Unjust, unrepresentative government is the greatest threat to our society — not spittle
Neil Gorsuch is very worried. America is in “civility crisis,” he writes in his new book.
“Without civility, the bonds of friendship in our communities dissolve, tolerance dissipates, and the pressure to impose order and uniformity through public and private coercion mounts,” he writes.
Gorsuch isn’t worried that his seat is stolen. Nor does it bother him that he was appointed by the biggest popular vote loser elected in 140 years. A man whose election required the help of foreign powers and the violation of multiple campaign finance laws. He isn’t worried that this president represents a party that disenfranchises black voters with “almost surgical precision.” Gorsuch isn’t worried that this president has violated the Constitution’s prohibition against emoluments since the moment he took office, and members of his cabinet are completely in on the scam.
So what’s he worried about?
Kids in cages? Kids with life-threatening diseases being deported? Kids being kicked off school lunches as the rich are about to get an illegal tax cut?
Nope.
He’s worried about spittle.
“Do not speak so closely to another person with such enthusiasm that you bedew the other man with your spittle” is a rule of “civility” he likes.
Civility, to Gorsuch, is just another word for being calm and fake so the people who have looted us for decades while destroying the planet don’t have to worry about loud voices while they’re grabbing some Mexican food.
In this vision of “civility,” you should be allowed to intentionally immiserate millions because you care about the deficit during a recession and then blow up the deficit during a boom and still be praised as a deficit hawk. You should be allowed to grab pussies, cheat on your wives and kidnap thousands of kids and still pretend that you care about religion.
In return, we’re suppose to be kind and placating to Republicans who cling to power despite winning fewer votes or losing elections or tricking Democratic state legislators into thinking they could attend a 9/11 memorial so the Republicans can overturn the veto of a duly elected governor, whom they’ve routinely robbed of his most basic powers.
Excuse my spittle, but I have a different definition of civility.
I don’t think you should jam your penis in women’s faces or hands and then lie about doing so in your Supreme Court confirmation hearing. I don’t think you should steal a Supreme Court appointment from the first president in more than half a century to be elected twice with more than 51% of the vote and give it to the most obviously corrupt and dubiously elected president in American history. And you shouldn’t act as an enabler to this corruption by empowering that president who has never come close to representing even half of America to effectively ban a religion and shut down the sort of asylum seeking that led to the founding of this nation.
Gorsuch could make a remarkable statement for civility, real civility that shows respect for the laws and institutions that make our freedom possible, by retiring. And if he wanted to be remembered forever as our greatest champion of civility, he could take Brett Kavanaugh with him.
[Image via Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States]
