COVID-19 is indeed a dangerous pathogen. It has infected millions of Americans and killed hundreds of thousands.
But, we are told, there will be, in the next few months, a vaccine that has a 90% ability to prevent infection or at least reduce its mortality rate.
But it is not America’s most dangerous pathogen. That title goes to the Indoctrinated TrumpBot.
The Indoctrinated TrumpBot (ITB) has no known or prospective cure. It is completely immune to Truth, Facts, And Logic (TFAL).
Because its victims and carriers have evolved to mimic the uninfected human form, they look exactly like your crazy uncle or your nutty next-door neighbor.
So, the disease is hard to identify until the victim opens his or her mouth, at which time he will spout Easily Disproven, Crazy Conspiracy Theories (EDCCT).
The ITB causes one primary, visible symptom: It forces the victim to believe, say, and act exactly the way Donald J. Trump tells it to.
The Indoctrinated TrumpBot (ITB) victim loses his common sense. The victim no longer can read normal newspapers and magazines, nor listen to National Public Radio (NPR), nor watch Public Broadcasting System (PBS).
Instead, the ITB victim gets his information from three primary sources: TrumpTweets (TT), the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News, the latter two of which are owned by the notorious Rupert Murdoch. (Fox News seems to have fallen into disfavor, of late, for committing the crime, on rare occasions, of Telling The Truth(TTT).
For some Indoctrinated Trump Bot victims, Fox News has been supplanted by One America Network (OAN), which never has been known for Telling The Truth (TTT).
To ITB-infected people, lack of evidence about corruption serves as proof that someone is hiding the corruption for which there is no evidence.
Among the Easily Disproven, Crazy Conspiracy Theories (EDCCT) spouting from Indoctrinated TrumpBot (ITB) victims mouths are:
The strange fact of Indoctrinated TrumpBotism (ITB) is that the crazier, more far-fetched a conspiracy theory is, the more ITB victims will believe it.
For instance, no normal, uninfected human being would trust the nuttiness of QAnon. the outlandishness of Pizzagate, or the incessant lying of Donald J. Trump, but to ITB victims it all seems perfectly credible.
In addition to Easily Disproven, Crazy Conspiracy Theories (EDCCT), Indoctrinated TrumpBot (ITB) victims feel required to disseminate Trump’s Big Lies (TBL), which include:
1. I will build a big, beautiful wall
2. Mexico will pay for it.
3. Many TBL about COVID, including:
a. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
b. “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low.”
c. “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
d. “We’re very close to a vaccine and we’re very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics. But even without that, I don’t like to talk about that because it’s fading away.” (July 17th)
e. “Maybe (face masks) are great and maybe they’re just good. Maybe they’re not so good.”
f. “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light … and then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too.”
g. “Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”
4. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”
5. “Our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away in secret.”
6. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win.”
7. “(Mail-in voting) is a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt.”
Victims of Indoctrinated TrumpBotism
Many normal people attempt to help cure Indoctrinated TrumpBot (ITB) victims by fruitlessly having conversations using Truth, Facts, And Logic (TFAL).
Sadly, they will be met with glazed eyes or angry responses. ITB victims do not accept facts over Trump’s Big Lies (TBL), or science as having more credibility than Trump-Inspired Rumors (TIR).
ITB-infected people prefer to associate with other ITB-infected people. That helps them answer all questions in lockstep, according to Donald J. Trump’s latest declarations (which often disagree with Donald J. Trump’s previous declarations, a fact that does not bother those infected with ITB).
Self-reinforcing, circular thinking is a prime symptom of ITB.
Sadly, there is no cure for ITB. Like COVID-19, it is a “forever” disease, until Trump dies, at which time ITB victims are expected to search for a new cult leader — perhaps Steve Bannon?
Even as this post is being written, and the election is almost two weeks behind us, with Donald J. Trump having lost by more than four million popular votes and more than 50 electoral votes, a Trump rally is set for Washington DC, presumably to protest the results of the election.
The idea is that if people march angrily, America’s voters can be ignored for no factual reasons, and America then can be led by angry gangs rather than by democracy.
This is known as “patriotism.”
The Indoctrinated TrumpBot-infected marchers have no facts, only Donald J. Trump’s unproven and disproven claims. But that is sufficient for the (ITB) victims to march about, making fools of themselves while doing American democracy grievous harm.
