Yesterday, after the SCOTUS came out with its rulings in the two mandate cases, I stated that, overall, I agreed with the dissent—while recognizing the differences. In doing so I quoted from Alito’s separate dissent, but referenced Thomas’ dissent that was joined by Alito, Gorsuch, and Amy. This morning, Margot Cleveland delves into both cases at The Federalist—finding the opinions distressingly weak:
Down here in Comanche County Texas rural property owners such as me have the distinct pleasure of keeping mesquite and prickly pear from taking over completely, "brush control" as it is termed. Methods used range from prescribed fire, manual cutting and digging, herbicides and root plowing at the most extreme, if you fail to kill the roots regrowth occurs. The Supreme Court has the duty to perform the legal equivalent of brush control. Applying the US constitution consistently to cases would root plow most all of the undesirable federal legal vegetation that has taken over our nation.
I'd like to push back a little harder than I did yesterday on the general view that the wonderful Margot Cleveland expresses with "these cases are not about the efficacy or importance of COVID–19 vaccines." It's much more correct to say the Court is just lazily assuming that the basic outlines of the claims about the vaccines' safety and efficacy profiles are not egregiously and dangerously wrong, and I think this is easily demonstrated.
What if a few of the Justices had close friends or relatives who died shortly after getting poked, if the decedents had been given autopsies and if it had been shown to the satisfaction of these Justices that it was all but a certainty the cause was indeed said pokes? What if a couple more Justices had severe adverse reactions themselves, maybe even of the sort that left them permanently injured in one way or another, and what if all the other Justices knew about all these problems? Does anyone think either the oral arguments or the opinions that came out yesterday would have been no different than what they actually were?
Or what if a famous NFL player had recently dropped dead of a heart attack, right on the field and on national TV? And what if an autopsy found microclotting and other spike and lipid nanoparticle damage all through his heart and other organs, and so a national scandal ensued once the cat got let out of the bag regarding the whole issue of what these shots often do? Would this have changed nothing that happened at the Court? Would the Court still have taken the attitude that these mandates are a purely legal issue and that the scientific facts on the ground are neither here nor there?
Of course not, and the only difference between the above hypotheticals and reality is that the actual victims of the shots have not yet been people close to the Court or the national conscience. But victims there are, countless thousands of them.
The fact is these cases were decided very much with the merits of the shots themselves on the minds of the Justices. It's just that what was on their minds was the lazy assumption that whatever the shots' ultimate pluses and minuses, they didn't add up to anything too terribly far out of bounds and so were not a factor they should give any weight to. This was a plain and simple scientific error on their part, and the only reason they made it is because neither they nor any of the Court’s petitioners ever bothered to actually take a serious look at the issue for themselves. They're all pure verbies and just have no radar at all to detect when the math and science of an issue is fundamental to it.
I don't think it's any sort of evil on their part, but I definitely do see it as worrisome that not one of the nine Justices, nor most lower-court judges or attorneys general, seem to be STEM-literate or even STEM-aware to any meaningful degree. They all take the basic position of, “Um, I was told there would be no math.”
It’s hard to feel this same blindness won’t bite us again, and maybe much harder.
I guess even the Supreme Court and its "conservative tilt" agrees with a two-tier society. One group can be forced to take an experimental liquid shot into their arms or lose their ability to work, while the other is ok. I think of the often used phrase, "The Founders would be rolling in their graves" yet that seems so quaint now. Our governing document has been torn apart piece by piece by people who care little about traditions or the wisdom of the past. Its a struggle everyday to feel optimistic about the future. Sure, "we'll get through this" but, when you take a granular look you really have to fear for the near, middle and long future. Look at how fast Australia turned into a tyrannical society. They've gone bat**** crazy in two years, along with New Zealand. Two western societies upended by a very bad flu. We seem to be on a much longer glide slope but it isn't looking good, at least for the long term stability of the Republic (or whatever form of government we have now.
