Thinking clearly

A succinct summary of some of the confused thinking among the clerisy of the mainstream media.  From Actually, Dobbs Was the Opposite of a Power Grab by Charles C.W. Cooke.  

In the Atlantic, Kimberly Wehle argues that:

By its own maneuvering, the modern Supreme Court has made itself the most powerful branch of government. Superior to Congress. Superior to the president. Superior to the states. Superior to precedent, procedure, and norms. In effect, superior to the people.

Interesting. What does Wehle have in mind?

Most talked about in this regard, of course, is the Court’s ending of long-established reproductive rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But the assertion of extreme power extends well beyond the issue of abortion.

Wait, what? Wehle’s primary example of the Supreme Court’s supposedly making “itself the most powerful branch of government” — “superior” in position to Congress, the president, the states, precedent, procedure, norms, and the people is . . . Dobbs? The case in which the Court overturned an act of astonishing judicial usurpation and sent power back to the people? The case that returned to the states an authority that the judiciary had falsely claimed for half a century. That was the “assertion of extreme power”?

He finished with:

There is nothing at all wrong with the Supreme Court stepping in to limit the power of the elected branches when an enumerated constitutional right has been violated. On the contrary: that the judiciary is empowered to play that role is one of the things that makes America so special. But one cannot have it both ways: to enforce constitutionally protected minority rights is often to thwart the transient will of the majority, and it is to do so explicitly. In effect, Kimberly Wehle is trying to play both sides of the same coin; she wants the Supreme Court to grant her the policies that she wants and to pretend that doing so is an expression of democracy. What a ridiculously confused and self-serving approach “living constitutionalism” has become.

 It is not dissimilar to the cognitive dissonance of the Left complaining about anyone who has the opinion that there was electoral corruption in the 2020 election and that it was sufficient to overturn the election.  It appears that they are doing their best to make having that opinion illegal.

One might have more or less good reasons for holding that opinion but that one is entitled to have that opinion is black letter law.  

Wehle wants the Supreme Court to only enforce the rules which she likes and not decide against policies which she supports.  Similarly, I keep hearing NPR and others trying to make the case that it is good to have free speech but it is also illegal and outside the political norms to question the 2020 election results.

Pick a principle, any principle, and stick with it.  The worst form of mindlessness is to irrationally swing about based on emotional attachment to alien principles.