is their ONLY 'legal theory'.
22/ In the words of Frank Wilhoit:
"Conservatism consists of exactly one principle, that there must be In Groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside Out Groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
That's it. That's their entire 'theory'.
(End of Thread)
"Conservatism consists of exactly one principle, that there must be In Groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside Out Groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
That's it. That's their entire 'theory'.
(End of Thread)
