President Trump gave out both a very nice off the cuff statement about RBG’s death as well as an excellent official statement. I am not bound by such conventions.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a relentlessly baleful influence upon the American body politic. She was one of the spear points in the Feminist effort to enshrine into law and custom the bizarre notion that only things men do have any merit. As Chesterton pointed out: feminism is the assertion that a woman is a slave if she serves her husband but free if she serves her employer.
RBG’s great claim to fame is, of course, her work to end discrimination “on the basis of sex”. They even made a movie about her titled just that. And all over social media the past 24 hours I’ve seen liberals bemoaning the fate of women’s equality now that RBG is gone.
Permit me to point out something:
Discrimination is not wrong. It is ok to discriminate. Not only is it ok, but you, yourself, do it all the time. You discriminate about who your friends are. Which family members you’ll regularly invite over. What you’ll have for lunch. And, hey, it isn’t just you: the NBA definitely discriminates all the live, long day against short guys. And women. And women.
There is, after all, a WNBA. You probably first heard of it when the players walked off the court during the anthem recently. You might have been vaguely aware of it before that event. But why, decades after RBG rescued us from discrimination against women, is there a WNBA? Because of discrimination. Because the NBA discriminates against anyone who can’t go toe to toe on the court against LeBron James. Say what you want about James (and I’ve said a lot; nearly all bad), the bottom line is he’s one heck of a basketball player…and any team which can’t put up people to contain him will get blown out. And, given this, not a single NBA team has signed a female player. And this is because even the cream of the WNBA crop aren’t up to being benchwarmers in the NBA.
Because they are women.
And that’s gotta hurt. But only dumb people; so, you know: the left.
What is wrong isn’t discrimination, but unjust discrimination. If you were to discriminate against someone capable of doing something simply because of their race or gender or creed that would be wrong. That would be something worth fighting against. And maybe early on RBG and the other feminists were fighting a good fight. But that was a long, long time ago. Once laws specifically prohibiting women from doing what men do were discarded, that was the end of the fight for equality. If you can try to do it, then you are free. That you end up not being able to do it would be either because of some failure on your part or that you lack some vital talent for the job. What the WNBA players lack, uniformly, is being 6 foot, 9 inches tall, 250 pounds of brute male muscle and skill. It is no shame that a WNBA player can’t compete with James; it is just a fact of life.
And everyone deals with it. No one really gets heartache over the fact that women aren’t placed on NBA teams or NFL teams of MLB teams. We all know that, person for person, the chances of a woman being able to compete on that level are nearly zero. Maybe someday we’ll find a woman who can do it, but it’ll be the rarest of rare birds. Meanwhile, it is just for there to be discrimination like that.
But outside professional sports, we’ve seen some rather odd things. We know that a woman can’t be an NFL linebacker and everyone is cool with that…but if you try to say a woman can’t be a combat infantryman, everyone is going to drop on you like a ton of bricks. And that is the ultimate legacy of RBG: the assertion that women can do whatever men do. Which is dumb: women can’t. Just like men can’t do what women do. That whole giving birth thing is rather exclusive, for instance.
This concept that women are just like men and can only be free if they do exactly what men do is insane. And it is made doubly insane by the insistence that women do the worst things men do: work too hard; neglect home and family; play around on the side. This, guys, is not an improvement over the wife of ancient days who minded the house and raised the children.
RBG is gone. Her legacy lives on: and will be with us for quite a while. But if we ever to recapture our sanity, it will be by a stern and knowing rejection of what RBG stood for.
Blogs For Victory 
I can’t get past the speech she made overseas saying that if she were to advise a nation on how to write a new constitution she could not suggest modeling it on ours.
She took an oath to uphold and defend the same constitution she was then describing as something she did not agree with—-if she agreed with it she should have no problem suggesting it as a good model, right? At that moment I thought she should resign from the Court and that is when I lost respect for her.
Yep; the Left views our Constitution, as Obama put it, as a charter of “negative” rights. The really bad thing is this all stems from the 1930’s when the American Left argued that the Stalinist Constitution was the superior charter…because it provided “positive” rights (never mind the being starved to death while working as a slave laborer stuff). What RBG’s statement shows is that the poison from way back then was already deep into American higher education when RBG was educated in the 1950’s…we can only wonder in horror just how bad it is, now.
It does make you wonder, also, whether we should just have a national divorce? It would throw the world into complete crisis as there would, then, be no super power to hold back the barbarians…but how am I supposed to live and work with people who are so entirely off? What the Left looks at as good, I see as something from the lowest pit of hell. How are we supposed to compromise?
How are we supposed to compromise?
That’s the thing — few on the Left are even talking about compromise any more. They were born to lead, and we just need to sit down and shut up. I guess we’ll see how that works out after they take to the streets and burn the country down (as they’ve promised) following Trump’s victory on November 3rd, because at that point any possible compromise goes out the window.
