Week of 06/27/2022

 

The Fraud Of Original Intent
– by David Matthews 2

Some time ago, I came across an article talking about someone who had a problem with the money left in his name.  According to the article, the person in question was left a sizable amount of money from his late father, while his stepmother and step-siblings were specifically left with nothing.  It’s not that they were not mentioned in the will, but that the father believed the step-mother was financially well-off on her own and have been doting on their children all this time while he was alive while his son wasn’t.  It was believed that the money in the inheritance would be used by the son to go to college and to start life fresh.  The person in question was a minor when his father died, so the money was put in a trust.

When the person in question turned seventeen, though, he discovered that his step-mother bought a new pricey house for her and her new husband and her children to live in.  She also got herself a brand-new luxury vehicle and another one for her new husband.  When asked how she could afford these things, she claimed she could afford it, but he soon found out that it really came from his trust.  Apparently, she was put in charge of the trust until the person in question could legally assume it when he turned eighteen, and she had been bleeding it all this time on things for her children and on her new husband, and he will soon have nothing but pennies.

The person in question was understandably incensed and asked how she could steal from the trust set in his name.  She said that they needed the money more.  He said that the money was to be specifically given to him in his father’s will.  She responded by saying “that’s not what he really intended.  He really intended for all of us to have that money.”

Yes, what she did could be considered a crime.  But that requires expensive lawyers to fight in court, and, as you can imagine, he wouldn’t even be able to afford a cheap lawyer.

For the past few decades, the United States Supreme Court has been infiltrated by justices that claim to follow what they call “original intent” or “originalism”.  They claim to follow only what the United States Constitution says, and only what they believe the founders “intended” the Constitution to mean.  They reject and condemn a “living” Constitution, which allows for changes in time and society.  They firmly believe that whatever was written was eternal and whatever they see the “intent” would be is set in stone and unchangeable.

As a libertarian, albeit a practical one, I strongly oppose and reject this idea of “original intent” when it comes to the Constitution.  If it says “don’t do (X)” or if it says “you must do (Y)” then that should be pretty clear and irrefutable.  Bringing in this idea of “original intent” or simply “intent”, however, makes what it actually says a perversion.

For instance, when the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law”, that’s pretty straightforward.  Then it talks about “respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  The late Justice William O. Douglas was pretty clear in his view that “no law” meant “no law”.  No law, no regulation, no government action whatsoever.  Sounds odd for what was considered a liberal justice.

But here, so-called conservative justices have perverted the First Amendment with what they claim was the “original intent”.  They have perverted the word “respecting” to mean “you cannot officially establish a national religion, but you can impose elements of the dominant religion in your laws” because, you know, that’s what they claim the “original intent” was.  They have perverted the “abridging the freedom” part in regards to speech and to the press and to peaceful assembly to mean “you can’t offend people, you can’t say bad things about the government in the media, and you can only assemble when we allow it” because they also claim that these were the “original intent” from the founders.

This fraud of “original intent” was brought to the forefront in the Supreme Court decision of June 25^th, 2022 regarding the right to abortion.  In their misogynistic 6-3 majority ruling, the court declared that the “Roe v Wade” decision of 1973 to be, in their words, “wrong”, because – as according to “originalist” Justice Samuel Alito – there was no specific mention of a right to abortion in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was crafted in the 19^th century.  To bolster his claim of “original intent”, Alito pulled on texts from a 16^th century judge named Sir Edward Cooke as well as a 17^th century judge named Sir Matthew Hale. 

To be clear, these are not founding fathers.  These are British judges, centuries before the founding of America.  They are the very enemies that American colonists went to war to free themselves from.  And they’re not exactly friendly towards women.  Both ordered women executed for witchcraft – a hysterical charge with no proof that runs solely on delusion, hearsay, and “intent” – and reportedly had no problem whatsoever with spousal rape.  To call on them to decide “original intent” is no different than to call on the insane and malignant King George III as a “founding father”.

Even worse, by claiming there is no specific mention of this right, Alito and company open the door for other rulings to be overturned on the same light.  Every decision over the past fifty years involving any kind of a right to privacy is now in danger of being repealed simply because Justice Alito claims he personally did not envision it from the authors of a 19^th century amendment to an 18^th century document.

