CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION VERSUS JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN VALUES

      Much talk about Christian nationalism and some talk about a Judeo-Christian tradition prompted me to consider Christian and Jewish values which presumably underlie them.  The first thing to say about Christian nationalism and a Judeo-Christian tradition is that both are non-religious constructs.  Nationalism is obviously a political matter, and a claimed Judeo-Christian tradition, given pronounced, even antithetical, differences between Jewish and Christian beliefs, is a historical matter which falsely implies a commonality between them.  The tradition is often invoked to exclude people, particularly Muslims, from America’s body politic.  The second thing to say about them is that both have little, if anything, to do with the professed values of their faiths.  Christian nationalists—my examples are J.D. Vance and Charlie Kirk—express little Christian love of non-Christians (not to mention non-whites), and Christians and Jews have shared more hostile than friendly relations over two millennia; consider only their quite different recent experiences during, and subsequent reactions to, the Holocaust.  I say no more about the Judeo-Christian tradition because I have nothing to add to my 2016 blog on the subject.

 

There are many lists of Christian and Jewish values.  The several lists of each religion which I reviewed on Google differ slightly but not significantly; all values listed are representative.  I offer one list of Jewish values and of Christian values without the associated principles found in the texts hyperlinked.

 

Righteous Giving/Justice                 Love and Compassion

Repairing the World                         Forgiveness

Loving-Kindness                              Honesty and Integrity

Compassion                                      Humility

Preservation of Life                          Kindness and Gentleness

Truth/Integrity                                   Faithfulness and Obedience

Peace and Harmony                          Self-Control

Study of Jewish Texts/Education      Justice and Responsibility

 

All of the lists of Jewish values omit repentance and forgiveness.  I digress on this absurdity because many Christians think of Jews as unforgiving and revengeful: an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth.  But rabbis understand this text to be, not the Lex Talionis, or law of revenge, but a law of just compensation, the payment of a penalty proportional to the harm done.  The omission is inexplicable because of the prominence of the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah, new year’s day, and, ten days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar except for the weekly Sabbath.  Between these two holy days, Jews are supposed to make special efforts to repent wrongs which they have done to people and seek their forgiveness; on Yom Kippur, they are supposed to repent wrongs to God and pray for forgiveness.  Just as Jews repent to achieve forgiveness for their wrongs, so they forgive those who repent their wrongs (but, differently from Christians, only those whom they deem sincerely penitent).

 

All of the values on all of the lists are worthy ones.  Neither separately nor together do the lists comprehend all religious values (for example, the serenity of some Asian religions).  The values partly overlap and partly differ.  Jewish repairing the world and Christian peace and justice partly align with one another; so, too, Jewish truth/integrity and Christian honesty and integrity.  With a few exceptions, all of the values are personal ones; they do not state or imply political, especially partisan, ones.  Nothing on the list of Jewish values suggests the Christian value of humility; nothing on the list of Christian values suggests the Jewish value of education.  There is no objective way to establish that any value or any set of values is superior to another.  Indeed, the values on each list implicitly preclude competition or conflict with values on the other list.

 

But the nature of the values on both lists opposes those of Christian nationalism and the Judeo-Christian tradition, the purposes of which are antithetical to the values of the religions which they purport to profess.  For what is political cannot be what is personal, and vice versa.  Both religions are personal but may be communal.  However, when the communal is institutionalized, it often becomes political and departs from its religious values.  Under the Trump regime, the growth of Christian nationalism reflects the growth of conservative political power which adorns itself with the honorific title of “Christian” to mislead the gullible.  Whether it will persuade a majority of Americans to accept it as the basis of a theocratic polity remains to be seen.  If it does, Jewish and Christian values will be a measure, by contrast, of its abuses.

 

I provide an AI-generated summary of the values and principles of Christian nationalism because they are unfamiliar to many.  “Christian nationalism does not have a formal, static set of doctrines, but rather encompasses a consistent set of core beliefs and associated social/political values that have remained largely stable over time.  The ‘values’ of Christian nationalism, in the view of scholars and critics, are distinct from the general tenets of the Christian faith and are primarily focused on the fusion of a specific, conservative form of Christianity with American civic life.”  Its values and principles include:

 

