Due Process: A Treatise on Entitled Men

There is so much to say about the Kavanaugh confirmation process, and much of it has already been said elsewhere.  (A great example of “If you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention.”)  But something that stuck out to me was the image of a grown, white man ranting his “righteous” anger in front of the United States Senate about the end of due process in America.  Give me a fucking break.

The left-wing rag Merriam-Webster defines due process as:

1

: a course of formal proceedings (such as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles

— called also procedural due process

2

: a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual

— called also substantive due process

But there seems to be some confusion about what due process is, particularly amongst white men.  They seem to believe due process is their right, and the right of their fellow white men, to get away with anything, their right to succeed in spite of any misstep, any exposed character flaw, any crime.  Of course he deserves this promotion—it’s simply due process.  Amazing how differently due process works for white men than it does for everyone else.  It’s leeway that simply does not exist for others.  

Where is due process for victims of sexual assault?  They can’t (and never have been able to) trust the course of formal proceedings to result in justice.  I don’t see Brett Kavanaugh crying about that.  I don’t see Brett Kavanaugh doing anything about that.  And one might argue that, as a federal judge, he is one of the few who actually can do something about that.

Where is due process for the thousands who are incarcerated because they can’t afford bail?  Where is due process for the unarmed African American men shot and killed by police officers?  Where is due process for their families? Yes, due process is failing many people in America.  But it is not failing white men.  So forgive me when I vomit at the sight of an overgrown prep-school jackass-turned-federal-judge crying about the end of due process in America.  

Serving on the Supreme Court is a privilege, not a right.  Brett Kavanaugh missing out on his dream job isn’t due process failing him—it’s an occurrence many ordinary Americans, disproportionately women, have had to swallow with grace.  “Your resume is very impressive, but this job may not be quite right for you.”  Brett Kavanaugh missing out on his dream job because he tried to rape a girl in high school isn’t due process failing him—it’s his past coming back to bite him.  The Supreme Court confirmation process hasn’t ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s life.  Brett Kavanaugh ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s life.

I believe Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape Christine Blasey Ford.  Regardless of that, I believe Brett Kavanaugh’s behavior yesterday disqualifies him serving on the Supreme Court.  He did away with any pretense that he is not a complete partisan.  He showed he has no composure under stress.  I seriously doubt his ability to remove his own prejudice in ruling on any case.  Rather, I strongly suspect his contempt for “the left” would steer him toward vindictiveness.  There is enough vindictiveness in politics.  Sexual abusers are well represented.  Surely we can do better than Brett Kavanaugh.

Drastic times.

Listen, I really am trying not to interpret everything as signs of looming World War III/American implosion via class warfare/anarchy/eventual nuclear holocaust.  But suddenly preppers seem a lot less crazy.  (Don’t worry, I’m not building a bunker but our storage room may serve, so that is where we keep our bottled water and canned tuna.)

I’m not the only one freaking out:

Catchy new tagline.

I’m just very disturbed at how faithfully Orange Julius is following the authoritarian playbook.  The scapegoating of particular religious, ethnic, and non-heterosexual people, for instance, was an old standby for another thin-skinned dude who liked to yell and had bad hair.  (Ok, you caught me.  I’m not above a Hitler-Trump comparison.)  NEWS ALERT: Muslims aren’t killing us by the thousands (guns are), Mexicans aren’t stealing our jobs (automation is), and transsexuals aren’t grabbing your daughter’s pussy in the women’s room (she should watch out for our President though).  Picking on minority groups and the vulnerable may make some (miserable) people feel better, but it does not solve problems.  It actually creates them.  Stop me if I sound crazy.  Oh right, you can’t.

Here’s a problem created by the dogwhistling and hateful rhetoric that spewed from the Trump campaign, and now spews from the White House:

 

In case your preferred news source didn't cover this, vandals desecrated 100 graves at a historic Jewish cemetery in St. Louis this week.

As it turns out, bad people are empowered to do bad things when we do not actively embrace tolerance and respect, when we elect people who do not actively embrace tolerance and respect.

One of the most moving places I have ever been is the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.  For over 300 years, it was the only place the city’s Jewish people were allowed to bury their dead.  The graves are stacked layers upon layers, making “ground level” something like thirty feet above the current street. Up to 100,000 people may be buried there.  Seeing these graves all crammed together sparked a major understanding in my brain when I visited with my family a few years ago.  The Nazis didn’t cook up anti-Semitism in the 1930s—it was hundreds and hundreds of years in the making.  Passive cruelty and episodic violence were the norms.  Europe was so primed with anti-Semitism that it required just one particularly evil man to twist prejudice into holocaust.