Making this fraud of “intent” even more hypocritical was an earlier decision made by the justices in another 6-3 ruling involving a border patrol agent.  In that instance, the justices ignored both the letter and the “intent” of the Fourth Amendment’s rule against warrantless acts in the name of “protecting the border”, as well as barring the First Amendment guarantee to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  They don’t even call on some distorted rule of “intent” from some 16^th or 17^th century foreign judge, but rather declare officers of Customs and Border Protection to be untouchable simply because.  Something that even our actual founding fathers – who saw such intrusions first-hand in their time – would most likely consider to be unacceptable. 

Let’s get brutally honest here... preaching about knowing “original intent” or “originalism” is nothing short of fraud.  Claiming to have “original intent” of people long since dead is like con artists pretending to be spiritual mediums and claiming to see or hear dead relatives.  Much like the stepmother who pilfers a child’s trust fund for her own gain, these “original intent” people are liars at best and criminals at worst.

This commentator not only strongly condemns the decision of the 6-3 majority in both instances, but I call on Justice Alito and the rest of that majority who support his malicious supposition to either resign or to be removed from the court on the basis of that fraud.  They have perverted the court as well as the judicial branch, and for every day that they continue to sit on the bench, continuing to pretend to know the “intent” of people long since dead, they continue to pervert and corrupt the court.

The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution never envisioned the events, society, or technologies of the 19^th, 20^th, or 21^st century.  They never envisioned the cotton gin, industrialization, railroads, hot air balloons, aircraft, the telegraph, telephones, radio broadcasts, television, motion pictures, the Internet, corporate monopolies, nuclear war, chemical warfare, high-powered assault weapons, fast food franchises, or malignant narcissists who make King George III look outright sane.  In their written words, though, they did come up with a constitution that offered room for change and to be amended.  Because they knew that the Constitution was never meant to be stagnant and locked in only to the time of its creation.  For any judge today to claim to know otherwise is either a hack or sees something that only exists in their mind.

Week of 06/20/2022

Cowardice Is Also Corruption
– by David Matthews 2

A guy visiting a small mill town stops by the local diner where he sees a police officer having lunch.  Doesn’t take long for him to overhear that the officer is actually the police chief of this little community. 

Little further on into the lunch, he hears a commotion outside.  An expensive oversized pickup truck is barreling down Main Street at a high rate of speed, honking the horn, diesel smoke pouring out the dual exhaust, and forcing other cars to get out of the way.

The visitor goes to the chief and asks him why he isn’t doing anything about it.

“That’s just Boyd, the mill foreman,” the chief says nonchalantly.  “He does that every day ‘round lunch.”

The visitor is incredulous about hearing this.  “But... you see how reckless he was?  He almost caused two accidents!”

“Well folks ‘round here know better than to get anywhere near him,” the chief replied.  “Why don’t you just finish your lunch, stranger, so you can be on your way.”

A minute later, there’s another commotion outside.  Someone is running out of the local pharmacy and the clerk is following him and yelling “Hey, stop!”

The visitor then goes to the chief again.  “Did you see that?”

“Yep,” replied the chief.  “That’s just Elsie’s kid.  She’s the town clerk.  He probably just grabbed money from the register so he could go get some beer.  She’ll pay the store back later on.”

“But...” the visitor started to say, only to be cut off by the police chief.

“Why don’t you just finish your lunch, stranger, and then be on your way.”

The visitor finished his lunch and was about to pay the bill when he sees a middle-aged man savagely assault a young woman right in front of the diner, in full-view of everyone.  The visitor was irate and he turned to the chief.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that!” he said.

The chief was unfazed, though.  He just sat there sipping his coffee.

“That woman is getting beaten to death and you’re doing nothing?!” said the visitor.  “You’re the police chief!  Do something!”

The chief finally got up and arrested the visitor for disorderly conduct.  He was held for a few hours before being brought before the local judge, who was the middle-aged man that the visitor had seen beating his wife.

When we talk about corruption, we usually think about bribery, quid-pro-quo.  Some sort of personal gain to look the other way or to give favorites.  They can come in the form of “campaign contributions” or clearing some personal debt or even helping a relative or spouse get a cushy job somewhere.

But there is another more insidious form of corruption that goes on that is harder to prove quid-pro-quo.  One that is just as dangerous and damaging to society as someone on the take.  One that literally happens on all levels of government.

It’s government cowardice. 

The good ol’ boy police chief in our hypothetical small mill town sees out-and-out crimes being committed all the time.  But he does nothing to stop them.  In fact, he arrests the one person who sees these crimes happen and is incredulous about why nobody is doing anything about them, including the violent assault committed right in front of everyone.  His willful inaction, his cowardice to doing his job in the face of crime literally happening right in front of him, is the corruption.