• Fusion of Christian and American Identity: The central belief that American identity is inseparable from Christianity, that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and that the government should take active steps to maintain this status.
• Hierarchical Social Order: A preference for a traditional social hierarchy that emphasizes specific, patriarchal gender, sexuality, and family structures. This includes the belief that men should lead, women should support as wives and mothers, and that traditional marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman.
• Ethno-Racial Boundaries: An overlap with white supremacy and nativism, which envisions a “preferred citizen” who is typically white and native-born. This often translates to anti-immigrant sentiment and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, which are viewed as weakening the nation.
• Authoritarian Control: A belief that strong rules and a strong leader are necessary to maintain social order and that the nation’s “God-ordained” status is under constant threat. This can lead to a willingness to bend or break democratic norms to achieve their vision and a higher likelihood of endorsing political violence.
• Perceived Victimhood and Conspiratorial Thinking: A pervasive sense that the “true” American way of life and values are under attack by “elites” and minority groups. This often involves an embrace of anti-establishment politics and a greater likelihood of believing in conspiracy theories.
• Prioritizing Specific Rights: An emphasis on certain rights like gun rights, religious expression in public spaces, and states’ rights, while potentially limiting access to other civil liberties and voting rights.
• Free-Market Capitalism: The belief that free-market capitalism, including privatization and deregulation, is God’s preferred economic system, and a general opposition to social spending or “creeping socialism.”

 

“The values of Christian nationalism are not ‘new’ in the sense of a recent ideological shift, but rather a set of long-held beliefs that have become more prominent and politically organized in recent years, often in response to changing demographics and perceived threats to their cultural dominance.”

 

Clearly, Christian nationalism cannot be Christian according to the values regarded as distinctively Christian.  Moreover, its nationalism is both antithetical to fundamental American values and principles, foremost among them the created equality of all people, and threatening.  It touts America as a nation, that is, presumably, as a country of a people sharing and united by a common descent, ethnicity, history, culture, or language.  America is not such a country and thus not such a nation.  Its diversity of peoples from different countries, of different ethnicities, with different histories, cultures, and languages disqualifies it in the usual terms and conditions defining a nation.  Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recognizes this fact—which Christian nationalists and their sympathizers oppose vigorously by attempts to ignore demographic and delete historical facts.  In this limited sense, Christian nationalism is false to the facts.  In a larger sense, it implies the need to cleanse America of or repress those who depart from the standard which Christian nationalists advocate or, by their actions, imply, by erasure, enclosure, or elimination.  Enclosure is more likely and would lead to the creation of an apartheid state since white Christians constitute only about 40-44% of the American population.

 

What makes, or can make, America a nation of diverse peoples is a shared dedication to democracy which centers itself on the equality of all people and a government legitimized by the consent of the governed, a government of, by, and for the people.  The values of both religions, if more widely accepted and acted upon, would help unify and uphold such a nation.

ICE-LIKE ABUSES AT DONA ANA COUNTY DETENTION CENTER IMPLICATE COUNTY AND CENTER LEADERS

      This former intelligence officer knows better than to trust a single source of information except for special reasons.  The ACLU’s filing in the Third Judicial District Court for its six plaintiffs against the Dona Ana Board of Commissioners doing business as the Dona Ana County Detention Center (DACDC) is one of those single-source exceptions.  The ACLU is generally reliable; in a court filing about widespread, long-term abuses, it can be trusted to be responsible with the facts and the law 

Few Dona Ana or Las Cruces residents have learned about systematic abuses at the Detention Center.  The ACLU filed its lawsuit on 16 October.  In El Paso, both KTSM and KVIA/ABC reported on the filing on the same day.  Since then—it is now 20 October—, in Las Cruces, neither the Las Cruces Sun-News nor The Bulletin has mentioned it.

 

The ACLU filing provides the basic facts about the abuses committed at the DACDC.  I first quote the first paragraph and then build an account based on the 26 “factual allegations” of its complaint.  For convenience in presenting these allegations in this blog, I have rewritten them without differentiating between quotations or paraphrases and added some comments of my own.  I have substituted “prisoners” for “detainees” because the latter implies political incarceration.  Readers may check the accuracy of my account by using the hyperlinks provided.

 

For years, Doña Ana County Detention Center’s corrections officers have embarked on a terror campaign using paramilitary operations, violent midnight operations, training drills on actual detainees, surprise flash bang grenades, and other threatening and harmful conduct. The officers’ actions subject detainees to anxiety, fear, and uncertainty daily, never knowing when their pod will be the next one subjected to inhumane paramilitary tactics or for what innocuous behavior they might be targeted. These unwarranted and abusive operations at the Doña Ana County Detention Center do nothing to further security or safety and egregiously violate the rights of the people housed within the detention center.

 

In 2018, DACDC contracted with a private firm to provide training in military tactics to a select group of officers designated the Special Operations and Response Team (SORT).  By virtue of this training, SORT is a paramilitary group trained to handle high-risk situations, including riots, evacuations, and all other situations which exceed the abilities of regular officers.  They are required to know, among other competencies, the use of deadly force, “conceptual pod dynamic domination,” “controlled F.O.R.C.E. operations,” and breaching operations.  They are trained to use Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) equipment including, but not limited to, tactical vests with armor plate inserts, shotguns, AR-15s, 9mm weapons, and gas masks.

