DOBBS V. JACKSON For Dummies (Part 1 of 5: Conscience)

Start here.

I'll admit it. Three months is really too long of a break between blog posts. 

Or has it been only two?

It feels like a lot more than a trimester has passed since we last ventured into these post-Muskian Twitter Senior Citizen Cyber-rants.

And another thing, why "a trimester?" It just seems so random. 

Nothing is random.

Hello Boomers and friends of boomers. (Technically, I am NOT a boomer, but that is another issue for another time.)

It's A Mestery

Do you remember when trimesters were only a quarter? (Shutup, Dad).

On this day in 1973, legal use of the term "trimester" began costing us innocent lives, silenced hearts, and tiny ripped limbs. Until last summer's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Center for Reproductive Health 597 U.S. ___(2022), the number of human embryos aborted surpassed 63 million.  

63,000,000 is a lot of dead babies.  : ( sad face

They coined that word -- trimester -- to serve as the skeleton upon which to dress from whole cloth, a legal decision that said Federal courts may usurp the power of -- actual written words -- contained in our Constitution.

It was NOT WOMEN who were empowered, though we long labored under that falsehood. It was Federal judges who were empowered by Roe v. Wade -- to say what they thought the law should be, apparently with little regard for what the Constitution actully said.

"Trimesters" were but a stage. A platform upon which activists could strut and fret, full of sound and fury, signifying their virtue, employing deception on demand to reason from non-constitutional penumbras -- penumbras leading to nothingness. Millions of brief candles have been put out since 1973, until a leaky court clerk, a sneaky Politico reporter, and a little footnote (48), helped cut loose the gossamer threads of Roe v. Wade. One small step.

Perhaps the massive ship of state is turning. Truth may be marching on.

So sue me for lack of creativity. Writer's block happens. The better part of valor whispered in my ear over the Christmas holidays, and told me in a clear cool, feminine voice: "Hey Dummy, don't talk about restorative Supreme Court cases in mixed company."  

I listened to H.E.R.. 

She wore blindfolds. And it was a great decision -- to dare to listen.

***

Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit. 2023. Or in Rome, MMXXIII. Or 6773 (Assyrian), 2567 (Buddhist), 7531-32 (Byzantine), 4719 (Chinese), Reiwa 5 (Japanese), or 4356 (Korean). 

Jesus, time waits for no one.

If you are of Vietnamese persuasion, or a fan of Al Stewart, it is the Year of the Cat. In my way of thinking, there is no equivalence between cats and rabbits. For one thing, cleaning up their shit requires totally different protocols. Plus, rabbits are dumbasses. No, seriously, rabbits are the worst. I'm glad the Vietnamese shook off the shackles of the Chinese Jade Emperor and choose their own astrological animal. I prefer the theory which asserts that Vietnam changed their zodiac for precisely this reason. Cats are cool. Rabbits are buttholes. 

Don't bother asking for explanations

She'll just tell you that she came in the Year of the Cat

(credit: Al Stewart)

***

 So about that Dobbs ruling. You really don't need to hear my commentary.  I've been on the case for over 50 years. Ever since I was chastised by law school peers (especially some of the women) for publicly advocating as a Pro-life constitutionalist in our school newspaper.  

Today, as far as I'm concerned, it is : CASE CLOSED.

***

Before you click away, I want you to know this -- I've done my homework.  

Homework Sample - Dobbs case

As my freshman English professor kept drilling at his students (he really was English, like Harry Potter English, not Larry the Cable Guy English), he kept telling us THE NAME OF THE GAME IS EXPLAIN. He said the writer's job is TO EXPLAIN. 

So, I'm not doing this to convert, persuade, convince, prod, entice, allure, and especially to win a legal arguments. No. Are you not entertained?

The point of this here series of essays is to explain what happened in our legal system.  

What really happened?

However you "feel" is irrelevant to what really happened.  Your "activist" card doesn't matter anymore. Case Closed.

