ABOLISH SCOTUS
Reagan Solicitor General: Republicans expanding ‘slow-motion coup’ as they try to ‘repeal the 20th century’Bob Brigham
July 06, 2022
Reagan White House Solicitor General Charles Fried explained how Republicans are conducting a "slow-motion coup" during a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC.
"Our next guest was four years old when he fled Czechoslovakia with his family in 1939 to escape Nazi terror," MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell reported. "Twenty-two years later, he became a Harvard Law professor."
O'Donnell noted that now-Justice Samuel Alito worked for Fried and he testified at John Roberts confirmation that the nominee was "too smart a lawyer to overturn Roe vs. Wade."
O'Donnell noted a November op-ed Fried wrote for The New York Times titled, "I Once Urged the Supreme Court to Overturn Roe. I’ve Changed My Mind."
"To overturn Roe now would be an act of constitutional vandalism — not conservative, but reactionary," Fried wrote.
O'Donnell put an email on-screen that Fried sent to his producer.
"Unions, religion, second amendment, abortion, campaign finance, gerrymandering, regulation of elections. All this is an attempt in the last ten years or so to repeal the 20th century," he wrote. "The greatest threat next term: the 'independent legislature clause' case from North Carolina which would produce a slow-motion coup d'état."
Fried expanded on his analysis.
"What the court is going to have next term, they're gonna start in the fall on this issue and that is, when a state legislature picks electors, the state supreme court cannot do anything about it, because the constitution says that the regulation of electors is supposed to be done by the independent legislature," he explained. "Now, for decades, that has been understood to mean the whole legislative process in a state which includes, of course, the state supreme court."
He explained how such a U.S. Supreme Court ruling would make state gerrymandering of legislative districts even worse.
"North Carolina, which is the case involved, is a hideously gerrymandering," he explained. "The population is half registered Republican, half registered Democrat, but its 13-person congressional delegation is ten Republicans, three Democrats," he said. "And when the head of the legislative committee was asked, 'How did you do that? How come you did this?' 'Because we couldn't think of any way to get just two Democrats.' Now, this is what would be the coup d'état, because these gerrymandered state legislatures in all of the swing states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia — would then be able to send the electives -- the electors they choose, not the electors chosen by the people. and there is nothing that could be done about it."
In the over 50 years he has been at Harvard Law, he taught Criminal Law, Commercial Law, Roman Law, Torts, Contracts, Labor Law, Constitutional Law and Federal Courts, Appellate and Supreme Court Advocacy.
Watch below
Reagan White House Solicitor General Charles Friedwww.youtube.com
US Supreme Court poised to allow a 'radically anti-democratic partisan' coup: columnist
Travis Gettys
July 06, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to put Republican-engineered election restrictions out of reach from state courts, which could hand the presidency to Donald Trump in a contested election.
The court's ruling in Moore v. Harper, which would decide whether the state Supreme Court can strike down North Carolina's partisan gerrymandered redistricting map, could validate the "independent state legislature" theory that animated Trump's last gasp to remain in power and benefit any GOP candidate who runs in 2024, wrote Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent.
"That has generated much discussion of how the theory could enable hyper-partisan gerrymandering," Sargent wrote. "But it could also enable more election subversion, which could dovetail with the looming Trump threat in combustible ways. Even if Trump doesn’t run, the tendencies he’s unleashed — Republicans are running for positions of control over election machinery while essentially vowing to treat future elections as subject to nullification — could be made more dangerous by the court’s ruling."
At least four justices have already signaled they're open to the theory, which has been debunked by recent scholarship, but could unleash legal chaos if a state legislature and governor passed a law before Election Day that would give them power to appoint whatever electors they wanted -- regardless of what voters decided.
“Under the theory, state constitutions could no longer serve as a check on a legislature that seeks to replace the voters’ voice with their own in selecting presidential electors,” said Helen White, counsel at the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy. “Those checks are robust after the election, but before the election, because this has not been done in modern history, we would be in relatively uncharted and radically undemocratic territory.”
No state legislatures went along with Trump's scheme in 2020, and some attempts since then have failed, but Trump-backed candidates such as Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano have endorsed the theory that electors can be appointed over the will of voters, who would be left with little recourse to challenge those results.
“One nightmare scenario is that a Republican state legislature, potentially with a Trumpist governor, passes a law saying the state legislature itself is the final canvassing board for the state,” said Matthew Seligman, an election law scholar. “Under the theory, state courts and state constitutions would place no constraints on such a radically anti-democratic partisan putsch."
