DOBBS vs. ROE v. WADE

A quick word search for “Ninth Amendment” on the DOBBS case, which overturned ROE v. WADE, yielded no results among the dissenters. The 9th Amendment, part of the “supreme Law of the Land,” per Article VI in the Constitution itself (unconditionally ratified by ALL states), recites as follows:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

So the Ninth Amendment was NOT cited by the dissenters (Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer) ANYWHERE! THAT is utter incompetence on their part, as far as I am concerned. Samuel Alito’s Opinion in DOBBS makes much of the fact that the US Supreme Court has, in years past, drawn a distinction between “rights” that are deemed “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition” and whether or not they are “fundamental to our 'scheme of ordered liberty,’" as opposed to those pesky “rights” that certain undesirables insist on asserting but which don’t, in fact, exist in Alito’s fevered brain. He is particularly critical of those who insist that the expansive “rights” of the Ninth Amendment are further reinforced by being incorporated by the post-Civil-War 14th Amendment, thus being applicable to the States.

For example, Alito says:

In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to “liberty,” we [who?] must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy. That is why the Court has long been “reluctant” to recognize rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992). “Substantive due process has at times been a treacherous field for this Court,” Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion), and it has sometimes led the Court to usurp authority that the Constitution entrusts to the people’s elected representatives. See Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 225–226 (1985).

This recitation seems to refute the plain language of the 9th Amendment! AND, it appears to presume our ready “confusion” desperately in need of Justice Alito’s generous clarifications! 

Practically speaking, the Supreme Court DOES have to go along with the actual language of the Constitution, but it’s a blatant violation of the justices' straightforward individual oaths to support the Constitution if they choose to ignore that plain language by using legislative approval (“the people’s elected representatives”) as a fabricated screen for enforcement of ALL our rights. The very existence of our RIGHTS should not EVER depend on our “elected representatives"! Who in the Hell do they think they are?

Ailto’s ludicrous Opinion draws on a lot of very ancient history, much of it written back when slavery was still legal, and on a lot of British theory, against whom we fought a Revolutionary War to escape their tyranny! Not only is Alito WRONG, he’s boring as Hell! Blahblahblah.

So, as far as I am concerned, the RIGHT to exclusively control our own bodies (male or female) and all parts thereof (including NON-viable fetuses—NOT merely “a woman’s right to choose") is STILL VALID, up until there is a fetal life that can exist on its own as a legal “person” separate from its mother (“viability”). Alito obviously takes great delight in disparaging the concept of fetal “viability” as a legal “fulcrum.” Sadly, but ONLY for the time being, our Supreme Court is not going to enforce those rights. But Alito and the rest of his thuggish “Gang of Six” cannot EVER take our rights away. And one day they will all be D-E-A-D! EVERY one of them!

Many may dismiss these opinions as those of a non-scholar of constitutional history. Howver, I can read plain English.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

 Listen—and watch:

<BR-R-R-RT!! (br-r-r-rt.) BR-R-R-RT! (br-r-r-rt.) BR-R-R-RT! (br-r-r-rt.)>

A cacophony of procreative insistence.

(No point in creating resistance.)

Bullfrog’s strong and comely daughter

Lays her eggs in the water.

(Thank you, Ira Gershwin.)

Suitor’s milt soon to descend upon those eggs,

Lying among the dregs

On the bottom—Got ‘em!

Tadpoles will then soon emerge

To morph into new generations. 

Said new frogs will then surge

Upon the shore’s penetrations. 

All over again.

New fireflies, floating in the dark,

Blinking urgently;

Emergent. See?

Seeking mates, full of hope,

But some must bear a big fat “Nope.”

NATURE’S choices—randomly.

Wins and losses—and, you’ll see

How probably it works for each of us,

Regardless of a prayerful fuss.

Sadly, we embrace likely truths

That our legacies depend upon the tooths

We sink into rivals’ flesh,

While we seek mates with whom to mesh.

So it must be.

© 5/6/2024

All rights reserved.