WRT RBG, she actually took two oaths, a Constitutional Oath and Judicial Oath, both of which she violated repeatedly.
I was looking through Twitter earlier today and one of my follows retweeted a comment by a liberal where she asserted she will divorce her Trump-supporting husband unless he comes around and votes for Biden. That was horrible: more horrible was the large number of comments from others saying they had already done that or otherwise cut off family and friends who were backing Trump. And, indeed, it has happened to me: a guy I used to be close friends with completely broke off with me; technically, I shut him down, but only after he graduated to threats against me. At that point, it was time to call a halt. Here’s the thing: I had, a long while ago, told him to cool it – that I wouldn’t talk politics with him and he wouldn’t with me and we’d stay friends. But, none of that: he kept coming back and coming back. Reminded me of something I once read about insanity from Chesterton:
“…We have all heard people cite the celebrated line of Dryden as “Great genius is to madness near allied.” But Dryden did not say that great genius was to madness near allied. Dryden was a great genius himself, and knew better. It would have been hard to find a man more romantic than he, or more sensible. What Dryden said was this, “Great wits are oft to madness near allied”; and that is true. It is the pure promptitude of the intellect that is in peril of a breakdown. Also people might remember of what sort of man Dryden was talking. He was not talking of any unworldly visionary like Vaughan or George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man of the world, a sceptic, a diplomatist, a great practical politician. Such men are indeed to madness near allied. Their incessant calculation of their own brains and other people’s brains is a dangerous trade. It is always perilous to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant person has asked why we say, “As mad as a hatter.” A more flippant person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head.
And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true that maniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was engaged in a controversy with the CLARION on the matter of free will, that able writer Mr. R.B.Suthers said that free will was lunacy, because it meant causeless actions, and the actions of a lunatic would be causeless. I do not dwell here upon the disastrous lapse in determinist logic. Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic’s, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to point out something more practical. It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about lunatics. Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything about lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called causeless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his hands. It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle. It is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like the determinist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. He would think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on private property. He would think that the kicking of the heels was a signal to an accomplice. If the madman could for an instant become careless, he would become sane. Every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable…”
It hit me when I read that lady’s comments: they are monomaniacs. They are insane. Everything – every last thing that happens – is either Trump trying to do evil or the heroic Resistance trying to stop it. And, like the madman, their explanation covers all the facts except for one thing: it is wrong. The advice I gave the lady was to shut off her TV and not look at news for a week. To do something – anything – which wasn’t mere spinning of Orange Man Bad theories. I doubt she’ll take it, but if she does her whole life will change.
Someone who agrees with us on Ginsburg: Opinion: No Hagiography for Ginsburg
1. Do you think Collins, Murkowski, or Romney (or any other Republican Senator) would not vote for Supreme Court nomination if one were to come up for vote prior to the election, citing some personal “fairness” doctrine or other reason?
2. Should they abstain or vote again Trump’s nomination, would that put any of them in political jeopardy?
3. If they vote to confirm Trump’s nomination, would that put any of them in a worse political position, particularly with their voting constituents?
4. Do you think any of the above mentioned persons understand the extent the democrats fully intend to disrupt and / or steal the upcoming elections “as necessary”, in order to gain control?
5. Do you think any of the above mentioned people believe they will be spared negative fallout regardless of the election outcome by not voting for the nominated justice, but especially if the democrats succeed in undermining the election results in whatever fashion that might present itself?
Judge Amy Coney Barrett – US Circuit Judge confirmed in 2017. Her mentor and former boss, Antonin Scalia. The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 55–43 on October 31 with 3 democrats voting yes. Barrett is married to Jesse M. Barrett, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana.
Judge Barbara Lagoa – US Circuit Judge 1 year ago. November 20, confirmed her nomination by a vote of 80–15. A Cuban-American, Lagoa is the daughter of parents who fled from Cuba following the Revolution. She was the first Hispanic woman to be appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida. Her father-in-law is United States District Judge Paul Huck.
Given that both of these judges were recently confirmed to US Circuit Courts, with no newly known closet skeletons, and the inability of the left to parade a list or men claiming to be raped by them in a previous life, what possible reason could the above mentioned individuals give for not voting affirmative for either of these judges?
Collins already said she won’t.
Political jeopardy is an unavoidable fact of life in today’s political climate, which is so dominated by mindless hysteria. As Mark’s thread post says, this is out of control.
I think of it as a litmus test for mental stability. There can be people who legitimately dislike Trump’s personality, or who legitimately disagree with some of his policies, who still manage to function emotionally, but there don’t seem to be many. It does seem that there is a wide and unbridgeable chasm between the totally emotion-dominated rabid Trump haters and rational people, and the Left is out there working to widen that chasm. The thing is, this strident and irrational obsession could not take root in a stable mind.