The US Supreme Court’s illegitimacy is accelerating
United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh (screengrab).
His confirmation is getting attention for another reason. It came before the 2018 midterms. The conventional wisdom is that the confirmation of a credibly accused sexual predator nominated by another credibly sexual predator to a lifetime job on a court that would rule on Roe animated women to produce that year’s blue wave.
The conventional wisdom, on account of being conventional wisdom, seems to think last week’s Supreme Court ruling to strike down Roe will have the same, or similar, “Kavanaugh effect” on this year’s midterms. That’s to be seen. According to the AP, 1 million voters switched to the GOP. True, the switch occurred before Roe went down. Some might be Democrats voting in open Republican primaries. Even so, the news is nevertheless a reminder this year favors the GOP.
There’s another reason to focus on Justice Ilikebeer.
He was the beginning of the end of the court’s legitimacy.
Biden is listening
Legitimacy received little attention back in 2018. I felt pretty alone in making the case. (I was told that focusing on legitimacy was what the losing side does.) But current events have caught up to the idea. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was forceful in telling Martha Raddatz on Sunday: “This court has lost legitimacy.”
They have burned whatever legitimacy they may still have had after their gun decision [Bruen], after their voting decision [Shelby County], after their union decision [Janus]. They just took the last of it and set a torch to it with the Roe v Wade opinion.
While all this is happening, the Democratic leadership, especially Joe Biden, is taking fire from the base of the party for not having a more forceful reaction to Roe’s death. Missouri Congresswomen Cori Bush, whom I take to be representative of the party’s progressive wing, said:
[Democrats] just aren’t fighting. When people see that, what’s going to make them show up to vote? We can’t just tell people, “Well, just vote — vote your problems away.” Because they’re looking at us and saying, “Well, we already voted for you.”
I think voting is the answer, actually, but that’s not going to stop people from demanding more from the Democratic leadership given that the party’s majority (women) has lost half its legal protections.
Fortunately, Biden is listening. This morning, he called on Senate Democrats to make an exception to the filibuster rule in order to codify Roe as well as other privacy rights, like same-sex marriage.
While the Congress gets to work, Reuters reported Wednesday, the Biden administration is planning to issue “a range of executive actions in the coming days.” The White House is “promising to protect women who cross state lines for abortions and support for medical abortion.”
Ignore or reform
So: On the one hand is a court whose rulings are being rejected increasingly by public opinion. On the other is a mad and madder base of the Democratic Party demanding more action from leadership. These energies could collide and break in unpredictable directions. Or they could conjoin to form two strategies for dealing with the court.
Ignore the court.
Or reform the court.
Constitutional scholar Eric Segall spelled out the first one for the Editorial Board. There’s going to be a time, he said, when one of the other branches of government, federal and state, will decide that this court is so far gone that its rulings should no longer be recognized.
For instance: New York Governor Kathleen Hochul could choose to ignore the court’s recent gun decision. Bruen overruled a state law requiring gun permit applicants to prove need. Bruen established a right to carry a gun except in “sensitive places” (to be determined). Hochul could keep enforcing its law as-is in the name of safety.
The other one is better, though.
If most people most of the time think of the court as out of touch, there’s nothing the court could do to stop the Congress from parlaying public opinion into legislation that expands the court, for instance.
Even Republicans are ignoring it
Republican state legislators are demonstrating for us that the Supreme Court is not only illegitimate but that its illegitimacy is accelerating.
According to the Post, Republican state legislators are “advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere.” The model legislation would give authority to private citizens to sue “anyone who helps a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside that state.”
The idea is to circumvent federal courts by doing what the Texas abortion ban did: deputize private citizens to act on the state’s behalf. That, in effect, would be a dramatic expansion of its police power.
Why does this make the case for reforming the Supreme Court?
Because it thumbs its nose at Brett Kavanaugh.
In a concurring opinion, he warned states that prosecuting out-of-state abortions would violate the right to interstate travel.
Well, tough cookies.
By outsourcing law enforcement to private citizens, Republican state legislators would create conditions in which there’s no government to sue. If no one has standing, federal courts have nothing to say. Even the Department of Justice might not have the power to stop them.
Not if, when
Republican state legislators are already ignoring the Supreme Court, because the court’s rightwing supermajority gave them permission.
