Yeah, Clarence Thomas (appointed 1990) pretty much set up the cases establishing right to contraception, marriage equality, and gay sex without being prosecuted and said "Knock 'em all down, states!" so I figure that is happening. Terrifyingly, states set up "trigger laws" that immediately made abortion illegal and in some cases, a felony, as soon as Roe was struck down and I have no doubt that will happen again with other cases.
It's really kind of hard hearing people on Twitter bang on about "do-nothing Democrats when they're in power right now" (no, no they are not) and "I voted in 2016!" when this has been a far Right project for fifty years. Rachel Maddow had a great story about it. And the Court being compromised by nominations made by Presidents not-quite-elected started in 2000, with Dubya (he appointed Roberts AND Alito, in 2005. Alito is the one who drafted this Roe decision). And there are the horrible statistics like half the current Court was appointed by leaders who lost the popular vote, IIRC. The target of everyone's rage should be McConnell. The fucker said in 2016 "One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'". He's proud of that. He broke the fucking country because he's a stone cold racist and he's proud of it. -- The point is, like you say, it's not the end, it's the beginning. Absolutely nothing's stopping them anymore.
If this is where you need to get it out, then get it out.
Those anti-Dem progressives are very worrying - you are, unfortunately, the kind of country that will cut off your nose to spite your face. And, simply on the numbers, you do need more progressives in the Senate to get things done. That filibuster just gums everything up; it might have started as a way to get people to work together bipartisanly but in the present day it's just an excuse for stonewalling.
Also, the US needs to start getting rights in place that aren't dependent on the two hundred-plus year old parts of a document written by people who didn't consider anyone who wasn't like them human and deserving of full rights. (And I'm presently wondering where my rights come from, according to Australian law.)
Hopefully, people are seeing that state governments and legislature matters - we saw that here in Australia during the pandemic. The feds were all "GO!" And the states said, "FUCK, NO," and we weathered the early days of COVID okay.
tl;dr The votes of the people sent a Black man to the White House and the Republicans lost their damn minds. They were intent on breaking the government before that (Gingrich making gov't shutdowns a real thing in the nineties) but hand to God, as soon as Obama was the Dem candidate, they were frenzied. Rabid. I was always amazed at all the "post-racism country now" talk because McConnell said in some top secret meeting even before the election that he would make Obama a one-term President, or failing that, would block him completely. -- ANYWAY.
I've been listening to at least one summary of the matter by someone who explains the legal stuff pretty well (Sharon Says So) and from what I can tell, it comes down to two things: 1. unenumerated rights (ie. not explicitly noted in the constitution, but derived from clauses in), 2. "substantive due process" which is, as I understand it, about how they derive the rights from those clauses.
Which, to me, suggests that the rights need to start being enumerated (particularly since the document they're coming from is from a bunch of guys who didn't think you or I actually counted as people) so that they're not longer deriviative rights, but explicitly stated ones.
Unfortunately, that takes more politicians, and as you said, everything's looking ugly.
Yeah, there's talk of Congress codifying women's rights, but we'll see if it actually happens. The Republicans like to filibuster when it comes to things for women, the poor, the elderly, minorities, etc. If you're not a rich white male, they really don't care.
I understand the principle of the filibuster - to encourage bipartisanship. And in another era, maybe putting such a thing in place seemed like a good idea.
But in such a polarised scenario as the USA presently has then it just becomes a stalling tactic, with no practical use except obstruction.
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sorry for so much US pol inside baseball blithering
It's really kind of hard hearing people on Twitter bang on about "do-nothing Democrats when they're in power right now" (no, no they are not) and "I voted in 2016!" when this has been a far Right project for fifty years. Rachel Maddow had a great story about it. And the Court being compromised by nominations made by Presidents not-quite-elected started in 2000, with Dubya (he appointed Roberts AND Alito, in 2005. Alito is the one who drafted this Roe decision). And there are the horrible statistics like half the current Court was appointed by leaders who lost the popular vote, IIRC. The target of everyone's rage should be McConnell. The fucker said in 2016 "One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'". He's proud of that. He broke the fucking country because he's a stone cold racist and he's proud of it. -- The point is, like you say, it's not the end, it's the beginning. Absolutely nothing's stopping them anymore.
I'm just swinging between rage and despair.
Re: sorry for so much US pol inside baseball blithering
Those anti-Dem progressives are very worrying - you are, unfortunately, the kind of country that will cut off your nose to spite your face. And, simply on the numbers, you do need more progressives in the Senate to get things done. That filibuster just gums everything up; it might have started as a way to get people to work together bipartisanly but in the present day it's just an excuse for stonewalling.
Also, the US needs to start getting rights in place that aren't dependent on the two hundred-plus year old parts of a document written by people who didn't consider anyone who wasn't like them human and deserving of full rights. (And I'm presently wondering where my rights come from, according to Australian law.)
Hopefully, people are seeing that state governments and legislature matters - we saw that here in Australia during the pandemic. The feds were all "GO!" And the states said, "FUCK, NO," and we weathered the early days of COVID okay.
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People are just cruel sometimes, and all these moves are cruel.
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Which, to me, suggests that the rights need to start being enumerated (particularly since the document they're coming from is from a bunch of guys who didn't think you or I actually counted as people) so that they're not longer deriviative rights, but explicitly stated ones.
Unfortunately, that takes more politicians, and as you said, everything's looking ugly.
*hugs* I'm so sorry.
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But in such a polarised scenario as the USA presently has then it just becomes a stalling tactic, with no practical use except obstruction.
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