May 2022 Archives

Thursday marks the 70th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and a bunch of other nations who for various reasons didn't become republics after decolonization.

I have nothing against Liz personally—she's performed the monarch's duties diligently for 70 years—but she's 95 and probably doesn't have many more years to run in office.

I submit that when she dies, it will be past time to end the monarchy and held a constitutional convention for the UK to decide what sort of place it wants to be in future.

(In other news, I finally send off the novel manuscript I've been working on for the past 18 months. Taking a couple of days off before getting back to work on a novella I started in 2014 ...)

(Disclaimer: money is a proxy for control or power. I'm focussing on money rather than political leverage only because it's quantifiable.)

To you and me, a billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. It's on the order of what I (at peak earning capacity) would earn in 10,000 years. Give me just $10M and I could comfortably retire and live off interest and some judicious siphoning of capital for the rest of my life.

So are there any valid reasons to put up with billionaires?

Supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade abortion law, leaked draft opinion reportedly shows.

Here is the leaked draft opinion by Justice Alito. (Format: PDF.)

I am not a lawyer.

The opinion apparently overturns Roe v. Wade by junking the implied constitutional right to privacy that it created. However, a bunch of other US legal precedents rely on the right to privacy. Notably:

  • Lawrence v. Texas (2003) determined that it's unconstitutional to punish people for committing "Sodomy" (any sex act other than missionary-position penis-in-vagina between a married man and woman)

  • Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) protects the ability of married couples to buy contraceptives without government interference

  • Loving v. Virginia (1968): right to privacy was used to overturn laws banning interracial marriage

  • Stanley v. Georgia (1969): right to privacy protects personal possession of pornography

  • Obergefell v. Hodges (2015): right to privacy and equal protection clause were used to argue for legality of same sex marriage

  • Meyer v. Nebraska (1923): ruling allows families to decide for themselves if they want their children to learn a language other than English (overturning the right to privacy could open the door for racist states to outlaw parents teaching their children their natal language)

  • Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942): this ruling found it unconstitutional to forcibly sterilize people (it violated the Equal Protection clause)

I am going to note that the US congressional mid-term elections take place in about six months' time.

Wider point: if Alito's leaked ruling represents current USSC opinion, then it appears that the USSC is intent on turning back the clock all the way to the 19th century.

Another point: it is unwise to underestimate the degree to which extreme white supremacism in the USA is enmeshed with a panic about "white" people being "out-bred" by other races: this also meshes in with extreme authoritarian patriarchal values, the weird folk religion that names itself "Christianity" and takes pride in its guns and hatred of others, homophobia, transphobia, an unhealthy obsession with eugenics (and a low-key desire to eliminate the disabled which plays into COVID19 denialism, anti-vaxx, and anti-mask sentiment), misogyny, incel culture, QAnon, classic anti-semitic Blood Libel, and Christian Dominionism (which latter holds that the USA is a Christian nation—and by Christian they mean that aforementioned weird folk religion derived from protestantism I mentioned earlier—and their religious beliefs must be enshrined in law).

Okay, so, it's open season in the comments here. (Meanwhile discussion of RvW on other blog post comment threads is officially forbidden.)

PS: There are no indications they're going to use this ruling as an opening shot for bringing back slavery. Why would they? Slavery never went away. (The 13th Amendment has a gigantic loophole permitting enslavement as punishment, and the prison-industrial sector in the USA clearly enforces chattel slavery—only under government/corporate management rather than as personal property.)

Specials

Merchandise

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from May 2022 listed from newest to oldest.

April 2022 is the previous archive.

June 2022 is the next archive.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Search this blog

Propaganda