They somehow managed to not even mention Jacobson v. Massachusetts! And the simultaneous "per Curiam" rulings are very... unusual. Let nobody forget how politicized the Court is.
Down here in Comanche County Texas rural property owners such as me have the distinct pleasure of keeping mesquite and prickly pear from taking over completely, "brush control" as it is termed. Methods used range from prescribed fire, manual cutting and digging, herbicides and root plowing at the most extreme, if you fail to kill the roots regrowth occurs. The Supreme Court has the duty to perform the legal equivalent of brush control. Applying the US constitution consistently to cases would root plow most all of the undesirable federal legal vegetation that has taken over our nation.
I'd like to push back a little harder than I did yesterday on the general view that the wonderful Margot Cleveland expresses with "these cases are not about the efficacy or importance of COVID–19 vaccines." It's much more correct to say the Court is just lazily assuming that the basic outlines of the claims about the vaccines' safety and efficacy profiles are not egregiously and dangerously wrong, and I think this is easily demonstrated.
What if a few of the Justices had close friends or relatives who died shortly after getting poked, if the decedents had been given autopsies and if it had been shown to the satisfaction of these Justices that it was all but a certainty the cause was indeed said pokes? What if a couple more Justices had severe adverse reactions themselves, maybe even of the sort that left them permanently injured in one way or another, and what if all the other Justices knew about all these problems? Does anyone think either the oral arguments or the opinions that came out yesterday would have been no different than what they actually were?
Or what if a famous NFL player had recently dropped dead of a heart attack, right on the field and on national TV? And what if an autopsy found microclotting and other spike and lipid nanoparticle damage all through his heart and other organs, and so a national scandal ensued once the cat got let out of the bag regarding the whole issue of what these shots often do? Would this have changed nothing that happened at the Court? Would the Court still have taken the attitude that these mandates are a purely legal issue and that the scientific facts on the ground are neither here nor there?
Of course not, and the only difference between the above hypotheticals and reality is that the actual victims of the shots have not yet been people close to the Court or the national conscience. But victims there are, countless thousands of them.
The fact is these cases were decided very much with the merits of the shots themselves on the minds of the Justices. It's just that what was on their minds was the lazy assumption that whatever the shots' ultimate pluses and minuses, they didn't add up to anything too terribly far out of bounds and so were not a factor they should give any weight to. This was a plain and simple scientific error on their part, and the only reason they made it is because neither they nor any of the Court’s petitioners ever bothered to actually take a serious look at the issue for themselves. They're all pure verbies and just have no radar at all to detect when the math and science of an issue is fundamental to it.
I don't think it's any sort of evil on their part, but I definitely do see it as worrisome that not one of the nine Justices, nor most lower-court judges or attorneys general, seem to be STEM-literate or even STEM-aware to any meaningful degree. They all take the basic position of, “Um, I was told there would be no math.”
It’s hard to feel this same blindness won’t bite us again, and maybe much harder.
I guess even the Supreme Court and its "conservative tilt" agrees with a two-tier society. One group can be forced to take an experimental liquid shot into their arms or lose their ability to work, while the other is ok. I think of the often used phrase, "The Founders would be rolling in their graves" yet that seems so quaint now. Our governing document has been torn apart piece by piece by people who care little about traditions or the wisdom of the past. Its a struggle everyday to feel optimistic about the future. Sure, "we'll get through this" but, when you take a granular look you really have to fear for the near, middle and long future. Look at how fast Australia turned into a tyrannical society. They've gone bat**** crazy in two years, along with New Zealand. Two western societies upended by a very bad flu. We seem to be on a much longer glide slope but it isn't looking good, at least for the long term stability of the Republic (or whatever form of government we have now.
They somehow managed to not even mention Jacobson v. Massachusetts! And the simultaneous "per Curiam" rulings are very... unusual. Let nobody forget how politicized the Court is.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-coffee-and-covid-friday-january-90c