Cracks in reason had to exist before Trump came along. I believe the Left has worked to create and expand those cracks, plowing the field so to speak so the seeds of wildly irrational hatred could be planted and nurtured.
I wasn’t involved in politics before Clinton—I was an unexamined Liberal, floating along on the current of post-60’s mindlessness, until the hypocrisy of the “women’s movement” regarding the sliminess of Bill Clinton jarred me into awareness that I had better start paying attention. So a lot of my perception is based on vague recollections more than real awareness. because I wasn’t paying much attention. But I remember the near cult-like adoration of Bill Clinton, to the point of willful blindness to his sordid history which was, truly, one of criminality in many areas and of moral depravity. I wasn’t a conservative then, wasn’t even vaguely political, but I could see it, and I marveled at the devotion of Clintonistas. As one of the truly objective observers of politics at that time, with absolutely no allegiance to any political party or person, I stood back outside the fray and watched one side try to argue about policies and the other side fall back on sheer, frantic, hysterical defense of the Clintons as if they were gods being maligned by demons. It was very strange.
Then George W. Bush came along, and the wave of loathing that accompanied his election and administration was creepy. Again, I was just starting my journey to political awakening, so while I was certainly becoming convinced of the sheer rightness of Constitutional governance I had no political loyalties—I was adrift in that no-man’s-land of “sure can’t be a Dem any more” and “I sure as HELL can’t be a Republican!”—-so I was still pretty objective. And, again, I was astounded at the sheer volume and intensity of emotion spewing out of the Left. It had been passionate devotion to anything Clinton and now it was even more passionate loathing of anything Bush. (You guys might not remember this, but the Left had worked itself up into a pants-wetting frenzy about their conviction that Bush would refuse to leave the White House at the end of his term or terms, would try to mobilize the military to protect him, would have to be physically dragged out, blah blah blah. Pretty much word for word what they are now claiming about Trump. SSDD)
So then the pendulum swung, and it was cult time again, with the full-throated adulation of Clinton ramped up to deafening levels for Obama. By now the media had dropped all pretense of journalism and had become overt and blatant agenda promoters, providing cover for him with the incessant claims of “racism” while refusing to report on the many scandals, misdeeds and sheer stupidity of his administration. With Obamalove, the press swooned at anything to do with The One We Have All Been Waiting For (which was, by the way, an actual headline I saw on magazines and some newspapers) and the cultishness of the Dems flowered.
Now we have at least two generations of Dems carefully trained to think, if that word can even be applied to them, in terms of Who Do I Hate and Who Do I Worship. The emotions are not questioned. These people have never been taught, or even encouraged, to use thought or reason to evaluate political decisions. They have been conditioned to accept the concept that if you are Here then There is by definition thoroughly evil and despicable and deserving of the most profound expressions of loathing. This has progressed to the conviction that those who are There don’t even deserve to live, and should be eliminated.
A few Dems have the mental capacity and the depth of character to break loose from the gravitational pull of the black hole of Leftist emotion but far too many are by their natures more susceptible to negative influences, who get deep emotional gratification from their expressions of hate and who are truly addicted to that emotional feedback. And that’s what it is—–an emotional reward for hating. like the pellet released when the lab rat pushes the lever. It’s like emotional porn, destructive but addictive.
I could be wrong but from what I read, Collins said any confirmation vote should wait until after the election, but she didn’t actually say she wouldn’t.
About Amy Coney Barrett —-I hope we have archives of the Left’s howling, in the Kavanaugh show trial, that if Trump had only nominated Amy Coney Barrett they would have been happy, even thrilled, to confirm her.
The narrative at the time was bewilderment that Trump had not nominated the obviously best person for the job, who would have sailed through the confirmation process. We had trolls here on the blog chiming in that Trump made a huge mistake by not nominating Barrett, who was in all ways a great choice who would have been happily accepted by the Dems. Let’s see what they say now.
I wouldn’t put much past them, but it IS going to be a challenge to bring forth 40-year-old allegations of rape against her.
I have NEVER heard a Lib asked to explain why he or she believes the nation would be best governed by a massively powerful Central Authority with little power left to the states or to the people. I NEVER see a political discussion steered toward the difference between a federal government restricted as to size, scope and power vs one so easily controlled by a few elites with little recourse for the citizens. I NEVER hear the Constitution defended as an essentially Libertarian document, which allows for a vast range of outcomes of law and policy, merely insisting that these be voted on state by state with the authority to do so kept separate from the federal government specifically to avoid tyranny.
I remain convinced that these concepts, if presented in one way or another, repeatedly, would start to get the less strident and emotionally invested thinking a little about something more significant than personality and appearance and the other superficial traits the Left identifies as all that matter.
