A Year of Infamy

Books, Babies, and The Right's Effort to Kill Art

It has been 382 days since the fascistic Supreme Court took away the autonomy of half of America’s population, stating that Roe was unconstitutional and “returned” it to the states. Never mind that the decision which made choice permissible was based on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which states explicitly that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Apparently, the six Federalist Society-chosen members decided that the amendment no longer had constitutional validity and, instead, decided to take away every woman’s right to self-determination.

Shortly after the ruling, the “man” who wrote the Dobbs decision, “Justice” Samuel A Alito made a speech at a religious summit in Rome, where he took exception to some foreign criticisms of his ruling, making a comparison to the then-recent resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his handling, among other things, Brexit and the “Partygate” scandal, which caught him on tape partying unmasked with other ministers of his cabinet while most of country was on lockdown due to the COVID pandemic. The comparison made Alito untethered, which made him make the comment post hoc ergo propter hoc (Lat. After this, because of this). He assumed that, because of Johnson’s downfall, his own ruling was equally faulty. While this post hoc comment may not have been completely right, to which I will agree in part, it did not mean that Alito did not also engage in his own post hoc fallacy in the Dobbs ruling, stating that it had no constitutional standing, even though the Roe ruling was based on the strictest constitutional standards, as was Casey some 20 years later, when it reaffirmed the constitutionality of the Roe ruling. However, Alito, in reversing Roe and Casey, engaged in his own post hoc fallacy when he stated that, because abortion was considered a crime prior to Roe, it had no constitutional standing. Without getting into the personal comments about whether women will always find ways to end unwanted pregnancies, while not invalid, does not address fully the fallaciousness of Alito’s ruling last year. Alito states that Roe and Casey did not follow the legal precedent of “stare decisis,” which would have allowed the original criminality of abortion to stand, because it is a “moral question” without any precedential or juridical standing. As a result of Alito’s understanding of Roe and Casey’s “misunderstanding” of stare decisis, abortion cannot continue to be legal, and it must be overturned.

However, Alito’s decision on Dobbs, however, was equally based on the same post hoc fallacy as his response to the commenter’s quip about the ruling. Without going into the minutiae of the ruling itself, his thinking is already juridically dishonest. If for example, abortion was specifically never guaranteed in the Constitution, it was because women in the 1780s onward until only within the last 50 years, had been afforded any actual constitutional rights. After all, women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, but no one has yet to question the constitutionality of female suffrage since the 19th Amendment was passed at the level of challenging it in any federal court. It could almost be argued that women were not considered de jure citizens until this amendment had passed. Barring any serious challenges in the foreseeable future, no one seems ready to challenge the constitutionality of the amendment. Moreover, women were not allowed to get credit cards or take out loans or mortgages independently until 1974 which, one could argue, may also be a violation of the Commerce Clause in Article 1 or Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment. Again, no one has made any serious challenges in the federal courts regarding these clauses. It also may not be the correct argument, but I put these here as potential examples to show the fallaciousness of Alito’s ruling on Dobbs which, unlike Roe and Casey, does not rely on its constitutionality but on its morality, and any imposition of morality could be considered a violation of the First Amendment which specifies that there can be no establishment of a religion. Since the US court system is part of the federal government, it also cannot establish any actions which could possibly be construed as implementing a religion.

If this was the only post hoc fallacy the Supreme Court committed in the last year, they decided to make it worse this year, with a series of ruling which, amongst them most prominently, ended affirmative action, ruled against student loan debt relief, stated that a stalker has free speech if there was no physical harm, and allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBTQIA+people. These rulings were all done on the equally fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc understanding of the law and interpretations of the Constitution which, admittedly, could really some major changes, because it was a document which was written almost 250 years ago by a bunch of mostly slave-owning white men who could have never imagined the serious constitutional crises we face in the present. It’s interesting because, with the affirmative action ruling, it never got rid of the legacy admissions which dominate the elite universities (which, I admit, I went to one of them) nor does the ruling apply to the so-called service academies, such as Annapolis and West Point, which, can continue to favour legacies, who are overwhelmingly white and privileged (which is how the late Sen John McCain got in to Annapolis because, even though he finished her the bottom of his class, his father and grandfather were also Annapolis grads who became admirals). Nevertheless, all were given the same fallacious legal brush stroke, because they believed that 1) it violated a certain separation of power (student loan forgiveness) 2) a violation of of free speech (even though there is no constitutional protection against speech which threatens one’s life), 3) denies the right of equal protection (affirmative action in college admission, since education is a public, not a private service), and 4) allowing to discriminate based on “morality” (which, again, is a violation, in this case, of the Commerce Clause of Article 1, as well as the Equal Protection clause).

Alito and his merry band of judicial Federalist Society fascists, straight from the Powell Doctrine, stripped away the rights of about 70 percent of the American population, but somehow, he’s ringing his hands over the possibility that someone might try to assassinate him, which was something he expressed last year shortly after the Dobbs ruling was issued. I, for one, don’t have any sympathy for someone who could so callously take right away, then blame any criticisms of his ruling for their misunderstanding, and if someone did assassinate him, it would, for the lack of a better term, karma. I’m not advocating any assassination but, in this instance, I won’t mourn his passing if it did happen. However, it’s unlikely that some angry leftist or feminist will ever consider assassinating Alito, not because he wouldn’t have it coming to him, but because anger alone over a ruling, no matter how capricious, cruel, or constitutionally unsound, does not engage in the ad hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that it will lead to an attempt on his life. Alito is both judicially and philosophically wrong.