Without a cure, you only can try to protect yourself from acquiring the infection. Read newspapers other than the Wall Street Journal or Breitbart. Watch TV News other than Fox commentators Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham et al.
Contact your Cowardly GOP Congressperson (CGC), and tell him/her you have not been infected and don’t want to be, so if they expect your vote in the future, start using Truth, Facts, And Logic (TFAL) today.
When an ITB-infected victim begins to spout a Trump Big Lie (TLB), begin to laugh uproariously, and exclaim, “Oh, my God, Do you really believe that?”
You won’t cure the disease, but because Indoctrinated TrumpBotism is the most dangerous disease in America, at least you can help prevent the victim from spreading it.
And to quote President Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”
Except the first time he was talking about President Jimmy Carter’s charge that Reagan opposed Medicare. This time, we reference the Libertarian ongoing, interminable, economically ignorant claim that the so-called “federal debt” is too high by once again calling it a “ticking time bomb.”
I won’t go into details about why the federal “debt” is not a debt in the usual sense; rather, it is deposits that easily are paid off simply by returning them to the depositors. You can read about that,here.
Instead, we will dive directly into an article written by Todd G. Buchholz, “a former White House director of economic policy under President George H.W. Bush and managing director of the Tiger Management hedge fund, who was awarded the Allyn Young Teaching Prize by the Harvard Department of Economics. He is the author of New Ideas from Dead Economists and The Price of Prosperity.”
In 75 years, a 90-fold increase in debt (blue) vs. a 10-fold increase in inflation (red). Still no “time bomb” explosion.
America’s New Debt Bomb, Aug 20, 2020, by TODD G. BUCHHOLZ
Like in World War II, the United States is piling on debt to confront a whole-of-society crisis, raising the question of who will foot the bill in the long term.
Immediately, we come across a misstatement. There is no “bill” for the federal debt. No one ever will pay for the federal debt, not today’s taxpayers nor tomorrow’s. Federal taxes do not fund federal debt.
Federal finances are nothing like personal finances, which require income to fund outgo. The federal government requires no income. It never can run short of dollars, and it does not use taxes to fund spending.
But, unlike the post-war era, the underlying conditions for robust economic recovery today are less than favorable, placing an even greater onus on wise policymaking.
The United States today not only looks ill, but dead broke. To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation,” the US Federal Reserve and Congress have marshaled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup-kitchen levels.
When someone or something is “dead broke,” they are unable to pay their bills. But the federal government never is unable to pay its bills. Being Monetarily Sovereign, it has the infinite ability to pay bills, even without collecting taxes.
The 2020 federal budget deficit will be around 18% of GDP, and the US debt-to-GDP ratio will soon hurdle over the 100% mark. Such figures have not been seen since Harry Truman sent B-29s to Japan to end World War II.
The debt/GDP ratio is completely meaningless.“Debt” is the net total of deposits into Treasury Security accounts in the 240+ years since the U.S. became a nation. GDP is one year’s total American spending — the ultimate apples/oranges comparison. There is no relationship between the debt/GDP ratio and America’s economic viability.
Assuming that America eventually defeats COVID-19 and does not devolve into a Terminator-like dystopia, how will it avoid the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy?
To answer such questions, we should reflect on the lessons of WWII, which did not bankrupt the US, even though debt soared to 119% of GDP.
The federal government cannot go bankrupt. It is a mathematical impossibility for a nation with the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency.
By the time of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, that ratio had fallen to just above 40%. WWII was financed with a combination of roughly 40% taxes and 60% debt.
Mr. Buchhotz first advises reflecting on the lessons of WWII, then promptly forgets what he has written.
WWII was not finanaced with taxes or with debt. It was financed with federal money creation. Even if the federal government had collected zero taxes and zero deposits, it easily could have paid all war bills. That is the fundamental difference between personal finance and federal finance.
These US bonds were bought predominantly by American citizens out of a sense of patriotic duty.
Fed employees also got in on the act, holding competitions to see whose office could buy more bonds. In April 1943, New York Fed employees snapped up more than $87,000 worth of paper and were told that their purchases enabled the Army to buy a 105-millimeter howitzer and a Mustang fighter-bomber.