 

DACDC intended SORT for use only as the last resort using “control measures” only when necessary.  Yet, so I am told, “the County Manager started using their guards—presumably SORT folks—for crowd control at the recent contentious BOCC Meetings.  That is totally against the law—those folks are for Detention Center duty only, and specifically NOT for crowd control.”  This dangerous mission creep outside the DACDC has no apparent restraints.

 

The first officers trained under this program graduated in 2019 and were soon deployed within the center.  The abuses apparently began in that year and have continued ever since.  According to the ACLU media statement, SORT “has conducted at least 112 such operations since January 2023.”  The abuses are astonishing in an American carceral institution.

 

Since 2019, DACDC has directed or allowed SORT to conduct unwarranted operations day or night with paramilitary tactics and psychological warfare against prisoners who are not resisting and who comply or try to comply with SORT’s often conflicting commands.  Its operations often occur late at night after housing units (“pods”) have been locked up or early in the morning while prisoners are asleep.  It conducts random, violent operations when no critical incidents have occurred or are occurring.  It escalates routine cell shakedowns into excessive force situations to practice using special tactical gear and to run training scenarios for new SORT officers.  In other words, SORT trains officers to use military tactics and riot weapons on unsuspecting prisoners who have done nothing wrong.  Sometimes, they use tasers or other weapons on compliant, restrained prisoners just because they ask questions about why they are being abused.

 

SORT, with weapons drawn, sometimes storms a pod while prisoners are playing cards, watching TV, getting a haircut, engaging in Bible study, or sleeping.  Its operations often begin with officers firing Bore Thunder flash bangs without warning, cause, or provocation.  A Bore Thunder is a 12-gauge muzzle flash bang that produces approximately 174 decibels of sound.  Its 150 decibels can burst a person’s ear drum; even short-term exposure to any sound above 140 decibels can cause permanent damage.

 

After firing flash bangs and disorienting prisoners in the pod, SORT officers often cause confusion by shouting conflicting commands such as one officer yelling “on your feet” and another officer shouts “get on the ground.”  In addition to the confusion which they have created, officers further escalate the unwarranted encounters and abuse by firing more flash bang rounds.  Even when prisoners comply with their commands, officers still point their guns and threaten or actually use physical force against them.

 

Some DACDC and SORT officers conduct themselves in violation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.  During strip searches, they point tasers at prisoners’ genitals and tell them that if they make any sudden movements or if any contraband is found on them, they will be tased in the genitals.  Sometimes, officers point non-lethal guns with rubber bullets at prisoners’ genitals during strip searches and make the same threats.  There is no legitimate purpose or reason for an officer to point weapons at prisoners’ genitals.  DACDC and SORT officers  engage in this behavior for the purpose of humiliating, degrading, and frightening prisoners.

 

As a direct result of the SORT’s abusive tactics at DACDC, prisoners housed within the detention center have suffered emotional distress, psychological injuries, dignitary harm, and physical injuries.

 

These ICE-like abuses have not occurred in a vacuum.  DACDC officers have perpetrated them, and DACDC and Dona Ana County officials have permitted or tolerated them.  Not one can claim ignorance of the facts, at best, only indifference to them, at worst, approval of them.

 

Bryan Baker has been the DACDC Director since September 2020.  He began as a DACDC cadet in 2001 and became a sergeant, lieutenant, and captain.  He manages DACDC's day-to-day operations, security, finances, and staff.  Although he might not have initiated the idea of SORT in 2018 or launched its first operations in 2019, he has invested in and directed it throughout his tenure.  The Director reports to the County Manager.

 

Fernando Macias (Jan 2018-May 2024), Stephen Lopez (interim, May-Oct 2024), and Scott Andrews (Oct 2024-present) have been County Managers throughout the existence of SORT at the DACDC.  The County Manager is not directly responsible for the DACDC but is responsible for overseeing all county departments, including the DACDC.  The County Manager appoints the Director.  The Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office is not in charge of and has no operational relationship with the DACDC.

 

Nine people serving as Commissioners on the Doña Ana Board of Commissioners have held office during SORT operations:

District 1: Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez (2019-present)

District 2: Susanna Shapato (2019), Diana Murillo-Trujillo (2020-2024), Gloria Gameros (2024-present)

District 3: Shannon Reynolds (2019-present)

District 4: Isabella Solis (2019), Lynn Ellins (2019-2020), Susana Chaparro (2021-present)

District 5: Manuel Sanchez (2019-2025)

Those commissioners serving for only short periods of a year or so—Shapato, Gameros, Solis, Ellins—might not have known much about SORT, but those serving long periods—Schaljo-Hernandez, Murillo-Trujillo, Reynolds, Chaparro, and Sanchez—must have known a lot.

