Another 6-3 decision!
The Supreme Court handed down another 6-3 decision today. This one was about affirmative action, which now has been relegated to a footnote in history. This isn’t a piece about my feelings toward this ruling. (I’m sure we all have our own opinions on today’s ruling.) Today I’m talking about yet another 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court.
It was 6-3, so what? Us against them, that’s what. One side vs the other, the law be damned. If I never saw another 6-3 ruling it would be too soon. Why? It seems to me, when looking at who the 6 almost always are and who the 3 almost always are, turns a simple 6-3 ruling into a sad comment on society and where we are in history of this country.
In the latest 6-3 ruling on affirmative action, the 6 members of the Supreme Court were republican, the 3 members dissenting were democrats. The polite way to describe that is to say “Divided along ideological lines.” Today’s ruling, as well as most of the recent majority rulings by this court are republican vs democrat. In other words, they’ve concluded that it’s about politics not the law. It’s not about upholding a decade long stance that has been considered law for years. (No matter what Supreme Court candidates might tell Congress.) This Supreme Court is proving with each us vs them decision, that their rulings are almost totally political. It also appears that with each 6-3 decision they are not just showcasing their political bias but bigotry and in some cases racism seem to creep in. Today, Justice Thomas spent ten pages of comment at times vilifying the dissenting side and their comments. Judge Brown evoked phrases like “ lipstick on a pig” in her much shorter dissenting opinion. This isn’t the sign of a hallowed deliberative process, this a sign of Hooray for us and to Hell with them!
No, a 6-3 decision has nothing to do with the law. It’s an us vs them decision that is meant to pit one side against another and further divide us all instead of informing, explaining and propping up our confidence in both the Supreme Court and the Constitution. The Supreme Court, or the concept of what the court should be, is broken and the longer we allow it to be, the more dangerous it becomes.
With all of that being said, how do we fix the problem? I don’t know. (There’s the short, simple answer that too often we all fail to use, but more often than we’d admit, should.) I don’t know how to solve this problem. We can’t strip the court down in size to even the political sides. We can, I suppose, add to the court in order to even them up. Even if maybe then they’d be forced to actually consider issues on their legal merit instead of their political or personal interests. (Or those of their “Benefactors” but that’s a different column.) the political costs of that though, means that this would never happen. Not to mention the political weapon it might unleash on future generations. (If there are any to follow.)Which brings me back to “I don’t know.”
In a perfect world, which this is not, you would think in a country with roughly 333,000,000 people in this country, we’d be able to find and appoint 9 of them (what is that,99.99999997298%?) who were versed in the law and have the moral values and the high character it would take to be a Supreme Court justice able to rule with the law, empathy, respect honor, foresight and wisdom in mind. But, as of this writing, sadly we haven’t found those 9 people.
So, all we can do is to make the necessary changes within, around us and continue making those changes as they ripple out into the world. Let’s not just focus on a broken court. We also need to take some responsibility for our divisiveness, bigotry and racism and closed mindedness in our own lives and our families lives. We need to take responsibility for not preparing our kids and ourselves to succeed with honor, respect and hard work in some cases. As we look at another 6-3 decision, are the things we’ve discussed here enough? No matter which side of any 6-3 decision you’re on, the answer is no. Sadly though for now, that seems to be all we have.
Peace
…..Gregg
PS…
Maybe you have some other ideas and directions that would help to solve this problem. Maybe you don’t think there’s a problem at all! Let me know! Leave a comment…
That would be great. The details might be harder to develop but most certainly worth it. I’ll reach out and see what we can do. Thanks again for your input and support.
Very good. I do agree. Thanks for writing it.
I wonder if we can figure out a way to meet in person some time. It's really been a long long time.