It was a con job by the government, to make Americans feel they were part of the war effort. Similar psychological efforts included school children saving and turning in newspapers and housewives turning in used cooking oil.
Neither the newspapers, nor the cooking oil, nor the “war bonds” had any utility for the government.
Patriotism aside, many Americans purchased Treasury bonds out of a sheer lack of other good choices.
Until the deregulation of the 1980s, federal laws prevented banks from offering high rates to savers. Moreover, the thought of swapping US dollars for higher-yielding foreign assets seemed ludicrous, and doing so might have brought J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to your door.
While US equity markets were open to investors (the Dow Jones Industrial Average actually rallied after 1942), brokers’ commissions were hefty, and only about 2% of American families owned stocks.
Investing in the stock market seemed best-suited for Park Avenue swells, or for amnesiacs who forgot the 1929 crash.
Today, bonds have two primary purposes:
To provide a safe “parking place” for unused dollars (which helps stabilize the dollar) and
To assist the Fed in controlling interest rates (which helps control inflation.
In no case are bonds a method for the U.S. government to obtain dollars. The federal government (unlike state and local governments) creates dollars, ad hoc, by spending dollars.
How, then, was the monumental war debt resolved? Three factors stand out.
First, the US economy grew fast. From the late 1940s to the late 1950s, annual US growth averaged around 3.75%, funneling massive revenues to the Treasury. Moreover, US manufacturers faced few international competitors. British, German, and Japanese factories had been pounded to rubble in the war, and China’s primitive foundries were far from turning out automobiles and home appliances.
Second, inflation took off after the war as the government rolled back price controls. From March 1946 to March 1947, prices jumped 20% as they returned to reflecting the true costs of doing business.
Third, the US benefited from borrowing rates being locked in for a long time. The average duration of debt in 1947 was more than ten years, which is about twice today’s average duration. Owing to these three factors, US debt had fallen to about 50% of GDP by the end of Dwight Eisenhower’s administration in 1961.
The “monumental war debt” (i.e. the total to deposits into Treasury Security Accounts) was “resolved” (reduced) when existing bonds matured and fewer people wanted to make deposits into new bond accounts.
This “resolution” neither benefited, nor was a burden on, the U.S. government. The government has total control over the number and face amount of bonds outstanding.
If it want more deposits, it either can raise interest rates or the Fed itself can create dollars and make those deposits.
So, what’s the lesson for today?
For starters, the US Treasury should give tomorrow’s children a break by issuing 50- and 100-year bonds, locking in today’s puny rates for a lifetime.
The above makes the implicit and false assumption that “tomorrow’s children” will fund federal debt. Again, this belief is based on the false assumption that Federal debt is like state/local debt and personal debt.
Finally, what about the post-war experience with inflation?
Should we try to launch prices into the stratosphere in order to shrink the debt? I advise against that. Investors are no longer the captive audience that they were in the 1940s. “Bond vigilantes” would sniff out a devaluation scheme in advance, driving interest rates higher and undercutting the value of the dollar (and Americans’ buying power with it).
Any effort to inflate away the debt would result in a boom for holders and hoarders of gold and cryptocurrencies.
Utter nonsense. Inflation does not “shrink the debt” (total deposits), and though inflation can shrink real deposits (i.e. inflation-adjusted, total deposits), there is no purpose served in trying to shrink it.
Further, inflation neither is caused nor cured by federal debt. All inflation, down through history, has been caused by shortages, usually shortages of food and/or energy. Inflation is cured by curing the shortages, which sometimes requires increased deficit spending.
The federal debt (total deposits in T-security accounts) is not a burden on the government, not a burden on taxpayers, not a burden on future generations, and not a burden on the economy.
The “debt” has increased massively, with no adverse effect on anyone. But the debt-scare-mongers are immune to learning from experience, which is why we continually add to the following list:
By 1960: the debt was “threatening the country’s fiscal future,”said Secretary of Commerce, Frederick H. Mueller. (“The enormous cost of various Federal programs is a time-bomb threatening the country’s fiscal future, Secretary of Commerce Frederick H. Mueller warned here yesterday.”)
In 1984: AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said. “It’s a time bomb ticking away.”