 

These officials share responsibility for SORT operations and its abuses of prisoners.  Baker is directly responsible for them.  County Managers have indirect responsibility.  Commissioners have at most indirect responsibility and at least guilty knowledge.  Accountability should mean that Baker be fired, SORT officers be demoted and permanently denied promotion, and cadets be discharged.  Andrews should be fired.  Schaljo-Hernandez, Reynolds, and Sanchez should be recalled or defeated in the next election.  The only reason for not taking these steps to hold these officials accountable is a belief that they define and exemplify the moral and political character of the residents of Doña Ana County.

 

In Las Cruces, similar possibilities are emerging in Police Chief Jeremy Story’s request for five SWAT vehicles.  No member of City Council questioned this request.  District 1 Councilor Cassie McClure, at my request, made a perfunctory request for information, was ignored, and dropped the matter.  District 37 State Representative Joanne Ferrary told me that she was concerned and would make inquiries.  If she did—I believe that she did not—she got no response which she shared with me.  District 36 State Representative Nathan Small acted likewise.  The failure of these three elected officials in particular to question the need for the LCPD to have a large number of military-type vehicles and related equipment should be alarming at a time when state and federal forces are being deployed against civilians.  To put it bluntly, Trump has a lot of sympaticos among local officials.

WHAT AILS ACADEME IN AMERICA?

Many are the woes of academe.  To enumerate, much less discuss, all of them would take up more space than I allot to my longest blogs.  So I shall address the few which have manifested themselves in areas near to my studies and scholarship.  English language and literature is my general field, with Shakespeare my specialty.  After discovering and disclosing a grammatical error—isn’t that what you think English teachers do?—in one of my girlfriend’s favorite books, she, a little irritated, declared me “a fucking English PhD.”  We laughed about it then and laugh about it still, but her jibe does raise questions, among many others, about the field of English, the merits of humanities, and their purposes in colleges and universities.

 

Whatever lofty language describes the purpose of colleges and universities, the fact is that their purpose has been almost exclusively vocational.  From the beginning, in the tradition of England’s two oldest universities, Oxford (1096) and Cambridge (1209), Harvard (1636) and Yale (1701) educated men to be priests or ministers.  The later evolution of schools, up until about the mid-nineteenth century, expanded the curriculum to include law and medicine; then the humanities: philosophy, history, and (national) literature; then the sciences and engineering; then it was too late for Katy to bar the door.  The Morrill Act (1862), which established land-grant universities, marks the shift in America.  The founder of Cornell University (1865) declared, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”

 

As late as the mid-1970s, most non-sectarian colleges and universities subscribed to the concept of a well-rounded education, at least in colleges of arts and sciences and often in vocational colleges.  The concept was embodied in distribution requirements across major academic domains for the first two years of matriculation.  One reaction to the Vietnam War was the erosion of those requirements; they are weakened or non-existent today.  Ever since, with the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and health, with their favorable reputation and higher salaries for graduates, the humanities have suffered, not only by scornful comparison, but also by shrinkage in enrollments, faculties, offerings, and budgets.  In how many movies in the 70s and 80s were the inept identified as English majors?

 

In large part, with the rise of technical or professional studies, the humanities came to be seen as increasingly remote from the concerns of their times and pathways to remunerative careers.  What could an English major contribute to questions of, say, foreign affairs or environmental policy?  My parents were appalled when, the day in 1958 when I arrived at Cornell and was then enrolled in engineering physics, I said that I intended to transfer to arts and sciences.  I did not want to make spaceships or nuclear weapons.  Ironically, after my graduate studies, I became a consultant doing lots of defense work, some of it concerning Reagan’s SDI and nuclear weapons.

 

Ten years later, the humanities found themselves on the outside looking in on the social turmoil created by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements.  Students who sought deferments from the draft entered graduate schools, brought their politics with them, and imposed their politics on the subject matter of their fields to make the humanities relevant, so they thought.  But these politically motivated graduate students and their faculty sympathizers defeated themselves by a combination of arrogance and ignorance.  Their politics were ideological templates for analysis and, worst of all, for class discussion and student grades—the teacher’s way or the highway.  Yet they were not very good at politics.  One distinguished professor wrote that Macbeth, who became king by force and fraud, was nevertheless legitimate because he had been formally declared so by a council of thanes ignorant of his conduct.

