Unthinkable Solutions
The Supreme Court. A National Toothache? 17
Difficult problems, although they seem to have a comfortable, rent-free existence in our thoughts, sometimes go beyond even that. They present themselves as insoluble dilemmas. “Just unpleasant products of fate,” “just the way things are” or “just something we have to live with.”
The unhappy fact is, that as dynamic and adaptive humans, we cease to consider these “tooth ache” challenges and move on to problems with more present solutions. We vote for the lesser of two evils long enough to finally select the very worst. We steel ourselves to resident powers, although we created them, as perpetual things we cannot “un-create.”
We become quite comfortably willing to accept the unacceptable so long as it can groom itself into an image of inevitability. Worse, the ability to perfect this inevitability in our acceptability becomes more material than the essential nature of whatever it was we were trying to solve in the first place. Whatever the desired function was at the outset of these creations of ours becomes somehow secondary to a constant new effort to remain inevitable.
After presenting such a Rumsfeld style introduction (“You can’t know what you don’t know because you don’t know what it is yet.”), perhaps an example would be helpful. What specific “tooth ache” are we currently accepting as unchangeable? What “unthinkable” thought have we gradually eliminated from our human reserve of ideas?
How about the Supreme Court? It has been gradually filled with sub-judicial embarrassments lately thanks to the petty ambitions of the “head crook” and the inspired work of the gang of fourteen. We, as we fulfill our duties under the democracy, have gradually walked away from the scandal. In fact, most of the gang of fourteen will even be reelected!
But that still leaves the problem of the court. Of course there is nothing we can do about it. Of course we just have to live with it. Sure, we can impeach the Chief Justice for conflict of interest. Right. Can anyone remember the campaign to impeach Earl Warren, also a Chief Justice, during the civil rights times? A legion of southern bigots bought roadside billboards and pumped out incendiary speeches, but the busing continued. Chief Justice Warren outlasted them without breaking a sweat.
Now, we have the new, improved Bush version of the Supreme Court. The young, healthy ones are his corporate monkeys, energetically pursuing their dreams of voter suppression, religion in schools and faith-based charities (tax payer extortion) made necessary by disabling parts of the government with corruption. The old, shaky ones seem to still be able to think straight, but their days remaining on the Court are numbered.
Impeaching any of these new justices would take forever. Much sooner than Congress could even consider such a move, the whole Court could well be inhabited by the same types of troubling cultural and judicial throwbacks. So, there is no possibility for us other than to simply “live with it.” Right?
Not exactly. The “no possibility” ideas only exist in thoughts where other “unthinkable” possibilities have been discarded. Perhaps we should consider the entire affair again, this time allowing these old “impossibilities” another chance.
As citizens, under our Constitution, we can dump the whole Supreme Court.
“Oh my God!” Do you mean amending the Constitution? We have been taught that such a thing is nearly impossible! What we have forgotten is that we were taught this by exactly the same folks who stood to lose the most if we ever thought otherwise. Even if we tried, it would take forever! It would take years, possibly even decades, to trot such a thing around to all the States.
Wait a minute. How long do you think we will have to endure the likes of Chief Justice Roberts? Decades after the other insults of George Bush have been disinfected, Chief Justice Roberts and his cronies on the court will still be injecting the same kind of toxic neo-con poison into our society. Anyone who thinks that is too harsh a criticism can review the accomplishments of the so-called Justices in only a year or two.
We can design and create a new Court with a Constitutional amendment. It might require actual judicial expertise in its appointments. It might become quite removed from the endless production of rulings which represent no more than the battle between its conservatives and its liberals.
The highest court in the country is supposed to think about the laws in its judgments, not cheap ideology. Is it impossible to form sound judicial opinions not embedded in the structure of ideology? Have we become mired in the details of personality so deeply that we have forsaken the possibilities of anything more constructive, more judicial?
Bill boards didn’t do it, but a program to promote a Constitutional amendment just might.