Notice how the visitor is the only one who speaks out and says these things are wrong and that something should be done.  Nobody else stands up and says that it’s wrong to drive recklessly through Main Street at a high rate of speed, or that it’s wrong to steal money from the local pharmacy, or that it’s wrong to violently and viciously assault someone in broad daylight.  If the police chief – the highest level of local law enforcement - is consciously willing to do nothing, why should anyone else?  That is how pervasive the corruption is in that hypothetical community.

We saw this in real life during Prohibition a century ago.  A vast majority of people didn’t believe the ban on alcohol was right.  So they continued to drink, even breaking the law to do it.  They turned to criminals to provide the alcohol, and local police did nothing to stop it. 

Were they afraid of the mob?  Were they drinkers themselves?  Or were they just afraid to make waves and to do their job and incur the wrath of their superiors or local politicians or local judges?  It’s easier for us to assume they were on the take or morally compromised than to believe that they were just afraid to do their job.  Either way, their inaction encouraged the criminals to keep doing what they did and become as ruthless as they were.  And it also encouraged people to keep breaking the law in order to get their booze.

Worse yet, because of how we dealt with Prohibition, it had an effect on how we dealt with other alcohol-related crimes like drunk driving.  For decades afterward, we treated drunk driving like a nuisance instead of being a criminal act.  Because, you know, “everyone did it”.  Lives were lost, lives were destroyed, but that didn’t matter because “everyone did it”.  Even when a concerted effort was made to treat drunk or impaired driving as a serious criminal act, there were still plenty of people who thought nothing of it because “everyone did it”.

Look at how the federal government dealt with the criminal activities that contributed to the housing bubble and the Great Recession.  Before this, we threw execs in prison.  Enron, WorldCom, hell, we threw Martha Stewart in prison!  But then, after the markets collapsed and millions of Americans were thrown out of their homes, not one banking or market exec went to prison.  Not one.  Because the Department of Justice, in defiance of their own policies, decided they would rather file civil charges instead of criminal ones.  That allowed the financial criminals to literally buy their way out of accountability with supposed “record” fines.

Did the Justice Department have something to gain from this?  Well, the fines, certainly.  But they could have gotten those with criminal charges.  Or were they afraid to hold those banking and financial excs accountable?

What happened was that the next time there were financial screwjobs and outright criminal activity with one of those “too big to fail” institutions, not only did they get away with just paying penny-change fines, but they keep getting caught doing the same things over and over again.

This is what cowardice does, folks.  It allows the criminal activity to go on and on without anyone paying the price and it encourages others to do the same, because they know they will never be held to account.

There is a certain narcissist who used to be the President of the United States that arrogantly boasted even before he was elected that he could shoot someone in broad daylight in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  As of this column’s date, it certainly appears that he is demonstrating it as he’s been able to get away with past actions.

New York City appeared to be on the brink of bringing charges, but a new District Attorney squashed that.  Fulton County currently has a grand jury hearing testimony that could lead to indictments.  A bipartisan January 6^th Committee is holding public hearings, which have revealed potential criminal charges that could and should be filed.

And then there is the Department of Justice.  The same department that dropped the ball when it came to going after the “Too Big To Fail” institutions during the Great Recession.  They claim that they’re investigating the narcissist and the activities of the January 6^th insurrection, but they haven’t really gone after too many of them for the major charges of sedition, and those they get convictions are serving jail time instead of prison time.

One has to wonder if they’re really serious on following through with going after the people at the top, the ones behind the insurrection, the ones that tried to overturn the 2020 Election so they could stay in power.  There are too many people saying that nothing will become of this.  That the orange narcissist will get away with his crimes in time to run for office again in 2024.  Some are even questioning if there should even be criminal charges, because, of course, no other president had ever tried something like this before.

Personally, I find this kind of thinking to be outright wrong and criminal in and of itself.  If you say that “no one is above the law”, then you cannot have anyone be considered out of reach.  Anyone.  President, governor, legislator, anyone.  I would consider any prosecutor, any district attorney, any attorney general, who knows of criminal activity from people like that and refuses to follow through with charges and prosecution to be guilty of aiding and abetting by cowardice.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the cowardice to act in the face of outright criminal activity is just as corrupt as those who take bribes.  Their failure to act lets people know that they can break the law as well, because they will either get away with it, or, at worst, they’ll pay a pittance of a consequence.  Just look at the financial institutions and how they’ve been carrying on after the Great Recession if you don’t believe me.  The old saying about evil triumphs because good men do nothing cannot be any clearer than that.