By adolescence, Bill Barr, Sam Alito, Stephen Miller, …, …, and lord knows how many other young boys, knew that they saw things somewhat differently than most. More, they felt that they alone knew how these things should be. Many of this grouping went on to graduate from some of our very best universities. Neither education nor anything else that happened in their lives seems to have altered their way of seeing these things somewhat differently than most others. By adolescence, the die was cast. It is hard to imagine that someone could graduate from the likes of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and come out with the mindset of a twelve years old; but, to a man, they did. It wasn’t as if they had bent by home or parish schooling. More
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Ken Melvin considers the following as important: Education, Hot Topics, law, politics, SCOTUS
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By adolescence, Bill Barr, Sam Alito, Stephen Miller, …, …, and lord knows how many other young boys, knew that they saw things somewhat differently than most. More, they felt that they alone knew how these things should be. Many of this grouping went on to graduate from some of our very best universities. Neither education nor anything else that happened in their lives seems to have altered their way of seeing these things somewhat differently than most others. By adolescence, the die was cast. It is hard to imagine that someone could graduate from the likes of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and come out with the mindset of a twelve years old; but, to a man, they did.
It wasn’t as if they had bent by home or parish schooling. More likely than not, they attended a really good prep school. There are few universities better than Princeton and Harvard. In other words, they were smart and well-prepared. It is as if though at university they inhaled, then promptly exhaled, the wisdom proffered them; did so with honors. Rather change, they would use their acquired scholarship as a weapon against a world that didn’t see things as they did. They knew that it was the world and the ages that got it wrong; that only they and others of like mind were right.
Many from the group have risen to positions of power. Barr, Alito, Miller, …, and …. Elon Musk come from this group. Just as Musk’s cars and rockets are products of his boyhood imagination; Alito’s Supreme Court decisions reflect his way of seeing things when he was about ten or twelve. Any teachings along the way about the necessity for separation of church and state were wasted on Sam Alito.
The phenomena is not gender bound. Federal District Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon was commissioned to the United States District Court for the Southern District on 13 November 2020, six days after then-President Trump had lost the election to President Joe Biden. Judge Cannon, owes her judgeship to the Federalist Society, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Judge Cannon is obviously very bright; was probably born that way. She is also well-educated. Unfortunately, Judge Cannon is neither honorable nor wise.
No doubt, Judge Cannon called upon both her good education and intellect while composing her decision to appoint a Special Master for Trump’s purloined secret papers (Trump v. United States ). Yet, the decision was neither wise nor scholarly. It was a rather poor rationalization for what she wanted to do. Her decision was not so much in accordance the law as it was with her ideology (one which she shared with the Federalist Society); and, her wish to do whatever she thought Trump wanted her to do.
Judge Cannon is but the tip of an iceberg. Judge Cannon was one of 226 Federal Judges nominated by former President Trump who were commissioned to the Federal bench. All 226 were promoted by the Federalist Society. Of late, the United States and its people owe the Federalist Society for a lot of things. None of which are good.
As with the luminaries listed above, the Federalist Society began with an ideology in search of legitimacy, or at least, a means of imposing it on America. First, they would seek out any weaknesses in those laws that stood in the way of the implementation of their ideology. Then, they would develop an alternate interpretation of such laws and widely propagate that interpretation under the guise of scholarship. With more than a little help from TV news readers everywhere, they have managed to give these constructed alternate interpretations some degree of acceptance; of perceived legitimacy. From balderdash to a majority on the US Supreme Court in less than forty years.
They named their interpretation, ‘Originalism’. What a crock! A crock of BS that the Constitution was to always mean what it meant in 1788; one that ‘Originalists’ alone were capable of discerning. De facto, declaring that their anointed Justices and Judges alone were capable of deciding what was, and what was not, constitutional. In the Heller, Citizens, Rucho, Shelby, and Dobbs decisions, the Federalist Society Justices have shown us that ‘Originalism’ means whatever they find necessary to justify a decision in accordance with their ideology. Seems ‘Originalism’ is, and always was, but a smokescreen for an ideology.
‘Originalism’ was a means for the Federalists to impose their ideology on the Nation. An ideology that allowed for limiting access to the ballot, denying others their rights, imposing their beliefs on others, …. Via control of court appointments and ‘Originalism’, they, an unelected minority, could rule the nation.
We now have a Chief and five other Justices on the United States Supreme Court who call themselves ‘Originalists’ who do not understand what those 1770 founders understood so very well — the essentiality, the necessity, of maintaining separation of church and state. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson*, George Read, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, …, et al must be churning in their graves.
Collaboratively, the Republican Party and the Federalists Society invented this ‘Originalism’ BS, then constructed the John Roberts Court with the intention of dismantling the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) Acts — two of America’s greatest achievements; of negating the 14th Amendment — the best thing to come out of the Civil War. And more. They are working a list! On to the handiwork of Frances Perkins and FDR, Ho! Can Justice Jackson, with help from Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, the three, with intelligence on their side, expose these Hypocrites? Make life a living hell for Sam and Clarence? Stay tuned. This could be a very interesting session.
*One of Jefferson’s to Kercheval in re Originalism:
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl246.php