"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."This is over the top in political discourse and his later claims that he only meant that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would pay the price that the Democratic Party would take over the Senate is a bucket blasted with two 12-gauge shotgun loads of 00 buckshot. This event and Sen. Schumer's ridiculous later claims have been much discussed and I will not discuss it further here.
However, this kerfuffle led to some claims that President Trump was also guilty of threats to judges. One such claim was based on his saying that Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg should recluse themselves from cases involving the Trump administration because of highly biased remarks they have made about Trump. Stating judges should recluse themselves hardly sounds like releasing a whirlwind and a threat to make them pay the price of their decisions.
There were also references comparing Trump's statements to Schumer's to presidential candidate Trump's claim that a Mexican heritage judge should recluse himself from judging a case against Trump that involved Trump University. Trump had implied that the judge, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an Obama appointee, may have been biased.
Trump should not have said this at the time, at least not unless he had specific solid reason for claiming such bias. However, Trump was adopting the identity politics of the Democratic Party. The howls of outrage after the criticism of Schumer from those who hold with identity politics against Trump's assumption that an Obama appointee with a Mexican heritage might be biased against him are based on sheer hypocrisy.
Just think of all the times Democrats have claimed that those who do not think like other members of some identity group the Democrats have assigned them to are traitors to their identity group. Justice Clarence Thomas is an outrage they claim because he does not think like and make decisions like a proper black man is supposed to. Over and over they have claimed he is a traitor to his racial group. The Democrats try very hard to put pressure on those shoved into some identity group of their formulation to all act and think alike. To a surprising degree, they are often successful in getting this result. Many blacks comply with this uniformity. Many, though not quite so many, Latinos comply. Many women also comply.
In fact, the Democratic Party is primarily based on the women's vote, with the Black, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQ identity group votes added in. The Democratic Party as a whole also has a bias against that identity group they created for white males. In fact, that bias against white males has been very evident in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claim that she has been denied the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency because she is a woman. Oops, but how can it be that the Democratic Party with its endorsement of group identity politics and a heavy majority of women supporters is biased against a woman presidential candidate? Nonetheless, many of the media joined Warren in her claims that there was bias against her and in effect rebuking the women of the Democratic Party for not uniting behind her. Those who did not are traitors.
So let us return to Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was appointed by Obama. Now Obama certainly believed in identity politics. Obama absolutely would not appoint a federal judge who would betray his ethnic heritage, at least not one the Democratic Party counts on to hold firm in its belief in the Democratic Party, thereby being true to its identity. Presidential candidate Trump was to be judged by an Obama identity group appointee in a case even as the Obama administration is spying on his presidential campaign using FBI and CIA assets to do so in collaboration with the Democratic National Committee. Is it so unreasonable that Trump might think this federal judge might be biased?
As I said earlier, Trump should not have raised the question without more supporting evidence of bias at the time. But looking back with all we know about the many dirty tricks of the Obama administration in biasing the 2016 election results, in subverting the Department of Justice in doing so, given their strong assertion and dependence upon group identity politics, and in the way Obama appointed judges who have thwarted so many of the actions of the duly elected Trump administration ever since he took office, Trump would have been very justified in saying Judge Curiel might be biased had he then known all we know now.
This goes to show that if you support group identity politics, then there is no way that anyone assigned to a group identity that is supposed to oppose those assigned to other group identities can expect justice in our justice system. If the judge is in an allied identity group to a defendant, the judge will be biased in favor of him. If the judge is in an opposing identity group, he will be biased against the defendant. Female judges will be biased against males, as male judges will be biased against females. Latino judges will be biased against white males and white male judges will be biased against Latinos. Black judges will be biased against white males. Women, Black, and Latino judges will be biased in favor of more government and a living Constitution. White males will want less government and the Rule of Law. This is expected as a necessary outcome of a belief in identity politics.
Impartial, objective justice is impossible if you believe in group identities as determiners of the group members viewpoints and beliefs. Any claim of justice is outrageous hypocrisy. Perhaps worst of all, there is no possible way to even aim for justice in a system that acknowledges identity groups and their powerful effect upon how reality is seen.
This issue is far more important than Sen. Chuck Schumer's rantings and ravings. His defense should have drawn our attention to the hell created by group identity politics and culture. Far from the claim that the Democrats are using group identity politics to achieve more social justice, they are actually making the very concept of a justice system impossible. The result is a choice between anarchy and totalitarianism.
The radical-left-socialist notion of social justice challenges even “global warming” as the greatest hoax ever visited on an unwary, tolerant West. Friedrich Hayek addressed it in his Law, Legislation and Liberty:
ReplyDelete“In my earlier efforts to criticize the concept I had all the time the feeling that, … [like] the boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s story [The Emperor’s New Clothes], I “could not see anything, because there was nothing to be seen.” The more I tried to give it a definite meaning the more it fell apart … in particular instances [of unfairness] proved incapable of being justified by a general rule such as the conception of justice …”
Finding at last no definite meaning, he concluded that “the phrase meant nothing at all, and … to employ it was either thoughtless or fraudulent.” It is not pleasant,” he added, “to have to argue against a superstition which is held most strongly by men and women who are often regarded as the best in our society …” Montaigne, I might add, once observed that people believe most strongly in what they know the least about.
Even the simplest online definition, Merriam Webster’s, exposes it as a tautology, circular and signifying nothing: “A state or doctrine of egalitarianism.” Egalitarianism it defines as “1: a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs; 2: a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.” Inspected closely, definition two is merely the reverse of definition one.
The next time someone asks about social justice, tell them we are all more secure in our lives and happiness under the established, definable Rule of Law – Everyone is presumed to know the law, everybody is equal before the and nobody is above the law. Stick with THAT and defend it for a better life than by slippery, un-definable catchword promises.