In 1985: “The federal deficit is ‘a ticking time bomb, and it’s about to blow up,” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. (Remember him?)
Later in 1985: Los Angeles Times: “We labeled the deficit a ‘ticking time bomb’ that threatens to permanently undermine the strength and vitality of the American economy.”
In 1987: Richmond Times–Dispatch – Richmond, VA: “100TH CONGRESS FACING U.S. DEFICIT ‘TIME BOMB’”
Later in 1987: The Dallas Morning News: “A fiscal time bomb is slowly ticking that, if not defused, could explode into a financial crisis within the next few years for the federal government.”
In 1989: FORTUNE Magazine: “A TIME BOMB FOR U.S. TAXPAYERS”
In 1992: The Pantagraph – Bloomington, Illinois: “I have seen where politicians in Washington have expressed little or no concern about this ticking time bomb they have helped to create, that being the enormous federal budget deficit, approaching $4 trillion.”
Later in 1992: Ross Perot: “Our great nation is sitting right on top of a ticking time bomb. We have a national debt of $4 trillion.”
In 1995: Kansas City Star: “Concerned citizens. . . regard the national debt as a ticking time bomb poised to explode with devastating consequences at some future date.”
In 2003: Porter Stansberry, for the Daily Reckoning: “Generation debt is a ticking time bomb . . . with about ten years left on the clock.”
In 2004: Bradenton Herald: “A NATION AT RISK: TWIN DEFICIT A TICKING TIME BOMB”
In 2005: Providence Journal: “Some lawmakers see the Medicare drug benefit for what it is: a ticking time bomb.”
In 2006: NewsMax.com, “We have to worry about the deficit . . . when we combine it with the trade deficit we have a real ticking time bomb in our economy,” said Mrs. Clinton.
In 2007: USA Today: “Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen.”
In 2010: Heritage Foundation: “Why the National Debt is a Ticking Time Bomb. Interest rates on government bonds are virtually guaranteed to jump over the next few years.
In 2010: Reason Alert: “. . . the time bomb that’s ticking under the federal budget like a Guy Fawkes’ powder keg.”
In 2011: Washington Post, Lori Montgomery: ” . . . defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode.”
June 19, 2013: Chamber of Commerce: Safety net spending is a ‘time bomb’, By Jim Tankersley: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is worried that not enough Americans are worried about social safety net spending. The nation’s largest business lobbying group launched a renewed effort Wednesday to reduce projected federal spending on safety-net programs, labeling them a “ticking time bomb” that, left unchanged, “will bankrupt this nation.”
In 2014: CBN News: “The United States of Debt: A Ticking Time Bomb”
On January 27, 2017: America’s “debt bomb is going to explode.” That’s according to financial strategist Peter Schiff. Schiff said that while low interest rates had helped keep a lid on U.S. debt, it couldn’t be contained for much longer. Interest rates and inflation are rising, creditors will demand higher premiums, and the country is headed “off the edge of a cliff.”
Feb. 16, 2018 America’s Debt Bomb By Andrew Soergel, Senior Reporter: Conservatives and deficit hawks are hurling criticism at Washington for deepening America’s debt hole.
[The following were added after the original publishing of this article]
April 10, 2019,The National Debt: America’s Ticking Time Bomb. TIL Journal. Entire nations can go bankrupt. One prominent example was the *nation of Greece which was threatened with insolvency, a decade ago. Greece survived the economic crisis because the European Union and the IMF bailed the nation out.
SEP 12, 2019, Our national ticking time bomb, By BILL YEARGIN
SPECIAL TO THE SUN SENTINEL | At some point, investors will become concerned about lending to a debt-riddled U.S., which will result in having to offer higher interest rates to attract the money. Even with rates low today, interest expense is the federal government’s third-highest expenditure following the elderly and military. The U.S. already borrows all the money it uses to pay its interest expense, sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Lack of investor confidence will only make this problem worse.
JANUARY 06, 2020, National debt is a time bomb, BY MARK MANSPERGER, Tri City Herald | The increase in the U.S. deficit last year was about $1.1 trillion, bringing our total national debt to more than $23 trillion! This fiscal year, the deficit is forecasted to be even higher, and when the economy eventually slows down, our annual deficits could be pushing $2 trillion a year! This is financial madness.there’s not going to be a drastic cut in federal expenditures — that is, until we go broke — nor are we going to “grow our way” out of this predicament. Therefore, to gain control of this looming debt, we’re going to have to raise taxes.