 

The humanities departments, especially English departments, brought upon themselves what ails their departments by trying to be relevant to selected domestic issues of public concern.  Mission impossible.  Political approaches to such issues are contrary to the nature and purpose of the humanities.  Politics is about governance, its policies and practices, and the power to effect them; it seeks answers to public issues.  The humanities are about human nature and human experience; they seek insights into the human condition and learn to appreciate others without necessarily approving what is learned.  The idea, centuries old, is “that nothing human is alien to me.”  Yet, for half a century, humanities departments have dedicated themselves to exploring the distribution and deployment of power by race, gender, or class—the fashionable triad of leftist issues, more the stuff of culture wars than major community concerns—and weakened the study of what people have thought, felt, and done in different cultures, times, or places—and disappointed many students.

 

Despite this distinction, I offer an instance showing that study in the humanities can provide insights into issues requiring answers.  In 2003, almost no one doubted that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.  The inference was that his refusal to let inspectors into the country meant that he had something to hide.  I knew that the only thing which he had to hide was that he had no program.  My reasoning: Hussein had domestic and foreign enemies; refusing inspectors created the impression that he had nuclear weapons; he used that impression to deter his enemies; he was bluffing.  How did I know?  I imagined myself in Hussein’s position as I had learned to do in analyzing characters in novels and plays.  This instance does not imply that reading in the humanities is a sure, not to mention the only, way to such insights, but it can help.  (Some CIA work assesses not only an enemy’s capabilities, but also its intentions, quasi-literary analysis of his decision-maker’s character and motives in the circumstances.)

 

The decline of English departments (and, I assume, other humanities departments) is not likely to be reversed simply by reforms in critical approaches and curriculum offerings; it will require help in promoting the idea of the humanities and the importance of educational well-roundedness.  C. P. Snow’s “two cultures” made the humanities and the sciences appear adversarial.  Snow was right to say that humanists need to know more about the sciences.  He failed to say that scientists need to know more about the humanities, though many in his time did.  In the early 40s of the Manhattan Project, scientists with a well-rounded education became increasingly alarmed about an atomic bomb as their work came closer to producing one, but, working in secret, they had no influence on decision-makers.  It took the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to alert humankind of the threat of nuclear weapons.  Today, a few computer scientists among thousands are warning that artificial intelligence might be dangerous by becoming capable of developing itself independently, perhaps without serving human interests or purposes.  Unlike nuclear weapons, it is proliferating without the restraint of a dramatic incident to prompt restrictions on its development and deployment; its danger might be realized only when it might be too late to take corrective action.  The humanities might contribute to public discussion of its possible threat to the stability, even the survival, of societies by the introduction of this and other, especially biomedical, technologies.  To put it too starkly, today’s scientists understand the technologies but not the consequences; humanists understand the consequences but not the technologies.  We need both and the ability of each to understand the other.

 

Which implies that colleges and universities need to return themselves to the older tradition which promotes well-roundedness.  The concept is not hard to understand or difficult to implement; if there is a will, there will be a way.  The problem is that leaders of colleges and especially universities have surrendered to a corporate mentality, not sustained their academic orientation.  Too many regents or trustees are appointees with corporate backgrounds rewarded for campaign contributions and without experience in education and an appreciation of its unique nature.  Chancellors and presidents are expected to play the politics of funding and thus, as we have seen recently, making their colleges and universities vulnerable to financial extortion.  They have shown themselves submissive because they do not respect the distinctive role which colleges and universities play in the country’s welfare and thus lack the convictions required by courage to defend academic freedom, including the freedom to criticize the society in which they exist.  If colleges and universities were committed to a well-rounded education, the various departments of technical studies might be almost equally involved with departments of humanistic studies in addressing issues of public moment.

 

The passivity of college and university leaders contrasts with the activism of students, mostly from the humanities.  Indeed, the public’s perceptions of colleges and universities are largely shaped by the political activism more common in the humanities than in the sciences.  Student protests involve controversial subjects not widely shared by the public, but they can prevail, as they did during the Vietnam War.  Whatever else might be said about the protests about the Israeli-Hamas conflict, they constituted a threat to the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.  Using antisemitism as a pretext but lacking funding leverage on the humanities, the Trump administration has attacked scientific research programs by withholding their funds in a roundabout way to attack the humanities.  It knows that the source of criticism of its policies, programs, and practices most commonly arise in departments promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and anything which appears to be “woke” (whatever they mean by the term).  So it seeks to control college and university policies and practices in enrollments, curriculums, and instruction, with the humanities being the primary targets.  If more of the public itself had received a well-rounded education, it might have a greater appreciation not only of the humanities, but their benign influence on thinking about current issues of public concern. 

SCOTUS CORRUPTS JUSTICE UNDER THE CONSTITUTION

      I am not a historian of the Supreme Court of the United States, but my less-informed but independently derived views of its character and conduct parallel the views of those who are expert in their opinions of its performance.  Their consensus is that the Roberts Supreme Court of the United States is the worst in American history.  Although I am in no position to affirm or deny this verdict, I am sure that, the worst or not, it will get worse.  In its coming term, it will decide impending cases in ways detrimental to, if not destructive of, the Constitution, the rule of law, and American democracy as we know it.

