Land of the Free

This is what we now know.

We now know that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch are liars.  They both knowingly mislead the Senate on their views on Roe v. Wade.  The idea of Supreme Court nominees committing lying, dissembling, and skirting the edge of  perjury in their confirmation hearings is revolting, but not surprising given the ideological agenda at work here.  In addition, Justice Barrett misrepresented (i.e., lied about) her judicial philosophy during her appointment hearings regarding the separation of church and State.  Sadly, none of this is precedent as Justice Clarence Thomas also committed perjury in his testimony regarding Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings.

There you have 4 of the 6 “conservative” justices.

We also have clear evidence that Susan Collins is either dumb as a stump or one of the wilier political operatives around – lying sometimes and being disingenuous other times but always one or the other.  I am opting for wily because it is hard to imagine being outwitted by the Brett Kavanaugh we observed in his confirmation hearings.  Collins kept her base by voting for confirmation and can now play the injured party by claiming to “Kavanaugh lied!” Clever.  Welcome to the party where the end always justifies the means.

We also now know that Justice Thomas is a hypocrite of the tallest order.  Having overthrown the 50-year Roe v. Wade precedent, Thomas made it clear that he would welcome revisiting the precedents of making birth control and gay marriage legal.  Noticeably missing from this fecal fount of social recidivism is the precedent of Loving v. Virginia – the case that made interracial marriage legal.  What a transparently despicable hypocrite.

Conservatives’ and Republicans’ fascination with our sex lives knows no bounds.  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”  It is either prurient – they just can’t help themselves – or it is pure and simple hypocrisy (like they never have sex for pleasure?).   They want us to “pay” the consequences for having sex whether that is an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease.  We know for sure about their lack of alacrity with regard to AIDS and their opposition to the HPV vaccine, condoms, and their horror over teaching about sex.  Ignorance is bliss in their view.  That is exactly why the prevalence of anal sex among teenagers has ballooned in recent years – that’s how you keep pure for marriage.  WTF? 

According to their view of how we (not them), should behave,  sex is not for enjoyment, it is for making babies.  If you do not want that baby or that baby is born out of wedlock or is born with catastrophic defects that prevent a life without pain, it does not matter.  You made it; you own it.  These hypocrites and moralists (and sometimes both) are really pro-birth, not pro-life.  They have proven time and again that they give not two shits about that baby after it is born.  They cut Aid to Dependent Children, vote against subsidized day-care, fail to fund programs like Head Start, chip away at school lunch programs that feed hungry children, rage about “welfare,” and underfund or purposely restrict the support system for adoption.  That is not pro-life, it is pro-fetus.  The US ranks 33^rd of the 36 OECD countries (the Organisation for Economic Cooperating and Development, i.e.,  most of the developed world)  in infant mortality.  You cannot call that pro-life.  You can call it heartless.

While doing their best to punish the rest of us for enjoying sex, or having same sex sex, or whatever, their leadership continues to endorse serial adulterers, forgives affairs both hetero and homo (as long as the predator prays), and lets rapists off with slaps on the wrist.  They criticize women’s fashion choices because they believe men cannot control their own behavior.  Ah, yes, women are the problem (remember Eve?).

For all of their bullshit talk about small government, they have a deep and abiding desire to be active peeping toms in each and every one of our sexual lives.  A long tradition of do as I say, not as I do.

We also know that 6 of the justices voted to weaken the constitutional prohibition of government interference in religion.  These justices are being urged on by the likes of Lauren Boebert (R-CO) who was recently quoted as saying, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution.  It was in a stinking letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does.”  Boebert continued on with “The church is supposed to direct the government.  The government is not supposed to direct the church.  That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.” 

Now we all know that Lauren Boebert is “out there” along with a whole bunch of currently serving Republicans.  I would wager, however, that very few of the ‘regular’ Republicans will go public with a rebuke.  This is our future?  Oh, shit.

The fact that 6 Catholics (Justice Sotomayor was the only Catholic to break ranks), a denomination historically distrusted and discriminated against by the Protestant majority, would so blithely reverse the historically and widely accepted definition of the establishment clause of the first amendment is shocking.  It is, unfortunately, also worryingly naïve.  You would think they would have some sense of what happens to “minority religions” when there is a state-sponsored favorite.  It is then no surprise that 2 of the three dissenting justices came from the 2% of the US population that is Jewish.  They/we know what can (and will) happen.  In short, minorities are fucked.

In fact, women are fucked, as is the whole country fucked.  All the progress in terms of minority rights of the last 50+ years is at real risk.  There is only one way out of this.  People of conscience who believe in the Constitution first, and politics and religion second, must come out and vote.  Congress needs a majority made up of the least dangerous party, and that is the Democrats at this moment in time.  That party needs to get its people on the same bus, kill the filibuster, and get some shit done.  Codify abortion rights.  Make the separation of church and state airtight, protect and expand voting rights, keep gay marriage, interracial  marriage, LBGTQ+ rights, and a woman’s right to procure birth control legal.  Let the moralists be in charge of their own bodies and behaviors, not mine and not yours.

Every supporter of this hypocritical, constitution destroying, immoral group of win at any cost folks ought to read this article –  Op-Ed – Charlotte Observer.
You should as well.

Here’s a prediction.  If we do nothing, in twenty years, this country will not resemble the one you grew up in.  We will have lost our moral compass and our position in the world as the one place that was guaranteed as the land of the free.  We will have become the dystopian vision of The Handmaid’s Tale.  As a male, I am concerned and worried.  If I were female, I would be quaking in terror.  If I were a female person of color, it would not be paranoia to believe “they” were coming after you, and if I were a gay/trans/bi female presenting person of color, I would be looking for the escape hatch.