February 14, 2020, OMG! It’s February 14, 2020, and the national debt is still a ticking time bomb! The national debt: A ticking time bomb? America is “headed toward a crisis,” said Tiana Lowe in WashingonExaminer.com. The Treasury Department reported last week that the federal deficit swelled to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for the first time since 2012. Even more alarming was the report from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicting that $1 trillion deficits will continue for the next 10 years, eventually reaching $1.7 trillion in 2030
August 29, 2020, LOS ANGELES, California: America’s mountain of debt is a ticking time bombThe United States not only looks ill, but also dead broke. To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation,” the US Federal Reserve and Congress have marshalled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup kitchen levels. Assuming that America eventually defeats COVID-19 and does not devolve into a Terminator-like dystopia, how will it avoid the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy?
This is the President’s speech you so desperately wish to hear:
Ladies and gentlemen of Congress and the Supreme Court, why did you come here? Most of us could have done better financially in the private sector, but you chose to come here. Why?
Do you remember when you first decided to enter public service? How idealistic you were. You felt you could, in some way, improve the lives of the people.
You could have been lawyers or doctors, or business leaders, and most of you could have risen to the tops of your professions. Instead, you willingly sacrificed riches to become senators, representatives, and judges. You entered the uncertain world of politics.
Did you do it for the glory? Did you do it for power? Did you do it to get a better table in a restaurant?
No, you — we — did it for the morals. We understood that the fundamental purpose of government is to improve the lives of the people.
People do not form governments for our aggrandizement. The people did not send us here and pay our salaries so we can stand on a dais and bask in the warmth of their cheering. The people did not send us here to defeat the other party in never-ending, useless wars.
The people sent you here — and you came here — to make their lives better. The people sent you here to answer just three questions.
What can I do for the people?
What can I do for America?
What can I do for the world?
Do you remember those optimistic days? How exciting they were. How good it felt to believe that in some small — or perhaps not so small — way, you could make a positive difference. Your life could have a special meaning beyond just your coming and your leaving — beyond merely dust to dust.
Your legacy could be not that you defeated the other side, but that you made America and the world a better place for those less powerful than you. You believed in the words on the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yes, we were the golden door. The shining city on a hill. America.
And then you came to Washington. And the jaded ones told you to throw away your idealism. Throw away your compassion. Throw away your morals. They told you — they told all of us — our life was to be a tiny, obedient cog in a vast machine. They told us to answer just three questions:
What is best for the President? What is best for my party? What is best for me?
And so, like those tiny, obedient cogs in the vast machine, we now march in lockstep.
Is that why you came here — to be just a reliable, obedient vote?
Today, the nation has been divided by lies and hatred. Every day some new corruption, some new outrage, some new anger. Even our precious election is riven by lies and threats and anger.
Look back now at what we have lost. Our beautiful dream, our American dream.
Does it bother you, as it bothers me, that almost every question put before Congress is answered in exactly the same way, with a hundred percent — or near a hundred percent — of the right answering one, and a hundred percent of the left answering the other way, because it is best for me to vote with the party.
Why are we all so predictable? Can it even be possible that all — ALL — your beliefs and morals are identical to those of the other two hundred people of your party — identical on all questions — and opposing the beliefs of those in the other party?
Is it even possible, that on every question coming before Congress, you are exactly the same as the man or woman sitting next to you, on your side of the aisle?
Is that why you came here? To be nothing more than a rubber stamp for or against? Is that why you gave up an alternative future?
Think back now: When was the turning point in your life? When did what’s best for the people fall out of consideration? When did you stop caring about people and care only about politics?
And if you’re a judge, I ask you this question: When did the law become more important than the people?
When did you lose your compassion for those less fortunate than you? Have you become so cold and heartless that you care more about legal minutia than about the actual fact of human suffering? When did the turn of abstruce phrase become more important than the reality of the human condition? When did clever rejoinder become more important than a child’s life?
And really, ladies and gentlemen, why are you so predictably right-wing or left-wing? How about “people-wing”?