All six of its Catholic-raised, Republican-appointed, conservative justices—most recently, its Trump-appointed justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—acquired their seats on the bench by misleading the Senate in their confirmation hearings.  Twenty years ago, John Roberts assured senators of his impartiality with a metaphor identifying a judge with an umpire calling balls and strikes, as if umpires are not sometimes biased against certain players or teams.  Trump’s appointees: Roe v. Wade settled law, sure; respect for precedent, sure; what else, sure.  Their dishonesty was a harbinger of the mendacious nature of their judicial practice.

 

The lying did not stop when they ascended to the bench.  Clarence Thomas claimed that he had not understood the requirements for reporting gifts and, despite generous benefactors, had been free of conflict of interest.  He wants us to believe that he has the intelligence and integrity for strict legal analysis of the facts and the law to reach his decisions.  Samuel Alito also lied about gifts from benefactors and about knowledge that a flag used on the Right to signify an anti-government sentiment flew over both his first and second houses.  Both bought and paid for.

 

Notwithstanding Thomas’s and Alito’s corrupt practices and dishonesty, and the fact that all other courts in the federal system have binding codes of ethics, Chief Justice John Roberts has successfully opposed the adoption of a code of ethics for SCOTUS.  So this court operates without effective oversight and on its arrogant assumption that its members require no code of ethics.  With Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh tolerating the corruption of Roberts, Thomas, and Alito, SCOTUS is corrupt from the bottom to the top.  Thus the character of these six judges.

 

Their conduct is hardly better.  Previously, SCOTUS heard cases in public sessions, with both sides making their arguments about the facts and the law, and issued decisions explaining the reasoning behind them.  Previously, SCOTUS made decisions on time-sensitive matters placed on the emergency docket, like a prisoner’s appeal for a stay of execution.  In most cases, the court’s decisions gave guidance to federal district or appellate courts for them to decide similar cases in the future, or were self-explanatory.  Currently, SCOTUS sometimes uses the emergency docket, often called the “shadow docket” because there is no public hearing and little or no explanation of a decision, to address situations which the Trump administration has labeled emergencies.  But the cases have been those in which lower courts paused implementation of administration plans, like workforce reductions in government agencies or the deportation of immigrants, with no urgency except the administration’s desire to act quickly.  Instead of pausing implementation until the cases can be adjudicated, SCOTUS has allowed the administration to proceed, with the stated intent to adjudicate the merits at a later date.  Clearly, if the workforce is reduced or the immigrants deported, the case is essentially mooted and the damage irreversibly done.  Without issuing explanations of its decisions, which often ignore or reject precedents, SCOTUS has reversed administration-restraining district and appellate court diktats in favor of the administration, and thus has left these courts without guidance to address similar matters.  This conduct is contrary to tradition jurisprudence.  (Warning: SCOTUS will soon extend its reckless disregard of the meaning of critical words like “emergency” to critical words like “insurrection” or “rebellion” to label peaceful protests.  Generally, it will tolerate other fact-free, pejorative labeling—for example, “war zone”—in Trump’s justifications of the abusive exercise of power.)

 

Worst of all, SCOTUS, in its willingness, if not zeal, to overturn some politically sensitive precedents, resorts to arguments lacking cogency to advance its political views.  Yet the Court’s legitimacy ultimately depends upon the cogency of its opinions—decisions reasoned on the basis of the facts and the law.  I detail what is perhaps the best—here, a lengthy—example of failed cogency, namely, Alito’s 2022 opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

 

Abortion has been probably the most contentious issue since the issue of slavery.  Alito’s opinion reversing a 49-year-old precedent establishing a Constitutional right, to abortion no less, coincides with a change in the political composition of SCOTUS.  Lacking a cogent opinion justifying this reversal, the court confirms doubts about both its judicial independence and its political legitimacy.  Indeed, Alito’s opinion is not cogent; it is sloppy, snide, and tendentious.

 

Alito says little about Justice Harry Blackmun’s much criticized opinion in Roe v. Wade.  I said much, all different from the criticism of many others.  After summarizing the history of different worldwide religious or philosophical beliefs about abortions, Blackmun dismissed them because they posed issues which he rightly said that SCOTUS did not need to decide.  But, in my view, he should have concluded that abortion is a religious matter which has the protections of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” that is, that any law regulating abortions per se is an establishment of religion and a constraint on the free exercise of religion.

 

However defective Blackmun’s analysis, Alito’s is more so.  The first substantive paragraph of his opinion reveals its flawed reasoning.