In short, Dobbs is to Roe as Brown is to Plessy.

Frankly, my dears, and I believe I write for some of us who cannot speak, we do not blame you. You are innocent souls, fighting the good fight. But we all need to refrain from the blame game. I am here to explain. It's not anyone's fault that they/we were born when they/we were born. And again, technically, I am not a boomer, but you know what I mean, despite "the latest thing" that makes obstacles of pronouns.

Every generation blames the one before. 

And all of their frustrations come beating on your door.  

You say you just don't see it. You just can't get agreement in this present tense. 

We all talk a different language. Talking in defense. 

So we open up a quarrel between the Present and the Past.

Don't yield to the fortunes you sometimes see as fate. 

It may have a new perspective on a different day. 

And if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be okay.

(Credit: Mike Rutherford + Mechanics)

***

You will hear from pundits and politicians who say that achieving a Supreme Court victory is simply a matter of counting to five, i.e., getting the majority of votes.  A pithy sentiment, but nonetheless valid.  The Dobbs ruling was supported by a 6-3 vote, the majority opinion, 5-3.

What that means, I'll leave to more highly paid experts in taller buildings. What is clear is the simple math which suggests that at the apex of today's American legal system, from a jurisprudential standpoint, Dobbs was really not a close call. It was the politics that was a close call, because as it turns out, for readers familiar with my textualist philosophy: Economics - is upstream from Culture - is upstream from Politics.

Our Constitution was underwritten, I think, with a recognition of that transitive property, one that subsumes human societies, and informs the foundation of free states. Economics and Culture are superior considerations that help define limits we have chosen to place on the power of national government where, too often, the passions of rough and tumble politics tend to become unhinged.

In other words, when it comes to Natural Law of the Land, screw Politics. Higher values, among those Economics and Culture, play the prevalent unseen role in the proper application of Constitutional Law.

Justice, divine or otherwise, has a greater chance of SURVIVAL when our personal goals are higher than those of greedy politicians winning (rigged) elections, or of silly TickTok and You Tubers getting more clicks or subs. The most compelling idea behind the Dobbs majority is that once we stop sacrificing children, society has a chance to get back onto a better, more harmonic path. From a place above politics, people may catch a glimpse of Hope, not merely by the flickering flame of Liberty promised in our Constitution, but also from the spark of Redemption offered in true, tangible, Reality.

That is --  new life.

If you are at all interested in following up with this explanation (for Dummies!) of a case that has already been ruled upon, I appreciate the audience you graciously grant. If you are easily threatened by ideas, regardless of their merit, or the merits of reasonably crafted argument, I suggest you stop.

Plus, I don't want to become paranoid of assassination.

Plus, I don't want you marching with signs in my front yard, or resorting to the violent, culturally abhorrent, tactics that we as a nation witnessed last summer. Dobbs is only the beginning, the "conception," if you will, of a struggle for Justice that started with a dumb decision (choice) to speak out in school with a sincerely held legal opinion. It was 40 years ago, in a galaxy far away.

Thanks for not killing me.

It's 2023 now, and there has been a restoration. 

Kindly look upon this sincere srivening as a way to bring peace to a turbulent issue in a way that any intelligent middle-school student, well, at least an earnest college freshman, can read and understand, as to why things have happened as they have happened. 

This is an effort to add clarity for others to reflect upon, test, and digest, the validity of the Dobbs holding, to help us to see how it is essentially remedial and restorative, and how it expresses something we humans, at the end of the day, are seeking. And this will be an effort to explain why our Representative Republic is built as it is built, namely -- 

OF, BY, AND FOR, . . . THE PEOPLE.

First Caveat: I am of an ethnic minority, heterosexual, male born in Generation Jones.

Second Caveat: I am a feminist who loves women as women, and men as brothers.

Third Caveat: I especially LOVE and TREASURE my wife and my dear baby girl.

Welcome to 1985. (See Page 3 of the link.)

© 2023 by Roy Santonil