After all, if the highest court is willing to throw out half a century of federal protection of the right to privacy, there’s no good reason for Republican state legislators to hold themselves to a higher standard – to accept as legitimate the legal restraints that Kavanaugh demanded.
The Supreme Court’s descent into illegitimacy is already accelerating to such a degree that reforming the court may soon seem unavoidable. As the president said this morning, the court is no longer a reliable source of law, stability and order. It has become a “destabilizing” force.
The question isn’t if.
It’s when.
United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh (screengrab).
ALTERNET
June 30, 2022
Apparently, Brett Kavanaugh made a promise to US Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who says she’s pro-choice, that he would not vote to overturn Roe if appointed to the Supreme Court.
This is getting a lot of attention, because Collins is getting a lot of attention. She said she believed he wouldn’t go there. Then last Friday, he and five other justices went there, stripping half the country of half their social standing and legal status as free and equal citizens.
Since then Collins has been wiping the egg from her face.
READ MORE: Clarence Thomas 'said the quiet part out loud': Harris issues warning about future Supreme Court cases
Apparently, Brett Kavanaugh made a promise to US Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who says she’s pro-choice, that he would not vote to overturn Roe if appointed to the Supreme Court.
This is getting a lot of attention, because Collins is getting a lot of attention. She said she believed he wouldn’t go there. Then last Friday, he and five other justices went there, stripping half the country of half their social standing and legal status as free and equal citizens.
Since then Collins has been wiping the egg from her face.
READ MORE: Clarence Thomas 'said the quiet part out loud': Harris issues warning about future Supreme Court cases
His confirmation is getting attention for another reason. It came before the 2018 midterms. The conventional wisdom is that the confirmation of a credibly accused sexual predator nominated by another credibly sexual predator to a lifetime job on a court that would rule on Roe animated women to produce that year’s blue wave.
The conventional wisdom, on account of being conventional wisdom, seems to think last week’s Supreme Court ruling to strike down Roe will have the same, or similar, “Kavanaugh effect” on this year’s midterms. That’s to be seen. According to the AP, 1 million voters switched to the GOP. True, the switch occurred before Roe went down. Some might be Democrats voting in open Republican primaries. Even so, the news is nevertheless a reminder this year favors the GOP.
There’s another reason to focus on Justice Ilikebeer.
He was the beginning of the end of the court’s legitimacy.
Biden is listening
Legitimacy received little attention back in 2018. I felt pretty alone in making the case. (I was told that focusing on legitimacy was what the losing side does.) But current events have caught up to the idea. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was forceful in telling Martha Raddatz on Sunday: “This court has lost legitimacy.”
They have burned whatever legitimacy they may still have had after their gun decision [Bruen], after their voting decision [Shelby County], after their union decision [Janus]. They just took the last of it and set a torch to it with the Roe v Wade opinion.
While all this is happening, the Democratic leadership, especially Joe Biden, is taking fire from the base of the party for not having a more forceful reaction to Roe’s death. Missouri Congresswomen Cori Bush, whom I take to be representative of the party’s progressive wing, said:
[Democrats] just aren’t fighting. When people see that, what’s going to make them show up to vote? We can’t just tell people, “Well, just vote — vote your problems away.” Because they’re looking at us and saying, “Well, we already voted for you.”
I think voting is the answer, actually, but that’s not going to stop people from demanding more from the Democratic leadership given that the party’s majority (women) has lost half its legal protections.
Fortunately, Biden is listening. This morning, he called on Senate Democrats to make an exception to the filibuster rule in order to codify Roe as well as other privacy rights, like same-sex marriage.
While the Congress gets to work, Reuters reported Wednesday, the Biden administration is planning to issue “a range of executive actions in the coming days.” The White House is “promising to protect women who cross state lines for abortions and support for medical abortion.”
Ignore or reform
So: On the one hand is a court whose rulings are being rejected increasingly by public opinion. On the other is a mad and madder base of the Democratic Party demanding more action from leadership. These energies could collide and break in unpredictable directions. Or they could conjoin to form two strategies for dealing with the court.
Ignore the court.
Or reform the court.
Constitutional scholar Eric Segall spelled out the first one for the Editorial Board. There’s going to be a time, he said, when one of the other branches of government, federal and state, will decide that this court is so far gone that its rulings should no longer be recognized.
