ELEGY IN THE MIST: THE PROMISE FADES ANEW
JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH AND THE SENATE JUDICIARY HEARINGS
March 25, 2017






One of the arguments made by Traditional Catholics for voting for Trump was the Supreme Court, an imperative to be certain for all those concerned with the natural law and right reason at the very least. In another era this would have been persuasive; however, I am not only old, I am an old hand at the Supreme Court watch "game", and serious game it is as the stakes are so high since every aspect of our chaotic modern life is political to the core, the heck with the traditional understanding of human nature, grace, the immortal human soul and the right relation of law - Constitutional and positive - to the common good of men created by God, in this constitutional republic based on natural rights and the natural law given by God.

I know how it really works and all that is visible is not as it seems, for a peculiar version of the bait and switch ploy is ever in play conjoined at the hip to old-fashioned naïveté.

However, I was somewhat, guardedly reassured by candidate Trump's first string of SC nominees. At the time this was the only known list. Enter the revised list with second-stringer Neil Gorsuch added. The first clue that all was not as promised was the high praise many liberals in the law field heaped upon him. Now there are honest, fair-minded liberals here and there, but not that many, not today anyway. Most are hardened ideologues with a no-holds barred anti-Tradition agenda. If this were not true, we would not be where we are today. Knowledge of this reality is further backed up when we consider that he was appointed to the Court of Appeals with the approval of every liberal Senator. I simply did not buy the credentials Trump asserted. Then there is always the sorry state of Senate rules and the almighty filibuster to wield as a cudgel a priori to repel any inchoate conservative fervor which demands little application given the state of conservatism. Compromise, it is all bluster, dodge and compromise!

I was not expecting much, just the same old same old, but a small glimmer of hope had not yet died deep within my Catholic heart, although he purportedly was a lapsed Catholic, which usually does not bode well for anything but the status quo of "progressivism", or if not this, at least not much gumption in defense of the natural law, whether tacit or not. SOP 101. Contrast this trait with the noble character of the late Judge Bork - he defended the natural law and was given the gift of True Faith, Deo gratias!

Although I was not exactly impressed with the impressive Neil Gorsuch, he has sat on the bench with rectitude, with a distinguished record as measured by the elites and merits respect from the Senators questioning him. At least that. The Democrats were rude, condescending and in at least one case, downright childish, the ever ironic Franckenstein. No one deserves this treatment, the display of which is less a reflection on the nominee and more on the unsavory tendencies of these Democrats. Although not surprised by this, again it was SOP 101. However I had not foreseen how taken Neil Gorsuch would be with himself. The nominee is supposed to answer questions in re the law, not blow his own horn repeatedly, citing statistics about his case record! That is what the Republicans are for. They are to be at least as prepared as the nominee, the preparation of which ought to include these "statistics," so as to spare the nominee the spectacle of proffering his own praise of self. There is always to be expected a small element of this, given the grain of these proceedings and human nature, but never anything quite like this! But we'll set this aside for the main event, the Gorsuch "doctrine."

To his credit he was believable when he said he would remain impartial, independent and held with religious liberty; he insisted that there are no Democrat or Republican judges. Note, not there ought not be, but there are not, not exactly the same thing. It was as if he has been asleep for a generation. Judges may claim to be impartial, but there are two partisan camps, readily apprehended by the common man who is plain spoken but observant and who is not given to suffer fools lightly:  [1] Transformation agents - the living document crowd - who believe the law is what they want it to be as they see the society at any given time, so that the citizen has no confidence that what he has placed his faith in and ordered his life around will not be swept up right from under his feet rendering him and normalcy collateral damage in the rush to de-legitimize the indispensable moral law and even common sense. These partisans serve Mammon and their own hubris, not the foundation of the Constitution itself, the natural law, without which man descends into chaos, tyranny, and change upon change to the point of meaninglessness. [2] Constructionalists who know that the law is what is intended by its words and the context within the ambit of the natural law and inherent natural rights, which can never be entirely erased from the heart of man, although by sheer malicious will he can mitigate its force in law, always resulting in tragedy in the cost to human souls set adrift from First Things and the common understanding of the way things are supposed to work if one is to retain one's dignity. The process becomes the raison d'etre, not merely the means, and it is never enough, once the tinkering begins. This is a central aspect of human nature, also, especially when combined with the conceit of raw power without check. Judge Horsuch indicated in so many words that the court is supreme, not in the sense of the highest, but above check by the other branches.  In essence, if I properly understand him, absolutism without restraint other than the instincts of judges by definition. This would be acceptable if judges had not become policy makers, political agents. Constructionalists are partisans, too, but not in the pejorative sense, for they are not bent on obstructing what is necessarily true about human nature because it is of Truth, but rather preserving it! They are activists, certainly to be precise, not to destroy western ideals, but to restore to the commonweal what was stolen by judicial fiat.

