Sunday, September 27, 2020

Now The Fun Begins

     As had been predicted, yesterday President Trump announced his nomination of Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court seat vacated by the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And – as has been predicted – leftists’ heads are exploding from coast to coast.

     Of course, we must expect leftists’ heads to explode when they don’t get their way. That’s become par for the course in these United States. As the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg was regarded as a secure vote to preserve such anti-Constitutional atrocities as the Affordable Care Act and Roe v. Wade, the prospect of having Ginsburg’s replacement be a firm Constitutionalist was a heavy blow.

     They probably expected President Trump to nominate a judicial conservative. But a Catholic! And just look at her family: she really means it! That’s nothing less than the roof falling in on them. That would put six professed Catholics on the Court. Catholics are the last people in America it’s okay to discriminate against! How can you take that away from us? This nomination must be defeated!

     However, while anti-Catholic bigotry is alive and well in these United States, it still speaks in whispers. Arguments against the Barrett nomination, therefore, must be couched in terms compatible with the non-discrimination pose the Left strives to maintain. (Shut up with your nonsense about discrimination against white men. That’s not racism; that’s justice.)

     The Democrats’ standard-bearers are of course horrified that the last particle of Obama’s “legacy” is threatened by the Barrett nomination:

     Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, declared a vote for Barrett as "a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions."

     "By nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, President Trump has once again put Americans’ healthcare in the crosshairs," he said, adding he would "strongly" oppose her nomination.

     He also accused Trump and McConnell of "shamelessly rushing to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat less than 40 days before a presidential election."

     "Justice Ginsburg’s dying wish was that she not be replaced until a new president is installed. Republicans are poised to not only ignore her wishes, but to replace her with someone who could tear down everything that she built," he said. "This reprehensible power grab is a cynical attack on the legitimacy of the Court."

     And also:

     Remarkable, this unwillingness to allow that the Affordable Care Act, which the Court has chipped away several times, just might be unConstitutional in its entirety, an exercise of a power never granted to Congress. But that’s the Left for you. Though it grants no stature to the victories of the Right, which it will assault a outrance, the Left insists that its victories, no matter how they were achieved, must be regarded as “irreversible.”

     We also have the spectacle of this New York Times column by Elizabeth Breunig:

     Roman Catholicism does not readily distinguish between public and private moral obligations. In the thought of John Locke, one of liberalism’s earliest architects, willingness to make that distinction was critical to participation in a tolerant society. “Basically,” the political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain wrote in a 1999 essay, “Locke drew up a strong civic map with religion within one sphere and government in another. A person could be a citizen of each so long as that citizen never attempted to merge and blend the two.” Locke notably excluded Catholics from the religions meriting toleration because he suspected they could not be trusted to leave their faith in the appropriate sphere....

     Roman Catholic schools have warred bitterly over their exemption from anti-discrimination employment statutes, scoring a win in a case argued before the Supreme Court as recently as this summer. Catholic hospitals have found themselves embroiled in court battles for refusing to perform or even discuss abortions, regardless of state or federal law. And, perhaps most famously, the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns that operates nursing homes for low-income seniors, fought the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate all the way to the Supreme Court, and won.

     In each case, Catholic institutions have asked for exemptions to various laws, citing the First Amendment.

     Whether consciously or otherwise, Breunig has produced an anti-Constitutional argument. One of the most important purposes of the Constitution's constraint-by-specification of the powers of the federal government was to keep it out of the way of private convictions, as far as possible. Under an unconstrained government, there cannot be freedom of religion – unless, that is, “freedom of religion” is defined to occur solely within the confines of the skull. Inasmuch as the earliest European settlers came to North America in pursuit of freedom to practice their faiths, the irony is enormous.

     John Hinderaker pierces to the heart of the matter:

     The Democrats object to Amy Barrett because she is not a left-winger dedicated to perpetuating the Court as a liberal super-legislature, which is the only sort of justice they want. That is why they object to her, but they hate her because she is a Christian. The extent of anti-Christian bigotry on the left is astonishing, given that until recent years the U.S. was widely described as a Christian country. No longer.

     There will be a great tumult as the Senate undertakes Barrett’s confirmation hearings. It won’t be pleasant to watch...but fortunately, it won’t be necessary. We already know where the Senate Democrats stand. Government-controlled health care and unrestricted, unregulated abortion at any point during gestation are the hills they’re prepared to die on. Let’s hope the Republican caucus gives them a fine funeral, concluded with a fanfare of trumpets.

12 comments:

Bigus Macus said...

Thank you

NITZAKHON said...

If I might... it's not "just" anti-Catholic bigotry, though that's clearly evident. It's anti-religious bigotry in general. The Lord their Marx is a jealous deity. And if "Everything inside The State, nothing outside The State" is the mantra in the background, then anything that diminishes The State's power is to be attacked.

Aside: I am convinced that this is one reason we Jews are so hated. In a strictly amateur history look, we were the first to tell the Kings and Emperors and Pharaohs that there is One above them, eternal; they've never forgiven us since.

NITZAKHON said...

And from here:

https://gunfreezone.net/one-conservative-talking-point-addressing-judge-barrett-needs-to-be-addressed/

Quote:

The bigotry isn’t anti-Catholic.

The bigotry is against anyone of the Judeo-Christan (sic) faith who puts the principles of their faith over the religion of Leftism.

...

Don’t pit religions against each other, the talking point needs to be “conservatives of any faith are attacked for their faith while Democrats of any faith get praised for their faith.”

George True said...

I have read somewhere that McConnell is going to allow only three days of hearings and then have the vote. Barrett really does not need ANY hearings as she was vetted by this same Senate three years ago. I think he is allowing the compressed hearings to avoid the accusation of 'ramming through' the vote. Of course the DemoCommies will make the accusation anyway, but who cares.

A Reader said...

It's funny to me that they never consider the possibility that Locke's limited tolerance and deliberate exclusion of Catholicism is a point against Locke, not against Catholicism.

I think my fellow Protestants and I need to fully re-embrace the Social Kingship of Christ, and get over any lingering liberalism that makes that notion shocking or unpalatable.

Ed Bonderenka said...

"Justice Ginsburg’s dying wish was that she not be replaced until a new president is installed."
I cared not for her decisions, much less her wishes.

Paul Bonneau said...

"anti-Catholic bigotry"

Which used to be within the purview of the Ku Klux Klan... (snicker)

Pascal said...

"no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Article VI, ending of clause 3 to the US Constitution.

I am not Catholic nor even religious. But Article VI, Clause 3 protects us all. That's why I wish everyone would cite this Constitutional clause all the time to shut down clowns who'd vilify any Judeo-Christian for the precepts of their faith. How a person themselves has behaved is of utmost importance, while dragging in the rest is decidedly prejudicial. It's the cowardly weapon of a bigot.

Ed Bonderenka said...

Pascal +1

Linda Fox said...

From the earliest days of the Church, it has assumed moral authority superseding that of the civil authority. That’s the real problem that Leftists have with Catholics; that they will not agree to the primacy of civil authority.
Well, and there’s too damned many of us to ignore.

Reltney McFee said...

Now, as was Forrest Gump, I am not a smart man, but I reviewed my copy of the constitution, and do not find the clause that asserts that "Justice Ginsburg's dying wishes shall override any statements contained herein."

Wonder where they found that? In some emanation of a penumbra?

Ragin' Dave said...

They do not hate "faith". They have their faith, and their faith is the government and Karl Marx. Being extraordinary faithful to the government and to Karl Marx, they hate any faith that might weaken their own faith's ability to grow.

They don't just hate your faith, they hate YOU because you are not a willing slave.