For instance: New York Governor Kathleen Hochul could choose to ignore the court’s recent gun decision. Bruen overruled a state law requiring gun permit applicants to prove need. Bruen established a right to carry a gun except in “sensitive places” (to be determined). Hochul could keep enforcing its law as-is in the name of safety.
The other one is better, though.
If most people most of the time think of the court as out of touch, there’s nothing the court could do to stop the Congress from parlaying public opinion into legislation that expands the court, for instance.
Even Republicans are ignoring it
Republican state legislators are demonstrating for us that the Supreme Court is not only illegitimate but that its illegitimacy is accelerating.
According to the Post, Republican state legislators are “advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere.” The model legislation would give authority to private citizens to sue “anyone who helps a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside that state.”
The idea is to circumvent federal courts by doing what the Texas abortion ban did: deputize private citizens to act on the state’s behalf. That, in effect, would be a dramatic expansion of its police power.
Why does this make the case for reforming the Supreme Court?
Because it thumbs its nose at Brett Kavanaugh.
In a concurring opinion, he warned states that prosecuting out-of-state abortions would violate the right to interstate travel.
Well, tough cookies.
By outsourcing law enforcement to private citizens, Republican state legislators would create conditions in which there’s no government to sue. If no one has standing, federal courts have nothing to say. Even the Department of Justice might not have the power to stop them.
Not if, when
Republican state legislators are already ignoring the Supreme Court, because the court’s rightwing supermajority gave them permission.
After all, if the highest court is willing to throw out half a century of federal protection of the right to privacy, there’s no good reason for Republican state legislators to hold themselves to a higher standard – to accept as legitimate the legal restraints that Kavanaugh demanded.
The Supreme Court’s descent into illegitimacy is already accelerating to such a degree that reforming the court may soon seem unavoidable. As the president said this morning, the court is no longer a reliable source of law, stability and order. It has become a “destabilizing” force.
The question isn’t if.
It’s when.
Talk of secession in Texas means political violence is already here. Thanks to SCOTUS, there will be more
Blackboard with "Texit" written on it (Shutterstock).
Blackboard with "Texit" written on it (Shutterstock).
ALTERNET
June 23, 2022
The Texas Republican Party issued its platform Monday. Among other terrible things, it called for the Lone Star State to secede from the US.
This was met with mixed reactions from liberals. On the other hand, some said great – good riddance! On the other, some said secession would mean the abandonment of people who are already on the margins of society. As my friend, the historian Thomas Lecaque said: “Every time you say ‘let them secede,’ slap yourself in your stupid overprivileged face.”
I think there’s a third perspective.
Right-wingers know they’re winning
Liberals do not, perhaps cannot, see that political violence is normal in this country. Political violence, in fact, is so ubiquitous that one could say it constitutes the political reality of the American experience. We all live inside white power. Serious challenges to it are met violently. There are always serious challenges to it. Political violence is always already normal.
Violent reactions to democracy, however, usually backfire, politically speaking, unless political conditions prevent them from backfiring.
I don’t know exactly what those conditions would be, but they surely involve polarization over the fundamentals of America – over whether it’s a white man’s country. When these conditions allow, political violence stops backfiring. First, it will be tolerated. Then, it will be encouraged.
That tells us something.
That the right-wingers are winning.
And they know it.
We have been tolerating subversive political violence since at least 2012. As I’ve argued, every shooting massacre is in one way or another part of the white-power reaction to Barack Obama’s historic twin victories. The GOP has since then gotten the public tied up in knots over the ins and outs of the Second Amendment. That’s deadlocked public opinion long enough to push political violence as a means of state-level social control.
Forward to 2022, after the J6 coup, to see the evolution from tolerating subversive political violence to encouraging overt political violence.
Indeed, as of this writing, the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will encourage more overt political violence. In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court struck down a 108-year-old New York state open carry law, saying it was too restrictive of Second Amendment rights.
Eric Greitens, a Missouri Republican running for the Senate, made an ad in which he’s holding a shotgun and inviting voters to go RINO hunting. A GOP challenger to Nevada’s Democratic attorney general reportedly told a friend: "This guy should be hanging from a fucking crane.” Couy Griffin, a rightwing organizer with influence on Donald Trump, has often said that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The former president reportedly said hanging Vice President Mike Pence wasn’t a bad idea.
All of this is to say talk of secession does not come from nothing.
There is a context. That context features the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence. We should remember that.
Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an anti-Trump Republican, said that political violence is coming. So is a sustained period of democratic instability. But we’re already in that period. We have already seen the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence.