The Supreme Court. A National Toothache? 17
Difficult problems, although they seem to have a comfortable, rent-free existence in our thoughts, sometimes go beyond even that. They present themselves as insoluble dilemmas. “Just unpleasant products of fate,” “just the way things are” or “just something we have to live with.”
The unhappy fact is, that as dynamic and adaptive humans, we cease to consider these “tooth ache” challenges and move on to problems with more present solutions. We vote for the lesser of two evils long enough to finally select the very worst. We steel ourselves to resident powers, although we created them, as perpetual things we cannot “un-create.”
We become quite comfortably willing to accept the unacceptable so long as it can groom itself into an image of inevitability. Worse, the ability to perfect this inevitability in our acceptability becomes more material than the essential nature of whatever it was we were trying to solve in the first place. Whatever the desired function was at the outset of these creations of ours becomes somehow secondary to a constant new effort to remain inevitable.
After presenting such a Rumsfeld style introduction (“You can’t know what you don’t know because you don’t know what it is yet.”), perhaps an example would be helpful. What specific “tooth ache” are we currently accepting as unchangeable? What “unthinkable” thought have we gradually eliminated from our human reserve of ideas?
How about the Supreme Court? It has been gradually filled with sub-judicial embarrassments lately thanks to the petty ambitions of the “head crook” and the inspired work of the gang of fourteen. We, as we fulfill our duties under the democracy, have gradually walked away from the scandal. In fact, most of the gang of fourteen will even be reelected!
But that still leaves the problem of the court. Of course there is nothing we can do about it. Of course we just have to live with it. Sure, we can impeach the Chief Justice for conflict of interest. Right. Can anyone remember the campaign to impeach Earl Warren, also a Chief Justice, during the civil rights times? A legion of southern bigots bought roadside billboards and pumped out incendiary speeches, but the busing continued. Chief Justice Warren outlasted them without breaking a sweat.
Now, we have the new, improved Bush version of the Supreme Court. The young, healthy ones are his corporate monkeys, energetically pursuing their dreams of voter suppression, religion in schools and faith-based charities (tax payer extortion) made necessary by disabling parts of the government with corruption. The old, shaky ones seem to still be able to think straight, but their days remaining on the Court are numbered.
Impeaching any of these new justices would take forever. Much sooner than Congress could even consider such a move, the whole Court could well be inhabited by the same types of troubling cultural and judicial throwbacks. So, there is no possibility for us other than to simply “live with it.” Right?
Not exactly. The “no possibility” ideas only exist in thoughts where other “unthinkable” possibilities have been discarded. Perhaps we should consider the entire affair again, this time allowing these old “impossibilities” another chance.
As citizens, under our Constitution, we can dump the whole Supreme Court.
“Oh my God!” Do you mean amending the Constitution? We have been taught that such a thing is nearly impossible! What we have forgotten is that we were taught this by exactly the same folks who stood to lose the most if we ever thought otherwise. Even if we tried, it would take forever! It would take years, possibly even decades, to trot such a thing around to all the States.
Wait a minute. How long do you think we will have to endure the likes of Chief Justice Roberts? Decades after the other insults of George Bush have been disinfected, Chief Justice Roberts and his cronies on the court will still be injecting the same kind of toxic neo-con poison into our society. Anyone who thinks that is too harsh a criticism can review the accomplishments of the so-called Justices in only a year or two.
We can design and create a new Court with a Constitutional amendment. It might require actual judicial expertise in its appointments. It might become quite removed from the endless production of rulings which represent no more than the battle between its conservatives and its liberals.
The highest court in the country is supposed to think about the laws in its judgments, not cheap ideology. Is it impossible to form sound judicial opinions not embedded in the structure of ideology? Have we become mired in the details of personality so deeply that we have forsaken the possibilities of anything more constructive, more judicial?
Bill boards didn’t do it, but a program to promote a Constitutional amendment just might.
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