Well done, Jesse. I wish I heard this more often, particularly from the Left.
I'm afraid is isn't going to cut any ice with the conspiracy theorists, though. I've had my own umpteen tries at shifting them. No dice. In consequence, I have to say that what we're looking at here is just another form of contagious mental illness.
The victims are people who are unwilling to live in the evidence-driven world, and whose background in the systems they talk about is either absent of forgotten.
Societies built on lies from the git-go, like ours is, make very fertile soil for this sort of thing. It sets a population up, the way the Great Famine of 1315 is believed to have set up a generation for the Second Pandemic. When you raise people on a steady diet of lies, they often end up in a condition where they will disbelieve absolutely anything they hear from an "authority". Including that which is, by the standards of real-world evidence testing, provably true.
This is a real and growing threat, because the Republican Party, which has absorbed and to a large extent has also been compromised by the Radical Right, understands conspiracy theory and uses it to troll for recruits. If you think they aren't fishing in the troubled waters Democratic Party, think again.
I refer you to about 20% of the stuff Dave Neiwert has written about. I'm sure Mrs R. can give you an earful. And I refer you to the Presidential campaign of a certain Republican who has considerable "crossover" support in this election cycle. Again, go over to Orcinus and read it for yourself.
The graphic alone is worth the price of dinner. Something I'd like to send to a couple of folks I know, but in the interests of keeping the peace, dare not.
The research behind this may not be apparent to everyone, but it was considerable and demanding. Worthy of Dustin Hoffman chewing on a Bic and waiting for Redford to stop fooling around. Way to go, guy.
It is hard not to rethink the respect we pay to judges in light of the 2000 Supreme Court decision through the Florida state court decisions, and in light of the shenanigans at the Justice Department. If one accepts the precept that the Clintons are really moderate Republicans in policy and practice then the judge does not receive a free ideology pass from liberals and leftists.
How is even a relatively well-informed person supposed to evaluate their faith in institutions when we continually find out that corruption and graft have infiltrated every level of government? Add a lack of transparency and a media system that won't cover any story without a hook or a body? How can we evaluate your source in these terms? If the game looks fixed, how can any rational person claim that it is not? The right wingers already assume these things are true in a strange post-modernist and Marxist way.
I think most Americans are going to ride this out on instinct until they are desperate enough for violence and then we will re-do the 19th and 20th centuries from Credit Mobiliere to either a New New Deal or a Philip Roth/Dick scenario.
Some of the conspiracy theories I've encountered (Moon landing hoax, 9/11, etc.) smack of too much speculation. I prefer simple explanations - we *did* land on the Moon, and the nation's leaders *did* act in a criminally negligent manner when given data regarding the attacks.
There's too many people involved. You CAN'T keep that kind of conspiracy quiet, because people like to talk a lot (especially here in America, where's the money to be made in book sales).
and Karl Rove behind every reverse of every liberal idea everywhere
I remember this line reaching a fever pitch before the 2006 elections. Rove was the great everyting. Dems were powerless to fight back.
Except that it didn't happen and now every decision that doesn't go our way, whether judicial or political is a conspiracy.
Deep breaths.
i've never been one to buy into a conspiracy theory when bog simple stupid will suffice to answer every question of why. a conspiracy this high in government would require a level of sophistication and design that i find hard to ascribe to this crowd.
barry crooks -
I am not suggesting at all that Judges should get a free pass.
I've written at least one harsh post, perhaps more, directly attacking specific judges, for decisions which I believe were ideological and not built around the facts.
The Bush v. Gore decision was clearly a thrown case. The Supreme Court shamed themselves in a way as badly as Dred Scott, perhaps worse. At least in Dred Scott, the Justices were honestly following the law as they saw it at the time. In Bush v. Gore no one can say the Justices in the Majority were following the law -- they were exercising raw political power to produce an outcome.
Least anyone doubt it, the Vanity Fair expose some years later when the Clerks of the minority Justices broke their oath of silence and spoke up, specifically about that one case, put to bed once and for all any guess work. We have eye-witness testimony of the events from inside the Court. It was a thrown case.
There is no way to prevent this.
The second way we know Bush v. Gore was thrown is simple logic.
A fundamental test of fairness for a Court is, if we swapped the parties around, would the Court still render the same verdict: "What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander."
That's how we can tell the Supreme's took a dive in Florida in 2000.
Just imagine if GWB had been DOWN by 527 votes instead of Al Gore. Do you still think that Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, O'Connor, & Kennedy would have STOPPED COUNTING THE VOTES? Please. We'd have been counting those votes into November a year later, if that's what it took to make Bush the Decider. Even my Grandmother knows that, and she's been long dead. It was a stacked court, and how you know is, if you swapped sides, you'd get a different ruling.
But of the five core institutions in the United States -- Legislative, Executive, Judicial, Press, and Military, the Judicial Branch remains the least broken... which isn't saying much.
They are badly wounded by the court packing the Bush (43) Administration has been engaged is, and yes, without question some rulings are political. But Judges are Judges, and while some will betray their oaths as will anyone, others stand firm in their respect for the rule of law.
It is vital we as people grounded in reality, do not cast all judges (or Justices) out with the bathwater, saying they are all corrupt. They are not. Many of them -- including on the Supreme Court -- are outraged by the excesses of the Bush Administration, and are fighting back in their own, small ways.
This is why you have the Supreme Court issuing rulings against the Administration holding people in Gitmo without access to lawyers. Yes, there will always be Justice Thomas, at least for many years to come I'm afraid. But his colleagues, even Justice Scalia acknowledge him for the crazy he is -- and his recent grandstanding with his book did not sit well with the Court.
The Courts are one of our last best hopes to keep our country intact. It is vital we not attack them randomly, saving our attacks for those cases where there clearly is a cause that is more likely than not appropriate.
First however, let me just suggest we reserve calling anyone a "neo-nazi outfit" be reserved for people whom, like, are? Say the KKK, or the Aryan Brotherhood. Not a group of distinguished attorneys and judges, no matter how much you or I may hold many of their political views in contempt.
There's also a little matter something known as Godwin's Law.
my own little experience with left-wing conspirawhackos is the people in MN and elsewhere that are convinced that the late lamented Senator Wellstone's death was a political hit. It's absolute bullshit, without a shred of evidence. He had a lousy pilot landing a small plane in lousy weather; the pilot screwed up and killed everyone on board. Period. End of story. Except that some people have a need to see a deep dark conspiracy everywhere they turn.
Molly Ivins (RIP) had a nice description of conspiracy theorists: "They suffer from the touching delusion that someone, somewhere, is in charge of everything."
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