Monday, October 08, 2018

Some food for thought

It appears that some snowflake has taken their disappointment over the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to a potentially perilous level, allegedly posting... "So Who's Gonna Take One for the Team and Kill Kavanaugh?" on Twitter.

This woke champion of all that's right may be about to discover that freedom of expression and the right to protest has limits. Threatening a Federal Judge, and inciting or soliciting others to harm one is a Federal crime covered under Title 18 Chapter 115 of the US Code. If convicted of said offense there is a real possibility that she could end up doing time in a Federal prison. The Justice Department and US prosecutors do not generally have a sense of humor when it comes to this sort of thing. But as vile as this alleged offense is, she should take some comfort.

Because even if formally arrested and indicted, she has rights.
  •  The right to legal councel.
  •  The right to be tried in an open court before an impartial jury of her peers.
  • The right to confront witnesses and evidence against her and to cross examine or otherwise impeach said witnesses and evidence.
  • An absolute presumption of innocence, until such time as the jury concludes that the evidence has proven her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
This is one of those things things that defines us as a country and marks us out as Americans.

Unless your last name is Kavanaugh.

3 comments:

rick allen said...

I'm not sure that "snowflake" is quite the right word for a murderer, or one who incites to murder. And such things of course have never had the protection of the first amendment.

From my perspective, it's awful that we are now stuck with K, certainly for the rest of my life. Apart from the sexual accusations, and the plain lying under oath (about admittedly collateral matters), it's a shame that, in a time of bitter, bitter partisanship, a man was nominated for the Court whose whole early career was entirely that of a political scrapper, who spent years pushing the idea that Hilary Clinton was a murderer, who unquestioningly used stolen political intelligence, and whose opinions about presidential immunities has somehow changed with the party in office. Nothing inherently wrong with being a political attack dog. That's part of politics. But to reward that kind of behavior with a lifetime appointment to the most powerful Court of Appeals, much less the Supreme Court?

No one knows the future. But I doubt that this will have any affect on Roe v. Wade, a decision by a Republican justice, on a Republican Court, and continuously upheld by a Supreme Court that hasn't had a Democratic majority since the 1960's. Roe v. Wade is the gift that keeps on giving for Republicans, so that they can say, "Vote for us one more time, and then we'll finally overturn it." And it just keeps working. It even worked for an unapologetic libertine like the current president.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Politics has always been partisan. Remember the Weather Underground and urban riots in the 60s and 70s? Remember the Civil War?

"Bipartisanship" is what happens with a strong dollar and ethnic and cultural hegemony. There's more of everything, and broader consensus on the social and political frame.

Are you actually voting Republican in the hope of Roe v. Wade being overturned? That's not a good reason. Abortion is part of the US national fabric, like homosexuality and gender dysphoria. You vote Republican because it's the party of your bourgeois tribe, so your political and economic status doesn't get destroyed by your ethno-cultural rivals. Multicultural democracy never ends differently.

The Jester of Qi said...

"some snowflake has taken their disappointment" I love it when people who complain about political correctness use singular "they."