That’s why the Texas GOP now formally supports secession.
Talk of secession is a consequence of political violence – especially political violence that is now working in the Republicans’ favor.
Indeed, they appear to believe political violence not only doesn’t backfire anymore – it’s now a political asset. Whatever political violence the future holds will be an expansion of overt political violence that’s already here.
Secession-talk is a sign that they know they’re winning.
Refresh liberalism
As usual, liberals missed it.
They tend to think political violence is unusual, an interruption of normal life. There’s more to this thinking than the basic human longing for peace.
Unlike rightwingers – unlike anarchists, Marxists, communists, even some progressives – liberals do not seek out conflict, because liberals do not see politics as war by other means. Politics is about problem-solving.
To liberals, politics is about process, strategy and established rules and norms. And anyway, labeling peace as normal, and violence as abnormal, pits those encouraging violence against those favoring the status quo.
Which is to say, pits rightwingers against conservatives.
But in order to insist that political violence is abnormal, (white) liberals must pretend that white power is not the political reality we inhabit. By pretending white power has nothing to do with it, (white) liberals end up legitimating the status quo – which is, as I said, already politically violent.
Our precious norms won’t stop political violence.
They’re already politically violent.
Indeed, by insisting on preserving established rules and norms, liberals paper over the root problem, which is that white power constitutes our political reality. In this way, liberals, I think without meaning to, hasten rather than circumvent the destabilization of American democracy.
As I said, Kinzinger thinks that’s coming.
No, it’s here.
Liberals think they are addressing political violence. They think that by appealing to peace, law and order, they are seizing the advantage.
They aren’t.
The more they stick to “the rules,” the worse things get. Politics isn’t war by other means. It’s about problem-solving. But when liberalism’s solutions aggravate things, perhaps it’s time to refresh liberalism.
Secession, seschmession
As I said, on the one hand are those welcoming the Texas Republican Party’s support for secession. Good riddance, wrote the Post’s Dana Milbank. On the other hand are those saying no liberal should welcome such a thing, as the human tool of secession would be horrific.
Both sides are missing the political violence that has made talk of secession seem real, credible and plausible (though entirely illegal).
It’s that political violence we need to focus on.
We need to admit it’s here – that it’s been here.
And liberals need new ways of thinking about it.
The Texas Republican Party issued its platform Monday. Among other terrible things, it called for the Lone Star State to secede from the US.
This was met with mixed reactions from liberals. On the other hand, some said great – good riddance! On the other, some said secession would mean the abandonment of people who are already on the margins of society. As my friend, the historian Thomas Lecaque said: “Every time you say ‘let them secede,’ slap yourself in your stupid overprivileged face.”
I think there’s a third perspective.
Right-wingers know they’re winning
Liberals do not, perhaps cannot, see that political violence is normal in this country. Political violence, in fact, is so ubiquitous that one could say it constitutes the political reality of the American experience. We all live inside white power. Serious challenges to it are met violently. There are always serious challenges to it. Political violence is always already normal.
Violent reactions to democracy, however, usually backfire, politically speaking, unless political conditions prevent them from backfiring.
I don’t know exactly what those conditions would be, but they surely involve polarization over the fundamentals of America – over whether it’s a white man’s country. When these conditions allow, political violence stops backfiring. First, it will be tolerated. Then, it will be encouraged.
That tells us something.
That the right-wingers are winning.
And they know it.
We have been tolerating subversive political violence since at least 2012. As I’ve argued, every shooting massacre is in one way or another part of the white-power reaction to Barack Obama’s historic twin victories. The GOP has since then gotten the public tied up in knots over the ins and outs of the Second Amendment. That’s deadlocked public opinion long enough to push political violence as a means of state-level social control.
Forward to 2022, after the J6 coup, to see the evolution from tolerating subversive political violence to encouraging overt political violence.
Indeed, as of this writing, the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will encourage more overt political violence. In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court struck down a 108-year-old New York state open carry law, saying it was too restrictive of Second Amendment rights.
Eric Greitens, a Missouri Republican running for the Senate, made an ad in which he’s holding a shotgun and inviting voters to go RINO hunting. A GOP challenger to Nevada’s Democratic attorney general reportedly told a friend: "This guy should be hanging from a fucking crane.” Couy Griffin, a rightwing organizer with influence on Donald Trump, has often said that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The former president reportedly said hanging Vice President Mike Pence wasn’t a bad idea.