 

Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life. Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman’s right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality. Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some but not all circumstances, and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed.

 

First, Alito’s division of those holding beliefs on abortion fails to divide them on the same principle—when life begins—; instead, he describes different groups on different grounds.  As a result, the three groups are not mutually exclusive.  A person can believe what “some believe,” “others feel,” and “still others think.”  In fact, many people are conflicted because they have more than one of these beliefs.  Alito’s muddled division reflects the complexity of the controversy over abortion but does not nothing to clarify the issues involved.  Alito muddles the issue by not addressing and defining it.

 

Second, Alito’s selection of his Catholic belief about when life begins biases his opinion by excluding different beliefs held by others.  Many Christians, and most or all Muslims believe life begins at quickening; some Christians and all Jews believe that it begins at breach.  Depending on one’s religion, abortion might or might not take a “life.”  Definition matters.  Notably, until mid-19^th century, the Catholic doctrine “ensoulment” did not define the fetus as human life until “quickening.”  So Alito’s opinion rests on a recent change in Catholic doctrinal definition and excludes others’ beliefs on his tacit presumption of Catholic doctrinal superiority to (or contempt for) non-Catholic beliefs—not the basis of an opinion having constitutional legitimacy.

 

Badly reasoned decisions are one thing; politically motivated decisions are another.  For years, SCOTUS has been constricting voting rights to favor Republicans and curtailing other civil rights to disfavor minorities, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.  Such decisions weaken the fundamental political principles of American democracy, especially the equality of all people under the law.  Example: SCOTUS’s reaction to a case opposing Trump’s executive order placing conditions on and thereby limiting birthright citizenship.  SCOTUS deferred a hearing on the merits of a case, but ruled in favor of a Trump request to limit the scope of a district court’s national injunction to the area served by that court.  The perversity of this ruling is clear.  In cases of local import, a district court’s injunction rightly remains local.  But in cases of constitutional import, a district court’s ruling is properly national because the constitution applies to all people, not only to those in the court’s district.  Otherwise, district courts might differ in their rulings in such cases and thus subvert the equality of people under the law—which this SCOTUS decision does.

 

In Trump’s second term, SCOTUS has been determined to advance legal positions with little or no constitutional basis.  One is the unitary executive, whereby the president has total control over the entire executive branch, which Trump claims includes Congressionally established independent agencies.  Another is presidential immunity for all official acts, apparently even those violating the law.  Results include the impoundment or selective distribution of authorized funds and the unrestricted (and locally unwanted) use of military forces in law enforcement in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  In short, SCOTUS itself is corrupting the rule of law by decisions which curtail democratic principles and practices, and which enable the Trump administration to act as it wishes, without accountability.  Under such a SCOTUS-defined regime, justice is impossible, only a pretextual cover for injustice.

WATCH YOUR MOUTH: TALKING OURSELVES INTO AND OUT OF TROUBLE

      I begin with a story published by CBS News (5 Oct) to end with a larger message about language in politics.

In 2022, Jay Jones, current Democratic candidate for Virginia’s attorney general wrote that “if he were presented with a hypothetical situation in which he had only two bullets and was faced with the choice of shooting [then-Republican Speaker of the House Todd] Gilbert, former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler or former Cambodia dictator Pol Pot, he'd shoot Gilbert ‘every time.’”  He added, “‘Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,’ Jones wrote. ‘Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time’”

 

When The National Review disclosed his words, Jones apologized.  “‘I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry… I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer, and their children. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology,’ Jones said.”

 

“Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, swiftly condemned Jones's comments. [¶] Spanberger's Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, also denounced the remarks. [¶] “‘This is horrible to read and should be wholly disqualifying of someone running for an office that protects the people of Virginia,’ Earle-Sears said in a statement. ‘Jay Jones’ horrific comments are a symptom of the entire Democratic Party, and his running mate, Abigail Spanberger, needs to call on him to drop out.’”

 

In political campaigns, such stories have an importance lacking in daily life.  Everyone has a past of words and deeds which, if made known, would be embarrassing.  With the availability of the internet to all, indiscretions, especially at a youthful age, are commonplace.  But Jones was no youth in 2022, when he wrote these words at age 33.  He had served two terms in the House of Delegates, from 2018 to 2021; he left it to run for attorney general in 2021 and lost.

 

In this context, his apology now, 3 years later, at best mixes a teaspoon of personal sincerity with a gallon of political necessity.  Were I his opponent, I would, unlike Earle-Sears, ask Jones three questions.  One, why, as an adult and an elected official, did you not recognize the ugliness of these violent words and restrain yourself from publishing them?  Two, what does your failed judgment then say about your judgment now?  Three, why did it take you 3 years to apologize for them?  These questions would do more to discredit Jones than Earle-Sears’s comments.