Photos can't really capture this place. 

I’m not saying Donald Trump is plotting to murder all the groups he recklessly scapegoats.  But I am saying he is too cozy with authoritarian methods of exploiting fear and prejudice.  People like David Duke, Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, and cowardly grave vandals should not feel encouraged by the President of the United States.  But they do.

I’m still hopeful our nation's history has primed us to love and defend freedom.  But I fear this slippery slope we’re on.  I love you, America, but I don’t like you a whole lot right now.  We need to open our eyes to reality.  Democracy dies in darkness.

Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist: A Treatise on the Current Racial Tensions in America

FAKEOUT. I did consider writing such a treatise, but I cannot bear to be the bazillionth person to contribute preachy thoughts on race to the black hole that is the Internet.  I just loved the title too much to let it go.  Instead, allow me to be the bazillionth curmudgeon to examine the resurgent popularity of Pokemon.[1]

Perhaps you have heard of the latest fad, “Pokemon Go”.  If somehow you blessedly missed this, go outside and watch for the swarms of millennials[2] staring down at their phones.  More than the usual number are out-of-doors and they are all playing Pokemon Go.  The game has consumed the entire population of San Francisco[3].  As far as I understand, the goal is to catch virtual Pokemon—catch them all. After that…the end game is unclear. 

Back in our youth, Maureen, Patricia, and I enjoyed Pokemon.  We had the cards and played the various Gameboy[4] games, but our true love was Pokemon Snap on Nintendo 64.  Nothing tickled us quite like luring dozens of hungry, adorable Charmanders with apples.  And convincing Pikachu to surf?  We would melt with delight.

Such joyful creatures.

Precious.

So why doesn’t Pokemon Go resonate with me?  After all, it’s basically the “real-life” version of Pokemon Snap.  As a millennial, I ought to gobble up anything that feeds into my nostalgia for the nineties.[5]  And yet, it will not do.  My distaste for humans becoming solitary, screen-staring robots trumps[6] whatever I could like about the game.  Sure, it’s great that people are getting out and about, but they might as well be inside for all the looking around they’re doing.  They look up when the game tells them to look up.  If “augmented” reality is the future, I may consider becoming a hermit. 

I listened to an interview with David Schwimmer on a podcast today.  He thinks one of the reasons kids are watching Friends is that it’s a window to a time they’ve never known.  They have never seen six people sit in a coffee shop and talk.  Call me an old-fashioned grumpma, but I miss those days.  It’s funny to me that Pokemon Go is trying to evoke the nineties, but actually makes them feel much farther away.[7]

---

[1] This is still a treatise so there will be footnotes.

[2] My computer apparently is too old to recognize the correct spelling of “millennial”.

[3] Neither children nor old people inhabit this city.

[4] Join me next week for a discussion on how the sexist name “Gameboy” destroyed my game playing confidence as a woman.

[5] Make America great again, am I right?

[6] This word is ruined for me forever.

[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNoouLa7uxA

A special President's Day post.

Happy President’s Day to all.  Will and I had a wonderful long weekend (including a romantic Valentine’s Day trip to Costco).  Perhaps I will elaborate more on our weekend in my regular Wednesday post.  In this, my special President’s Day post, I would like to comment on the most recent Republican presidential candidate debate.  I am tempted to go candidate-by-candidate and write about my feelings (no, Ben Carson, I will not go to your website), but rather, I would like to focus on what I think was the most egregious statement of the debate*.  Very early on, Senator Marco Smooth Hair Rubio claimed, “the Constitution is not a living, breathing document—it is to be interpreted as originally meant.”  Ah yes, the founders really got it right the first time—such foresight on the women’s suffrage issue.  And that three-fifths compromise…pure gold, amirightMarco??  GARBAGE.