All of this is to say talk of secession does not come from nothing.
There is a context. That context features the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence. We should remember that.
Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an anti-Trump Republican, said that political violence is coming. So is a sustained period of democratic instability. But we’re already in that period. We have already seen the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence.
That’s why the Texas GOP now formally supports secession.
Talk of secession is a consequence of political violence – especially political violence that is now working in the Republicans’ favor.
Indeed, they appear to believe political violence not only doesn’t backfire anymore – it’s now a political asset. Whatever political violence the future holds will be an expansion of overt political violence that’s already here.
Secession-talk is a sign that they know they’re winning.
Refresh liberalism
As usual, liberals missed it.
They tend to think political violence is unusual, an interruption of normal life. There’s more to this thinking than the basic human longing for peace.
Unlike rightwingers – unlike anarchists, Marxists, communists, even some progressives – liberals do not seek out conflict, because liberals do not see politics as war by other means. Politics is about problem-solving.
To liberals, politics is about process, strategy and established rules and norms. And anyway, labeling peace as normal, and violence as abnormal, pits those encouraging violence against those favoring the status quo.
Which is to say, pits rightwingers against conservatives.
But in order to insist that political violence is abnormal, (white) liberals must pretend that white power is not the political reality we inhabit. By pretending white power has nothing to do with it, (white) liberals end up legitimating the status quo – which is, as I said, already politically violent.
Our precious norms won’t stop political violence.
They’re already politically violent.
Indeed, by insisting on preserving established rules and norms, liberals paper over the root problem, which is that white power constitutes our political reality. In this way, liberals, I think without meaning to, hasten rather than circumvent the destabilization of American democracy.
As I said, Kinzinger thinks that’s coming.
No, it’s here.
Liberals think they are addressing political violence. They think that by appealing to peace, law and order, they are seizing the advantage.
They aren’t.
The more they stick to “the rules,” the worse things get. Politics isn’t war by other means. It’s about problem-solving. But when liberalism’s solutions aggravate things, perhaps it’s time to refresh liberalism.
Secession, seschmession
As I said, on the one hand are those welcoming the Texas Republican Party’s support for secession. Good riddance, wrote the Post’s Dana Milbank. On the other hand are those saying no liberal should welcome such a thing, as the human tool of secession would be horrific.
Both sides are missing the political violence that has made talk of secession seem real, credible and plausible (though entirely illegal).
It’s that political violence we need to focus on.
We need to admit it’s here – that it’s been here.
And liberals need new ways of thinking about it.
Our freedoms have already been revoked
June 03, 2022
AlterNet
The president spoke last night about the valley of the shadow of death in which the massacre of innocents recurs over and over. It was an especially graphic speech. At one point, Joe Biden informed viewers that parents of victims had to give authorities DNA samples for the purpose of identifying their kids. They were literally shot to pieces.
It was graphic for a reason, I think. Biden wanted to move Americans emotionally – to get us to think about the costs of freedom as much as freedom itself. If a majority of us conclude the costs supersede the principle, perhaps the most intransigent of Senate Democrats would support a carve-out of the Senate filibuster to pass gun-law reforms.
The Republicans won’t move. I am not waiting for Susan Collins to come around. Neither should you. I expect the Senate GOP conference to cling tight to the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Gun control is an infringement, they say, that revokes our freedom.
Our freedom has already been revoked.
Don’t kid yourself.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, according to a report Tuesday by the AP, multiple incidents across the United States “met a common definition of a mass shooting” – when four or more people are shot.
“Gunfire erupted in the predawn hours of Sunday at a festival in the town of Taft, Oklahoma, sending hundreds of revelers scattering and customers inside the nearby Boots Café diving for cover. Eight people ages 9 to 56 were shot, and one of them died.”
“Six children ages 13 to 15 were wounded Saturday night in a touristy quarter of Chattanooga, Tennessee.”
“Ten people were wounded, and three law enforcement officers injured, in a shooting incident at a Memorial Day nighttime street gathering in Charleston, South Carolina.”
“At a club and liquor store in Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan, a 19-year-old man was killed and six” others wounded after “gunfire rang out among a crowd” early Monday morning.
“At least two incidents in Chicago between late Friday and Monday [happened], including one near a closed elementary school on the West Side in which the wounded included a 16-year-old girl”.
“In Arkansas, a 7-year-old girl was killed Saturday in a busy area near the Little Rock Zoo.”
