As of today, with the actions - or more properly the inactions - of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the rule of law just took a massive hit from which it will be hard to recover, particularly since the people who delivered the blow fully intend massive follow-up to what they’ve achieved so far.
English Common Law, the legal system on which our legal system is founded, depends on courts respecting precedents, on judges writing opinons in cases they decide, outlining why they have done or not done as they have, to guide future decisions on a particular point of law.
Last night, the six Injustices of the Supreme Court decided to make law by doing nothing. No decision, no supporting explanations of why they did as they did, no guidance to others, no view of precedent. By allowing a law that challenges and defeats a legally-enumerated civil right to take effect, to take no action about it yea or nay, they have allowed this law to overturn that civil right. If there is anyone reading this who doesn’t believe laws similar to what the Texas State Legislature passed - banning abortion at a point so early that 85-90% of women don’t even know they are pregnant, thus denying them the opportunity to exercise their legally-recognized constitutional civil right - will be enacted in every Republican-controlled state in the next legislative session, you probably still believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Tonight, just before midnight, the court issued a 5-4 decision refusing to block the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissented: “The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
The law signed by Governor Abbott is unconstitutional in that it does not advance the interest of the State of Texas in protecting the health of its citizens. It instead puts forth a punitive act that is intended to intimidate and women from seeking abortions, and to intimidate health care providers and anyone else who “aids or abets” a woman seeking an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is determined. The punishment is not by an act of the state, but rather through an abdication of responsibility on the part of the state in enforcement of the law, rather giving that responsibility to anyone anywhere who chooses to sue a woman, a health care provider, a boyfriend or husband (most abortions are obtained by married women who already have children) who gives the woman a ride to the clinic, someone who provides money for travel or any other support. And the burden of proof that such a violation of the law has occured is on the defendant - a clear violation of the basic principle that it is the responsibility of the state to prove a law has been broken, not on a citizen to prove it hasn’t. If the defendant in such a suit is found liabile, they are not only liable for a $10,000 fine, but also the plaintiff’s legal expenses; conversely, if the defendant prevails, the plaintiff is not liable for any costs of the action.
The law isn’t written to promote health. It’s written to intimidate people who believe differently than the far right morons of the Texas Republican Party, to punish them for acting on those different beliefs.
As Adam Serwer pointed out last year in the Atlantic, the cruelty is the point. He was correct to say these new laws revive the lynch mob, whose purpose was not to promote justice but to deny justice, and to allow those in the favored part of the population to revel in the pain and agony inflicted on the unfavored/ The entire reason for the event was to celebrate the cruelty, the fact they could do it.
Here, the intimidation is the purpose. They did it because they could, because they wanted to inflict harm on people they disagreed with for the “crime” of disagreeing with those who wrote this law.
The absence of an answer is an answer. The six far right Repuiblican Injustices of the Supreme Court have found a way to arrive at their goal while keeping their hands “clean” - do nothing.
We have taken a long step toward losing the constitutional democratic republic founded 232 years ago, and an even longer step toward the abolition of the rule of law and the imposition of authoritarian government.
The. Intimidation, Is. The. Point.
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Yes TC it’s all about intimidation and control! It’s what dictators, barbarians and other human forms have been doing as long as they could. Put this problem on top of climate change— tonight New England is feeing Ida—and we are all majorly screwed. There are no long term solutions. We are officially living in the dark biblical times that have been predicted. Glad your newsletter is doing well though.
Couple this with the new open carry/permitless gun law, allowing for citizen enforcement at the point of a gun.