I am so sick of this trash “founding fathers’ intent” argument.  THE FOUNDERS WERE FALLIBLE HUMANS WHO DID NOT AGREE WITH EACH OTHER.  THERE WAS NOT ONE COMMON “INTENT”.  Almost as soon as the Constitution was ratified (which was a battle in itself—apparently the document was not yet glowing in the dark with its powers of infallibility), did the founding fathers start doing battle over how to interpret it.  Alexander Hamilton was stretching its meaning from the get-go, sending Thomas Jefferson and James Madison into conniptions.  (PS I highly recommend the Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow, and I really thought “conniptions” started with a ‘k’.)   And then there’s everyone getting their panties in a wad about “activist” justices on the Supreme Court.  “The founders did not intend this!!”  But what about John Marshall, the chief justice who transformed and empowered the Supreme Court?  The original activist justice!  What do you think he did every single time?  To pretend he didn’t have an agenda is naïve.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the Constitution.  I am amazed at much of the wisdom of the founding fathers.  The more I read about the founding of our country, the more I am in awe of what they accomplished.  I truly believe we have the best governmental system on earth—but that is because the Constitution IS elastic.  It was not engraved in stone.  It adapts to every age because its tenets are timeless.  Furthermore, the founders knew they were not perfect, so they built in the mechanism for amendments.  How do those fit in with your theory, Marco??

So on this President’s Day, I ask you, my gentle readers, to please be wary when you hear a modern politician profess to know and invoke the “intent” of the founding fathers.  That person usually needs a good punch in the face.

Happy President's Day from me and the boys.

*I am disqualifying all Donald Trump statements from the “most egregious” category because I am so goddamn sick of him and his terrible face/ego/yelling/tanning booth goggle tanlines.  If I were to include him, however, the prize would go to him attempting a serious comeback at Jeb (!) with: “Yeah?  Well, two days ago, you said you would pull your pants down and moon everyone in the audience!  But no one reported on that!”  Sometimes I like to pretend American politics is not a complete cat circus, but this sort of thing makes it very difficult.

The wonders of Muni.

(I had wanted to avoid writing this post, but the universe conspired against all of us this morning and I am now compelled to write it.  Forgive my sass.)

You know what really grinds my gears?

Inane people on Muni in the morning. 

Does your morning commute need more adults behaving like children?  Come to San Francisco and have your fill.  Perhaps you’ll witness a dramatic businessman yell at and physically block a mother from exiting the train after her running four-year-old.  Maybe, when another woman tries to help the mother, you’ll hear the man accuse her of hitting him.  You may even hear him loudly call her a bitch—all before eight o’clock!

Grown men throwing fits not your cup of tea?  Would you rather feel like the only sane person in a mental institution?  Muni can help you out here too.  A half full train will regularly leave behind a platform full of people because no one can board the train.  Why can’t they board, you ask?  The people on the train don’t seem to understand that they don’t have to stand directly in front of the door.  Here’s where you get to feel like you’re stuck in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: ask people to move so you can get in.  First try asking the general group: “Can we make some room?  Will you all move in please?”  You’ll get blank stares, perhaps a shrug, and zero movement.  You’ll probably have to stay on the platform for this one.  When the next train pulls up, single out just one of the offenders.  Use your go-go-gadget arms to reach inside the car and tap the shoulder of the guy who has room for three people to do the Macarena next to him.  Politely point to all that space and ask him to move over.  Oh darn, no can do—he tells you he prefers to stand by the pole.  How about you try the average-height girl next to him?  “Miss, can you please move in?”  Strike two, she shrugs and lamely mimes that she can’t reach the overhead bars (she can).  You know the doors are going to close soon, but you are resolved not to miss this train.  Time to barge through.  Miracle of miracles—there’s room for you and the flood of people from the platform behind you.  But, you accidentally bump the average-height girl with your backpack as you squeeze by her. “Um, take off your backpack?  It’s proper etiquette,” she informs you.  It will be very difficult, but limit your response to an incredulous scoff.  You’ll do better than I did.

These displays of absurdity do not even include the ACTUAL crazy people of Muni, of which there are plenty.  One of them might tell you that she is your super brain, but not your super head.  Another may just sit in a corner and twitch.  These people can’t induce rage, however.  Save that for your supposedly sane brethren who are trying to get to work, just like you.

“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

Sad day.

Friends, I am depressed tonight.  This will be a short post.

1)    I did not win Powerball.

2)    Will and I just finished watching Making a Murderer on Netflix.  Spoiler alert—you will lose faith in the criminal justice system and never want to set foot in Wisconsin.  I kind of want to change careers and become a defense attorney.  Ken Kratz, you are one slimy son of a bitch. 

I was planning on writing a “Grinds My Gears” post about my morning commute, but after that last episode/entire show wreaked havoc on my faith in that "innocent until proven guilty" thing, I just don’t have the heart.  Maybe next time.  Speaking of heart…

My heroes.