“On Chicago’s South Side, the body of a young man slain at an outdoor birthday party lay on the sidewalk early Sunday, covered by a white sheet. His mother stood nearby, crying.”
Then there’s the latest mass shooting Thursday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A patient bought a semiautomatic rifle shortly before murdering his doctor. A total of four are now dead, including the shooter.
In response, a physician wrote today: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that now, whenever a patient leaves irate or upset about something, I am going to be afraid that they’re going to come back with a gun.”
There is no reasonable definition of freedom that includes the fact that “over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined,” Biden said last night. “Think about that: more kids than on-duty cops killed by guns, more kids than soldiers killed by guns.”
You are not free.
Don’t kid yourself.
Political violence
You, me and everyone we know are not free on account of the ubiquity of lethal firepower in a multitude of irresponsible hands creating conditions in which an open society cannot possibly remain open.
Amid the pernicious fear of arbitrary death, anytime and anyplace, individuals put themselves in a box to be safe and secure. Who needs a dictator to close a society when a society voluntarily closes itself?
The Republicans benefit from this.
Don’t believe it?
Ask them.
Last week, the Senate took a vote on debating – not passing – a domestic terrorism bill previously cleared by the US House. The vote to debate failed, 47-47. Every single Republican voted against it. The reason, per the AP, was that it “doesn’t place enough emphasis on combating domestic terrorism committed by groups on the far left.”
Think about that.
It’s an amazing confession, though inadvertent.
The Republicans are saying in so many words that they won’t support debating government action against far-right domestic terrorism groups without an equal and opposite commitment to government action against their far-left counterparts. Why vote that way?
Because if they voted against far-right groups, the Republicans would in effect, disarm themselves without getting something in return. Put another way, the Republicans benefit when members of a democratic society exhibit a pernicious fear of arbitrary death, anytime and anyplace. To vote against that is to vote against themselves.
The president, like everyone else, made a mistake last night by saying the liberties found in the Second Amendment are not absolute. If we’re talking about freedom in the absence of societal violence putting us all in a cage is a discussion that magnifies the power of societal violence.
Motive
The ubiquity of lethal firepower leads to widespread societal violence leads to this question: Why do we get hung up on questions of motive?
Every act of public violence is an act of political violence. The Republicans and their allies won’t concede to that reality unless concrete evidence makes the shooter’s motives abundantly clear, as was the case with Buffalo killer Payton Gendron’s “manifesto.”
That’s why it’s important to know that motive is irrelevant. Violence is like the covid virus – it’s contagious. A contagion has no reason to infect its host other than spreading. State Republicans have loosened gun laws such that America is now a virtual Petri dish of viral violence.
“For the last few years, a national movement involving more than 150 organizations and cities has been advocating the understanding of violence as a contagious and epidemic health problem,” wrote Gary Slutkin, an activist and researcher who said death begets death:
The movement’s efforts include educating the public to understand the people involved in violence as having a spreadable health problem that they contracted through exposure to violence. Hundreds of studies have now demonstrated this contagious nature – even across many types of violence.
The research shows that when an individual is exposed to violence as a victim or witness – in their community, at home or in war – they become more at risk of developing violent behaviors. The brain is picking up the violence it sees and copying it, much like the Aids virus replicates in a person.
The Republicans invest a lot in getting the American public to believe political violence is not normal (it is), but instead exceptional.
If the people believed it’s normal, they demand their freedom.
The Republicans fear that most.
Don’t kid yourself.
AlterNet
The president spoke last night about the valley of the shadow of death in which the massacre of innocents recurs over and over. It was an especially graphic speech. At one point, Joe Biden informed viewers that parents of victims had to give authorities DNA samples for the purpose of identifying their kids. They were literally shot to pieces.
It was graphic for a reason, I think. Biden wanted to move Americans emotionally – to get us to think about the costs of freedom as much as freedom itself. If a majority of us conclude the costs supersede the principle, perhaps the most intransigent of Senate Democrats would support a carve-out of the Senate filibuster to pass gun-law reforms.
The Republicans won’t move. I am not waiting for Susan Collins to come around. Neither should you. I expect the Senate GOP conference to cling tight to the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Gun control is an infringement, they say, that revokes our freedom.
Our freedom has already been revoked.
Don’t kid yourself.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, according to a report Tuesday by the AP, multiple incidents across the United States “met a common definition of a mass shooting” – when four or more people are shot.