Judge Gorsuch, who appears sincere, seems unaware that the latest ruling, negating the natural law, Obergefell v. Hodges, ["gay marriage"] which is by definition supreme even over that of the US Constitution, was done out of sheer partisanship, yea even for emotion's sake as Justice Kennedy implied, but certainly not based on the Constitution as revealed by Chief Justice Roberts. No one asked him if he agreed with Roberts. He simply asserted that for him [Gorsuch] it was settled law! He said it emphatically by his tone! Yet, here he sat insisting over and over and over again that precedent was very important and ought not ever be overturned but in the gravest of circumstances. This is ironic, for two reasons. There was no direct precedent for it, yet he insists it is in of itself a precedent that can never be revisited as it is SETTLED!  I say no direct, because the only case leading up to Oberfegell was the tortured much touted Lawrence v. Texas case that overturned that State's anti-sodomy law. It is one thing to declare that a law is unenforceable, it is quite another to grant a positive right to sodomy, an unnatural act that breaks with the natural law itself. Having already sanctioned abortion as a right in all likelihood had so weakened the reasoning and resolve of the Court, that it was to be expected, given the trajectory of willful repudiation of all that fosters human dignity, separating us from beasts.  Oberfegell, after a mere two years, yet he readily admitted as he ought that Plessey v. Ferguson, of long-standing was rightly overturned in Brown, etc. What does he mean by settled, precisely? We never found out. He cannot comment on Roe, but can on Obergefell when it can readily be foreseen that a challenge will be forthcoming? Hmmm? This makes no sense. If Obergefell is settled!!!, without challenge as yet and a subsequent reaffirmation, what does this say about the possibility to overturn Roe, reaffirmed time and time again, although the court itself recognized it was badly decided, but that people had become used to ordering their lives around it. Which begs the question, what about those lives who are not recognized under Roe? Shades of Dred Scott, but with a diminished capacity for appeal, under the precedent doctrine of Horsuch.

Salty tears welled up and spilled down my withered cheeks, while a plaintive elegy could be heard in the nearby neo-Orwellian mist, the refrain echoing the fading promise, the promised dream ....

Meanwhile a corollary query: How come a Muslim truck driver whose conscience under his religion forbade alcohol, was permitted to change his trucking assignment and another driver take over the alcohol run in his stead; how come all these sanctuary cities and mayors and other officials are not fined out of existence for their obstruction of a just law which they say violates their consciences; and how come Christian florists and bakers are penalized out of business and a livelihood for their conscience under their religion when there are other establishments that can take their place in certain transactions? At least these Christians are not preventing the law or anyone else for that matter, they simply do not want to participate in sin themselves. In other words, why is the Muslim conscience inviolate, the city mayor's inviolate - no fine for him - but the little Christian with no rights at all?

According to Horsuch this is wrong, but then says Obergefell is settled law. Yet, his future co-Justice, Sam Alito, says that Obergefell will be the source of persecution of Christians. No one asked him about this, of course, just as no one asked him about the role of the natural law in the grand scheme of things. As for the no comment on Roe, none was needed, for Judge Horsuch said that Justice Black, the crisp black heart of penumbras and cold blooded murder of innocent babies, babies that even the drug companies recognize as babies just as little children do, was one of his favorite Justices to admire. Forget shades of Sandra Day O'Connor from the hands of a Republican, if Black will do.

Salty tears welled up and spilled down my withered cheeks, while a plaintive elegy could be heard in the nearby neo-Orwellian mist, the refrain echoing the fading promise, the promised dream .... fading almost as fast as the natural law itself ....





http://www.catholictradition.org/gorsuch.htm