I have been here for many years. I have been as guilty as any of you in losing my way in the endless labyrinth of uncaring big government. I regret those wasted years, when I focused on giving the wrong answers to the wrong questions, simply to go along.
I could have been so much better. I could have done so much more for the people. And though I can’t go back, I can change direction, and try to remember the idealism that first brought me here.
We, few, sitting in this room, control the levers of power. America is the most powerful — financially and militarily — the most powerful nation in history. We truly have the power to make the earth a better place for all humanity, and we certainly, easily have the power to make America a better place for all Americans.
Shall we squander what little time we are given in this world? Shall we squander our power on internecine wars? Is that why you have given so much of your lives, day after day, to win one battle, then to lose the next? Will defeating your neighbor yield a better result than cooperating with, or helping, your neighbor?
Is morality naive?
At one time, the world looked to America for moral leadership. That can be true again. In your heart and your mind, you know right from wrong. You know truth from lies. You know good from bad. You know generosity from selfishness. You know compassion from cruelty. You know love from hatred.
You know these things and the world looks to you and the world knows you know. And the world will follow your lead.
Sometimes, in the short run, evil wins. But evil has no staying power in the hearts of humanity. Evil skulks fearfully in darkness and denial. Righteousness opens its arms to the sunshine of joy and self-respect.
How will we few people in this room be remembered? Will we lie and make excuses. Will we rationalize? Or, will you look back in satisfaction at knowing you have done the right thing for humanity? Will you be proud of the good you have accomplished? What will be the meaning of your life?
Today we begin our destiny. We can step back from cold, blind politics.
We can do this. Hand in hand, working together we can do this.
We can answer the questions we have been given the power to answer:
What can I do for the people? What can I do for America? What can I do for the world?
We are not just Republicans or Democrats. We are Americans. We are not just Americans, we are human beings.
We can make the world a better place, for ourselves, for our children, and for all the children yet to be born.
Supreme Court Justices often justify their decisions by claiming to be “originalists,” or “textualists,” and no one wishes to be considered “activist.’
The reason: They can hide behind the framers of the Constitution in a “Don’t-blame-me. The-law-forces-my-opinion. If-you-don’t-like-the-law,-change-it” exercise.
Justices are people. They have beliefs and prejudices that have built up over many years. Based on those beliefs and prejudices, they want cases to go a certain way.
You may think that in making a decision, a justice first researches the Constitution for guidance, and then refreshes with a comb-through of previous decisions. finally to amalgamate it all into a decision.
The reality seems quite the opposite.
Based on the decisions themselves, it seems clear that the decision usually comes first, and then the research is done to justify it.
How else could there be predictably “right-wing” and “left-wing” justices? They all read the same Constitution. They all have the same precedents before them. They all know the same law.
Yet most of the time, they vote along “party” lines. That is why the GOP was in such a hurry to nominate Amy Coney Barrett. Barring a rare surprise, they know how she will rule.
Unless you believe it is all coincidence, there is only one way in which you repeatedly see the same justices making the same “right” or “left” decisions: Their minds are made up beforehand, and then they search for justification.
And that is why “originalism” and “textualism” are monstrous lies. In truth, all justices are activists.
This concept views the Constitution as stable from the time of enactment and that the meaning of its contents can be changed only by the steps set out in Article Five. This notion stands in contrast to the concept of the Living Constitution, which asserts that the Constitution should be interpreted based on the context of the current times, even if such interpretation is different from the original interpretations of the document.
Originalism, a term that was adopted in the 1980s, is related to:
TEXTUALISM:
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law.
ACTIVISM:
Making decisions based on personal political views or considerations rather than on the law as written or intended. This is closely related to the concept of the Living Constitution.
To the right-wing, “activist” is what left-leaning justices are called, when their decisions disagree with the right-wing. In truth, all justices, left and right, are activists.
The ostensible, though often subtle, difference between originalism and textualism is the former looks for the intent of the authors and the latter is more strict in following the actual meaning of the words. The real difference comes up when a Justice shifts between the two, in trying to justify a position.
All Justices are originalist and textualist and activist, with the degree depending on the subject.
The conclusion: Originalism/Textualism does not really exist. It is an excuse for a decision by a Justice who has his/her mind locked by political or emotional biases.