“Gunfire erupted in the predawn hours of Sunday at a festival in the town of Taft, Oklahoma, sending hundreds of revelers scattering and customers inside the nearby Boots Café diving for cover. Eight people ages 9 to 56 were shot, and one of them died.”
“Six children ages 13 to 15 were wounded Saturday night in a touristy quarter of Chattanooga, Tennessee.”
“Ten people were wounded, and three law enforcement officers injured, in a shooting incident at a Memorial Day nighttime street gathering in Charleston, South Carolina.”
“At a club and liquor store in Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan, a 19-year-old man was killed and six” others wounded after “gunfire rang out among a crowd” early Monday morning.
“At least two incidents in Chicago between late Friday and Monday [happened], including one near a closed elementary school on the West Side in which the wounded included a 16-year-old girl”.
“In Arkansas, a 7-year-old girl was killed Saturday in a busy area near the Little Rock Zoo.”
“On Chicago’s South Side, the body of a young man slain at an outdoor birthday party lay on the sidewalk early Sunday, covered by a white sheet. His mother stood nearby, crying.”
Then there’s the latest mass shooting Thursday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A patient bought a semiautomatic rifle shortly before murdering his doctor. A total of four are now dead, including the shooter.
In response, a physician wrote today: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that now, whenever a patient leaves irate or upset about something, I am going to be afraid that they’re going to come back with a gun.”
There is no reasonable definition of freedom that includes the fact that “over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined,” Biden said last night. “Think about that: more kids than on-duty cops killed by guns, more kids than soldiers killed by guns.”
You are not free.
Don’t kid yourself.
Political violence
You, me and everyone we know are not free on account of the ubiquity of lethal firepower in a multitude of irresponsible hands creating conditions in which an open society cannot possibly remain open.
Amid the pernicious fear of arbitrary death, anytime and anyplace, individuals put themselves in a box to be safe and secure. Who needs a dictator to close a society when a society voluntarily closes itself?
The Republicans benefit from this.
Don’t believe it?
Ask them.
Last week, the Senate took a vote on debating – not passing – a domestic terrorism bill previously cleared by the US House. The vote to debate failed, 47-47. Every single Republican voted against it. The reason, per the AP, was that it “doesn’t place enough emphasis on combating domestic terrorism committed by groups on the far left.”
Think about that.
It’s an amazing confession, though inadvertent.
The Republicans are saying in so many words that they won’t support debating government action against far-right domestic terrorism groups without an equal and opposite commitment to government action against their far-left counterparts. Why vote that way?
Because if they voted against far-right groups, the Republicans would in effect, disarm themselves without getting something in return. Put another way, the Republicans benefit when members of a democratic society exhibit a pernicious fear of arbitrary death, anytime and anyplace. To vote against that is to vote against themselves.
The president, like everyone else, made a mistake last night by saying the liberties found in the Second Amendment are not absolute. If we’re talking about freedom in the absence of societal violence putting us all in a cage is a discussion that magnifies the power of societal violence.
Motive
The ubiquity of lethal firepower leads to widespread societal violence leads to this question: Why do we get hung up on questions of motive?
Every act of public violence is an act of political violence. The Republicans and their allies won’t concede to that reality unless concrete evidence makes the shooter’s motives abundantly clear, as was the case with Buffalo killer Payton Gendron’s “manifesto.”
That’s why it’s important to know that motive is irrelevant. Violence is like the covid virus – it’s contagious. A contagion has no reason to infect its host other than spreading. State Republicans have loosened gun laws such that America is now a virtual Petri dish of viral violence.
“For the last few years, a national movement involving more than 150 organizations and cities has been advocating the understanding of violence as a contagious and epidemic health problem,” wrote Gary Slutkin, an activist and researcher who said death begets death:
The movement’s efforts include educating the public to understand the people involved in violence as having a spreadable health problem that they contracted through exposure to violence. Hundreds of studies have now demonstrated this contagious nature – even across many types of violence.
The research shows that when an individual is exposed to violence as a victim or witness – in their community, at home or in war – they become more at risk of developing violent behaviors. The brain is picking up the violence it sees and copying it, much like the Aids virus replicates in a person.
The Republicans invest a lot in getting the American public to believe political violence is not normal (it is), but instead exceptional.
If the people believed it’s normal, they demand their freedom.
The Republicans fear that most.
Don’t kid yourself.
John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative; a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet. Follow him @johnastoehr.
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