DICK-TATER IN CHIEF

 

QUANTUM MECHANICS & RELIGION

One of the things most Christians have been taught since childhood is that “God works in mysterious ways,” so there’s no point in questioning the seeming lack of “logic” in whatever happens, like innocent babies born with AIDS or fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction. Or why little children get bombed and maimed.

Bad things DO happen to good (& innocent) people. One may blame the “Devil” or God or whatever, but the all-powerful creator-deity of choice seems just too busy to deal with it all.

Or, HE may have a “higher purpose” in mind.

OR, he’s just a demented prick who likes seeing HIS people suffer! Whatever.

The main point is that the creator-deity’s “mysterious ways” make no sense to our logical thinking. And, neither does “quantum mechanics,” the way in which sub-atomic particles (like protons, electrons, gluons, etc.) behave utterly contrary to our “common sense.” Where maybe even TIME runs backward when messing around with “positrons,” which are positively charged antimatter “electrons” whirling around a negatively charged atomic nucleus! Supposedly, that has all been calculated mathematically, illustrated by the so-called “Feynman Diagrams” showing the interaction of electrons (tiny particles of matter) colliding with photons (electromagnetic energy particles), as developed by the late Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, who was a professor of physics at Cal-Tech in Pasadena.

WHEW! WAY over my pay grade! Feynman, a non-drinker, liked to ride around Pasadena at night in his Dodge van, decorated with his Diagrams, and hang out in bars, playing his bongo drums with the local bands. Can I get a witness?

  One just has to ASSUME that theoretical physicists (like Feynman) know what they are talking about, so just have “faith” that the sub-atomic world exists in that way. That seems almost like a “religious” experience to me. One must just have “faith” that things work those ways in the sub-atomic world. On top of all that, in the quantum world, the behavior of sub-atomic particles is said to be determinable by “probability,” in that the determination of particle motion and particle position are mutually exclusive (the “Uncertainty Principle” developed by German physicist Werner Heisenberg), by “guesswork,” such that the more one determines or measures the particle position, the less certain the particle motion, and vice-versa. Strange ways, indeed!

“Science” has been defined as anything that can be DIS-proven. Religious matters defy “proof” of any sort, but “science” is ALWAYS subject to further revelation or revision, as more is learned. Even the “theory” of gravity is open to question, but not likely in the way alleged “creationists” might be inclined to so do. Sub-atomic particles do, indeed, behave in strange ways, and one must be open to accepting those weird ways and not try to shoehorn them through the venturi of “common sense.” That is, of course, my pathetic oversimplification of the phenomenon but as the gal said, when asked about the “future” on “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus” by the Firesign Theatre comedy group, “I say, ‘Live it, or live with it!’”

For years physicists have been trying to mathematically unify the four fundamental forces in the Universe: (1) Electromagnetism, (2) the Strong Nuclear Force (keeping the atomic nucleus bound together), (3) the Weak Nuclear Force (controlling atomic decay—atom-splitting), and (4) Gravity. Sub-atomic particles seem to define the first three, but I understand that only gravity remains a mystery. Albert Einstein’s “General Theory of Relativity” addresses some of that, and he spent his lifetime wrestling (mostly unsuccessfully) with understanding the mechanics of gravity. It defies definition and “connection” to this day. All matter (mass) seems to exhibit gravity, but nobody really knows how it works. It WILL bend light waves (pure energy), which have no mass at all! Einstein called gravity a “warp in space-time,” much like a bowling ball being held in a big blanket, sucking everything else in the space-time “blanket” down to it. I have no clue how that really works.

Einstein mostly rejected those “probabilities” of quantum mechanics, given his famous quote about how “God does not play dice with the Universe.” For years physicists have tried to integrate gravity with quantum mechanics, but now some physicists are suggesting that gravity operates as “classical physics” and may not belong to the quantum “club” at all. It continues to defy definition.

