The Dobbs Fraud by SCOTUS's Fake Originalists (Part II)
SCOTUS justices plot a coup
On January 6, 2021, SCOTUS justices had a front-row seat to the attack on the Capitol and the Constitution all day just across the street. They saw first-hand the impressive power of a combination of national leadership, lies, deceit and irrational fanaticism. Within days, some SCOTUS justices set about planning a coup of their own—with national leadership, lies, deceit and irrational fanaticism. “On Jan. 8, 2021, the justices began a discussion about whether to hear Dobbs that was marked by urgency.” The New York Times article revealed shocking and alarming aspects of the justices’ treatment of Dobbs. Justices obviously engaged in deliberate deceit to repeatedly manipulate public perception about what they were doing and why.
Within 18 months after January 2021, Justice Alito led SCOTUS in a frivolous, fraudulent sham, undermining and attacking our Constitution by pretending to adhere to the principles of “originalism.” Such conduct was and is egregiously and dangerously anti-constitutional and anti-originalism.
In 2023, Justice Alito taunted those who disapproved of his flagrant violations of our Constitution by flying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag over his own home. Whatever else that flag might meant to Justice Alito, it indicates that he clearly believes that he and his SCOTUS followers are the supreme law of the land. Justice Alito was the author of the opinion for the majority of justices in Dobbs in June 2022. He was joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Justice Alito also was the author of the opinion for the majority of justices in the sequel to Dobbs issued on May 23, 2024 in Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the NAACP. Not surprisingly, Justice Alito was joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Surprisingly, they were joined by Chief Justice Roberts.1
The obvious unconstitutionality of Dobbs was highlighted by the aspect of Dobbs that the SCOTUS majority put first and foremost. The entire first paragraph of their opinion was all about politics and religion. The majority did Dobbs to grant extraordinary and outright extremist political power to state legislators who already have the most power. The Dobbs majority empowered state legislators and voters with fanatical religious views (fanatical in their determination to impose their religious views on people who do not share their views).
The first paragraph of the opinion of the Dobbs majority emphasized what they did. They empowered state legislators to prescribe the views that will be orthodox in each state about “a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently [one way]. Others feel just as strongly [another way]. Still others in a third group think” another way and “hold a variety of views.” Dobbs expressly and deliberately was designed to support the group that the Dobbs majority put first—those who “believe fervently.”
From start to finish, Dobbs was suffused with justices’ beliefs about religion and conscience. The Dobbs majority even openly echoed the moral and religious injunction Thou shalt not kill. They expressly acted to support those who hold “a sincere belief” that terminating any pregnancy at any stage “kills a human being.” The majority expressly emphasized that they set themselves against those who “disagree with this belief.”
The majority pointedly quoted Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) specifically to emphasize that “Men and women of good conscience can disagree” about “the profound moral and spiritual implications” of the right at issue in Dobbs. Casey, itself, said much more that was at least as relevant:
Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. The underlying constitutional issue is whether the State can resolve these philosophic questions in such a definitive way that a woman lacks [virtually] all choice in the matter . . .
The “decision” to bear and raise a child obviously may “originate within the zone of conscience and belief.” “One view is based on such reverence for the wonder of creation that any pregnancy ought to be welcomed and carried to full term no matter how difficult.” “These are intimate views with infinite variations, and their deep, personal character underlay” multiple SCOTUS “decisions.” “It was this dimension of personal liberty that Roe sought to protect, and its holding invoked the reasoning and the tradition” of “protection” of “substantive liberties of the person.”
The ultimate conclusion in Casey was that the burden borne by those who must bear a child and then for many years bear responsibility for supporting and raising a child is “too intimate and personal for” any group of state officials or voters “to insist” on imposing their “own vision” of conscience and conduct “without more” than merely proving that their “vision” was “dominant” throughout much “of our history and our culture.” That conclusion was consistent with our Constitution. The Dobbs majority clearly violated our Constitution. They did so with the mere pretense that a self-serving version of very selective history and tradition justified violating our Constitution.
A concurring opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, 545 U.S. 844 (2005) accentuated the fact that a particular statement has appeared in many SCOTUS justices’ opinions: “The well-known statement that ‘[w]e are a religious people,’ has proved true.” “[W]e are a religious people” was accentuated again as recently as a dissenting opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014). The majority in Dobbs were well aware of that fact, but they were willfully blind to how it established the clear impropriety of relying on a history and tradition of “a religious people” who irrefutably have a long “history” and “tradition” of seeking to impose their religious views on others.
In many instances, Justice Alito and his adherents emphasized matters of religion and conscience with words such as conscience, spiritual, moral, belief, believe or view. They (like the majority in Casey) also expressly acknowledged they were guided by historical actions of those who made and enforced laws based on such beliefs or views. The Dobbs majority deceitfully pretended they had the power to authorize state officials to make and enforce laws based essentially, if not entirely, on public officials’ or voters’ views and beliefs about religion and conscience.
Alexander was openly all about the same justices helping openly “partisan” state legislators establish or entrench an orthodoxy that was very similar to the history and tradition that the majority invoked in Dobbs. Dobbs and Alexander together highlight the circularity of the logic and the reinforcing practices of SCOTUS justices determined to attack and undermine us, our liberties and our Constitution.
Justice Alito and his adherents in Dobbs and Alexander clearly did nothing less than merely pretend that our Constitution gave them the power to empower state officials to make or enforce laws for a particular purpose: imposing personal views or beliefs about politics or religion and conscience on people who manifestly do not share such views or beliefs. It would be hard to find conduct by SCOTUS justices in the past 60 years that is more deliberately or more dangerously anti-constitutional.
For criticism of the decision of the majority in Alexander, see the following:
Sam’s Club (SCOTUS) Says Separate-But-Equal Is Cool
Black Magic (Justice Alito Lies Again) (Part I)
Black Magic (Justice Alito Lies Again) (Part II)
“The proper response to this case is not to throw up” (So Says SCOTUS Dissent to Alito Gang's Lies)
Alito’s Gang Advocates and Protects “Political Apartheid”
It's abundantly clear that the 'originalists' on this court are only originalists when it's convenient. The basic fact about the odious Dobbs decision is that the only thing that changed over time was the make-up of the court. Once 6 religious extremists composed the majority, they set about prioritizing the rights of believers, whether it was a florist, a baker or a website designer who wanted to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans under the fig leaf of religion, this majority was there to serve their interests.
Likewise, the new College of Cardinals was ready and willing to do the bidding of the loud and persistent anti-abortion crowd, despite the basic standard of Roe remaining untouched. And the result was exactly as Justices O'Connor, Souter and Kennedy predicted it would be in their Casey decision - that the legitimacy of the supreme court would be overthrown along with Roe:
"Where the Court acts to resolve the sort of unique, intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe, its decision has a dimension not present in normal cases and is entitled to rare precedential force to counter the inevitable efforts to overturn it and to thwart its implementation. Only the most convincing justification under accepted standards of precedent could suffice to demonstrate that a later decision overruling the first was anything but a surrender to political pressure and an unjustified repudiation of the principle on which the Court staked its authority in the first instance. Moreover, the country's loss of confidence in the Judiciary would be underscored by condemnation for the Court's failure to keep faith with those who support the decision at a cost to themselves. A decision to overrule Roe's essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy and to the Nation's commitment to the rule of law." ---Planned Parenthood v Casey
This court brought its current disrepute on itself. Another great article, Jack!