The “king,” though not the originator of the term “originalism” was Antonin Scalia, who proudly defended originalism this way:
“Non-originalists must agonize over what the modern Constitution ought to mean with regard to (various) subjects,” and then agonize over the very same questions five or 10 years later, because times change.”
Because, for instance, abortion and LGBTQ rights weren’t specifically granted in the Constitution they, in Scalia’s opinion, were not rights. Being an originalist made his job easier, he said.
In short, Scalia boasted about how not having to agonize about decisions as times changemakes his job easier, as though the ease of his workload was more important than making decisions appropriate to changing circumstances. And this lazy concept is widely respected?
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett are today’s self-proclaimed originalists.
Proudly “originalist” Justice Neil Gorsuch said:
“A good originalist judge will not hesitate to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution’s original meaning, regardless of contemporary political consequences. Whether that means . . . prohibiting the government from slapping a GPS tracking device on the underside of your car without a warrant (the Fourth Amendment) . . . “
” . . . often enough it may be tempting for a judge to do what he thinks best for society in the moment, to bend the law a little to an end he desires, to trade just a bit of judicial integrity for political expediency.”
Whoa, “originalist” Justice Gorsuch. Where does the Constitution mention GPS tracking devices, or for that matter, cars? Aren’t you bending the law a little for political expediency? Yes, but this is different, right? No, wrong.
How does a Fourth Amendment prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures” textually prohibit GPS tracking devices? Is a GPS a “search”? Is a GPS a “seizure”? Is it “unreasonable”? Where are these definitions in the Constitution?
Is observing someone by using binoculars, or standing close and overhearing, or merely following someone, an unreasonable search or a seizure? And aren’t you liable to commit the “crime” of “agonizing over the very same questions five or 10 years later, because times change” every time a new observation device is invented?
Justice Amy Comey Barrett: “[Originalism] means that I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time. And it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.”
But if she is interpreting it “as text,” where is the interpretation?
Soon she will rule on hot button items like the Affordable Care Act and abortion. One wonders on what specific text in the Constitution she will rely.
The classic example of how the “isms” may be used and twisted come with the 2nd Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
“Well-regulated”: Why did the framers say not just “regulated,” but “well-regulated”? Clearly, they recognized the real danger inherent in people keeping and bearing deadly Arms, but felt this danger was acceptable for the security of America, so long as it was part of a well-regulated Militia, and not solely composed of gun-nuts.
“Militia”: Defined as a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency. The purpose of the people keeping and bearing arms is not for hunting, target shooting, or for self-protection. The purpose is to be ready on a moment’s notice, to supplement the regular army.
“Keeping and bearing”: As part of a well-regulated Militia, the people can store and carry Arms.
“Arms”: Here’s where the originalists and textualists really have to twist and turn, because they have no idea what this term means. Currently, it seems to include modern weapons that did not exist when the Constitution was written, which certainly should disqualify them from textualism and arguably from originalism.
I put my impartial finger on the law. It’s not up to me to infuse my own policy views into it.
But it gets even worse. There seems to be some tacit agreement that “Arms” includes semi-automatic weapons, but does not include automatic rifles. (You can get one, but the process is difficult, slow, and expensive, and you have to have a perfectly clean record.)
Where is that distinction anywhere in the Constitution? An honest reading by an originalist or a textualist would hold that neither intent nor text could include weapons that were not even conceived of by the framers, and certainly not by any difference between semi-automatic and automatic.
Making such a distinction would be considered activist, unless it’s made by a right-wing justice, in which case its originalist — somehow.
Will Amy Comey Barrett understand the 2nd Amendment to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it — well-regulated militia, flintlock pistols and all?
Don’t bet on it.
The most hilarious distinction was made by the spiritual leader of originalism, Antonin Scalia, who somehow was able to justify eliminating all first thirteen words of the Second Amendment, while still not being considered “activist.”
Shall we assume his being not only a right-winger but, like his grandfather, an avid hunter — a member of the International Order of St. Hubertus, a “secretive society of elite hunters,” — had nothing to do with his decision?
In summary:
Depending on the subject, there are no originalist justices. There are no textualists. All justices are activists, some more so than others. Don’t believe any justice who says otherwise.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 