The sub-atomic world is illustrated by the phenomenon known as the “Standard Model,” which seeks to show sort of a balance among all the various particles. I found the following chart on Wikipedia:

    I don’t know if the “balance” has been truly satisfied, since it appears from the chart that three more particles need to be included in the “Scalar Bosons” column along with the “Higgs Boson,” sometimes referred to as the “God Particle.” It is named after Peter Higgs, the Nobel Laureate who discovered it at the CERN particle accelerator in 2012, and the late Leon Lederman was the Nobel Laureate who had given it the nickname in the 1990’s. He wrote a delightful, funny book by the same name. And there may be even more particles yet to be discovered, so the chart may never get truly completed, as some physicists believe.

[As an aside, in his novel Mason and Dixon, about the 18th-century British surveyors who ran the eponymous southern boundary of Pennsylvania and the western boundary of Delaware, as they adjoin Maryland, the author Thomas Pynchon opens with Mason sailing on a ship to the South Pacific to observe a total eclipse of the sun. I love the fact that the “boatswain” (pronounced “bosun”) crew member on board is named “Higgs”! Coincidence?]

It was hoped that the Higgs boson would illustrate some sort of mathematical “connection” of gravity to the other three fundamental forces, but I don’t think that’s been shown (yet). We must all just wait and see.

______________________________ 

THE (futile) PURSUIT OF HAPPY-NESS

  What is “happiness”? 

Whatever that means.

I have no clue! I have a prodigious, “sticky” memory, going back almost to infancy, but I simply cannot remember when I ever felt what might be declared as “happy.” I have variously personally felt or experienced hatred, anger, fear, dread, jealousy, envy, indifference, meanness, bigotry, stupidity, depression, offense, umbrage, embarrassment, perhaps other negative emotions; even guilt. But I cannot describe a time when I felt generally “happy.” It is obviously subjective, but I suspect that all those negative emotions have punctuated other moments of good feelings for most others.

I have also experienced much pleasure, gratification, satisfaction, love, gratitude, respect, admiration, fun, mirth, amusement, triumph and pride, among other such emotions. I am truly grateful for all those experiences, but that’s the best I can do. It hasn’t been all bad.

Our culture seems to INSIST on our being “happy”; seemingly insisting on some sort of personal duty to be “happy.” Or else. We are so hammered with that notion that “guilt” is the likely (intended?) result, for failing to somehow measure up. That stuff is simply not possible for me. I certainly don’t speak for anyone else. There may be others who truly feel and declare their “happy-ness,” but I suspect they are just witless idiots who CHOOSE to ignore the serious things happening in our culture, especially to others. Yet those who do ignore those unpleasantries happening to others may well feel truly happy! What—me worry? I can’t do that.

It figures the Germans would come up with the word for what I suspect is a common emotion: schadenfreude—literally translated as “sadness-joy.” Taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. I have surely felt that emotion, too, from time to time. Is that a component of “happiness”?

In the Declaration of Independence, it is written that we colonists in rebellion are entitled to the “pursuit of Happiness.” But there is no guarantee we’ll ever catch it! We are not guaranteed “happiness”; only the right to chase after it. I’m tired of running after it. I’m 77 years old now, and I just can’t run anymore. I have had a very INTERESTING life, for which I am most grateful. It was punctuated by all sorts of emotions—some good, some bad. I tried to learn from most of it. But it was not what I would call “happy.” It just was.

And I suspect (regardless of what others may think) that most of us are in the same boat. We choose what to remember and what to forget. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not able to forget much. I feel cursed with that “sticky” memory, even though I have a “sieve” for a brain when it comes to remembering names! I even addressed my second wife by my first wife’s name, more than once! Duh. Thankfully, she just laughed. I thought I felt some degree of “happiness” with each of my wives. They were beautiful, honest, intelligent people, and I foolishly alienated both of them and, sadly, the marriages ended, to my everlasting shame. But I cannot be anything other than what I am. After 13 years, they each tired of the emotional “rollercoaster ride” and left. I have never blamed either of them. I just don’t deserve to be “married.” I can live with that. Thankfully, I remain mildly friendly with both of them.

So, there is a lot out there that might “get” to us, one way or the other. I think we should take pleasure, etc. wherever and whenever we can find it. And savor it, and HOPE that things will eventually get better, while we pathetically wallow in our miseries.