I guess I understand the optics of waiting till after RGB’s funeral to announce the name of her successor, but I sure wish it could be done now.
The field seems to be narrowed to two Catholic women, one of whom is Hispanic, so the hearing (such as it will be) will undoubtedly have a lot of anti-Catholic bias on ugly display. Are the Dems stupid enough to openly attack Catholicism? Yeah, I think they might be. They have in the past, at least Harris and Feinstein have. In a tight race that depends so heavily on Identity Politics I wouldn’t be surprised to see the tactic of going for both Catholic and Hispanic support, and if the Dems do attack the Church I say good for them, let’s see more of this ugly bigotry trotted out of the shadows for us all to see.
After all, anti-Semitism is now mainstream, with the Dems silent on the issue as they flock to new religion of Socialism. Why not openly go after Catholicism as well?
As usual, I have a wish list of what I wish the grand pooh-bahs of the party would do. One is to ban cameras from the confirmation hearing, openly stating that prior hearings have served more for the self-aggrandizement of some Senators more interested in getting camera time than in simply doing their jobs and interviewing the candidate, and this time around the focus will be on the process, not on ego. That would be a huge slap in the face to those who so obviously played to the cameras in the last two hearings.
The other would be to spin off the speeches of Biden and Schumer and appeal to Democrat Senators to show principle, courage and commitment to the Constitution over blind lockstep allegiance to their party masters. If the Left is going to play the game that integrity and courage are going to be defined by the vote, then we should do the same thing.
A few weeks ago I made an offhand comment about restricting protests to specific areas, such as sports arenas. I’ve been thinking about this, off and on, since then and I think it would be a great idea.
1. The Constitution guarantees free speech, including the absolute right to speak openly about grievances against the government. I agree,that right must be protected. However, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to harass or intimidate the public, or to destroy property in the pursuit of such protests.
2. It appears that the management and players of all the major sports teams, as well as many civic leaders, support the “protests” we have been seeing lately. So I think we should let them take the next step and show this support in a more meaningful way than simply making statements and putting slogans on players and facilities.
3. Therefore, I think steps should be taken to guarantee the absolute right of people to protest anything they want to protest (other than the overthrow of the country or other illegal causes) by organizing protests into sports arenas, or school or civic facilities in places that don’t have big arenas. I would support funding a big network of cable stations and the purchase of high end equipment, so protesters could be assured their messages would be sent out and played all over the country, to be seen by anyone who has a TV or a computer. Instead of depending on an admittedly complicit media to cherry-pick scenes and statements, there would be uncensored, unedited content of anything anyone wanted to say to the world, 24 hours a day.
4. I would explain that the goal is to both guarantee the right to protest and the safety of the public in general. Entry to the protest area would be through security, so no weapons could be taken in, to protect the protesters. Sign making materials would be provided, but no commercial signs would be allowed—for safety, and also to keep protests organic and not influence or controlled by outside interests. Protesters could choose the settings for their televised speeches and demonstrations—cameras trained on a stage or on the floor area where crowds could bunch up and chant.
They would have a worldwide audience of anyone who cared enough to look at any of the 24-7 cable channels provided, or the internet live streaming—much better coverage than the hit-or-miss street chaos which might or might not be captured for the public. They would have bathrooms, and could arrange for catering. Sports arenas are big enough to allow for separation into different areas, to allow for counter-protests.
Property damage would be immediately addressed with criminal charges filed. That would include urinating or defecating in public areas.
This would meet the demands of the Constitution, guarantee not just free speech but the ability to be heard over a much larger area than street protests, it would provide the ability to air grievances and it would offer total transparency.
Think of it: Violent anarchists would become crafters, sharing work space and markers as they design their signs. They would have to sign up for their 10 minutes of camera time. An area could be set up for TV talking heads to come interview people—think a couple of cozy couches or easy chairs, some end tables with drinks and snacks, where Anderson Cooper could ask Anarchist Dave why he thinks burning down the city will accomplish—-“what is that you really want to accomplish, Dave?”—–and they could have televised panel discussions like The View.
And anyone “protesting” on the streets would be arrested.
So the Trailblazers would miss some games? Hey, if they believe so much in “the cause” they need to show it, not just virtue signal with some rinky-dink meaningless signs. Some black guy gets shot and within minutes the word goes out that the protest will start at 8, get in line now to go through the metal detectors.
I don’t see anything in the Constitution guaranteeing rioting, property damage or threats to the public, only the right to express opinions. I don’t think we are obligated to indulge infantile temper tantrums or pathological rage, at least not at the expense of the public. And we are certainly not required by the Constitution to enable malignant outside agitators to use the pretense of protesting to create chaos and division within the country. Protests should be by Americans, for Americans. So why not impose a few reasonable boundaries, while not impinging on the core right to expression?