Summary: This was a bad week for the Republic. No matter what your opinions about Same Sex Marriage and the Voting Rights Act, these decisions weaken us. As we become more accustomed to undemocratic solutions, our ruling elites become stronger. We become weaker.
It {is} an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people. They are inherently independent of all but moral law …
— Jefferson in a letter to Judge Spencer Roane, November 1819
The Supreme Court overturned two laws passed by Congress and signed by the President: the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA, signed by Clinton in 1996). Being bystanders and sheep, Americans cheered their teams’ wins and boo’d their defeat. A profoundly undemocratic institution has gained a greater role over our elected representatives no longer matters to us.
Being fools we do not realize that there are not two teams, just two factions of our ruling elites. This week the Court did their will on both verdicts. Gutting the VRA allows the GOP to continue its voter suppression projects, to keep the more unstable lower orders in line (having no property, nothing to lose, oligarchs always worry they might be mobilized against the regime).
As for the victory for gay rights, it is politically inconsequential. Our plutocrats have relearned ancient wisdom: it’s best to leave the proles to their own lives. Who they screw, their family structures, how they organize their communities — none of these things matter. Our rulers focus on the essentials of concentrating income, wealth, and power.
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While overturning DOMA was progress, it was not our victory. It was a gift, one that by its very nature weakens us. An quite unnecessarily, as the rapid momentum of public opinion made victory inevitable in a few more years. Such as an act of collective action, working through our elected representatives, strengthen the Republic. We shape America, making our history, showing our power to govern ourselves. This is the natural course of evolution in a democracy.
But many prefer quicker extra-legal measures. They want results NOW, impatient about the procedures created by the Constitution, and the consequences of overthrowing them.
The Court is often ready to act as priest-kings. And our elites welcome our willingness to accept undemocratic solutions, taking another step towards a New America. Even the overthrowing of DOMA furthers their ends. As with Roe vs Wade in 1973, the likely result of Supreme Court voiding the will be to diminish many people’s confidence in the government.
The Republic — and hence us, the people — grow weaker with each exercise of extra-constitutional power by the Courts and the Executive, no matter how well-intentioned. Unless we reverse the trend, the likely is that eventually our leaders will take bold action, promising to give us what we want — security, prosperity, whatever — without bothering to pretend that they follow the Constitution. At that point the Constitution will have died.
For More Information
About same-sex marriage:
- Another American judge weakens the Republic’s foundation, 8 August 2010
- The quest for Black’s civil rights was not like the quest for same sex marriages, 11 August 2010
- Civil rights just took a step forward, the slow hard way. The right way., 9 November 2012
- What’s the future of the family in America? How will that change our government?, 11 November 2012
- Should we thank the Court as it rescues us from our bad laws? Or just bow?, 28 March 2013
- Do we want to bring back traditional marriage? What is traditional marriage?, 3 April 2013
About our Courts:
- The sky darkens over America, as we (the little people) are made smaller than we were last week, 24 January 2010
- Why should we care about the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing strip & cavity searches of prisoners?, 5 April 2012
- More death throes of the Constitution. Nothing remains in the ruins but politics., 20 June 2012
- Looking ahead to the next step of the quiet coup, and a new America, 3 July 2012
- Should we thank the Court as it rescues us from our bad laws? Or just bow?, 28 March 2013
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