 

Given no or inadequate answers from Jones, Earle-Sears would be justified in claiming that they are seriously discrediting, if not, as he says they are, disqualifying.  Then Earle-Sears goes way too far when he alleges that Jones’s remarks are “a symptom of the entire Democratic Party.”  The remark is, of course, a smear based on the fallacy that one person represents an entire group.  It thus enables him to drag in the Democratic candidate for governor.  But both are separately elected officials, and neither is responsible for the other.  Earle-Sears’s illogic would appall him if applied to his side.  He would have to grant that Dylann Roof, white supremacist, racist, and killer of nine black people praying in a Charleston church is symptomatic of all Lutherans or, enlarging the group, all Protestants or all Christians, and, assuming his political inclination, all Republicans.  Earle-Sears’s abuse of logic and his resort to smear suggests biased judgment and partisan views, neither of which credit or qualify Earle-Sears for attorney general.  Trump has endorsed this candidate, whose political tactics resemble his own.

 

Trump is the master of fallacious logic, pejorative labels, and hyperbole in executive orders justifying illegal or unconstitutional action by which he talks the country into trouble.  If a city has crime—of course, the city is a “blue” one with a Democratic-leaning citizenry, a Democratic mayor, and a low and dropping crime rate—, then he labels it a “war zone” requiring national guard or active military troops to combat disorder by opposition from the “enemy within.”  His words mean that Democrats are not members of an opposition political party; they are enemies of the state to be dealt with accordingly.  Recent violence in Chicago is one example: agents from an alphabet soup of federal agencies—CBP, FBI, ATF, and ICE—conducted a nighttime raid on an apartment house, rousted ill-clad or naked residents, cuffed adults and zip-tied children without regard to status, and held them for hours in the street or in vans while they ransacked their apartments.  Recent violence in Portland is another example: DHS agents not only pushed peaceful protesters away from an agency facility and tore down an anti-ICE banner hanging from a private building across the street, but also drove them for several blocks with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls.  Yet, as everyone has noted, DHS claims that every encounter begins with citizens attacking agents—most improbable claims, especially since the agents are fully armed for combat and initiate the action.

 

Illogic, labeling, and hyperbole have led to dangerous international actions.  Motivated by his dislike of Venezuelan President Maduro, Trump has ordered murderous attacks on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean on the pretext that the occupants were gang members and drug smugglers intending to attack the United States about 1500 miles away.  Trump’s administration has offered no evidence supporting this claim; victims of these unprovoked attacks likely were fishermen.

 

An increasing danger closer to home is Trump’s use of “ insurrection” or “rebellion” to characterize protests, small or large, to justify his deployment of armed troops to suppress them.  Because Trump tailors his use of these terms to serve his political interests, he does not apply either of them to the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress.  It is inevitable that, if military violence and civilian casualties suppress legitimate protests, the Supreme Court will be called upon to make legal decisions weighing the conflicting meanings of these terms, Trump’s and those in the First Amendment which protect protests: freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  SCOTUS is unlikely to uphold the Constitution.  It is responsive to Trump’s resentment that constitutional provisions limit his ego-enhancing, expansive view of his presidential powers.  Its “great deference” to Trump, is one thing; its obsequiousness, without regard to the consequences of his actions, for the public good or for democracy, is another.  The Constitution’s words can get us out of trouble, if SCOTUS and Trump do not choose, at some point, simply to obfuscate or ignore them.  But, at present, they are a clear and present danger to all.  As a wit said, things look darkest just before they go totally black.  He gave no assurance of light thereafter.

 

Trump’s fact-free, malleable words get us into trouble.  His characterizations of major cities in blue states as riot-torn, burning down, or ruined defy the facts on the ground.  One judge has noted that his claims bear no relationship to reality and, for that reason, refused to allow any federalized national guard troops into Portland.  But her opinion addresses only the legal, political, and military implications of Trump’s speech.  It only hints at the psychological underpinnings of his speech.  His repeated use of hyperbolic and inflammatory language detached from reality reflects at least episodic mental derangement; Trump is no longer a consistently rational actor.  I guess that his staff is doing as much as it can (as Biden’s staff did) to conceal his deteriorating condition reflected in reckless language and erratic conduct.

 

In any other administration, the Cabinet would have suspended a president in Trump’s condition under the 25^th Amendment.  But a Cabinet of Trump toadies will act out their servility throughout his term in office.  With his increasing use of military troops, even the promise—I think that it will be broken—of elections in 2026 and 2028 provides little assurance of correction, much less relief.  The only recourse of those wishing to preserve democracy is to continue to protest peacefully and use reality-based words, written or spoken, to support that cause.