In yesterday’s video, I cited male SCOTUS judges informing us they weren’t interested in the current case before them but about “the future.”
Disdain—a “value” everywhere cherished by Patriarchy– is everywhere in SCOTUS’s pontificating.
Webster’s defines “disdain” as “a feeling of contempt for what is beneath one. Scorn.” (“Arrogance” also defines disdain.)
This SCOTUS sees everyone as beneath them and displays disdain frequently. Let us begin to count the ways:
Disdain for basic judicial ethics, i. e. recusing yourself when you have an obvious conflict of interest. Justice Clarence Thomas thinks it is just fine and dandy to stay on the bench to pontificate on presidential immunity concerning January 6—even though his activist wife was present and cheering on Trump’s speech that set the riot on motion and wrote emails to his chief of staff urging him on. (The same chief of staff is under indictment in numerous courts for his role in the sordid affair).
Disdain for rules of taking bribes from billionaires, with Thomas taking such gifts as a quarter million-dollar motorhome; a home for his mother; education for his child; luxury trips to luxury resorts, etc.; and other gifts from billionaires to Justice Alito as well.
Disdain for voters contemplating an upcoming presidential election. Voters have the right to learn the full truth behind the January 6 insurrection before they cast a vote. To postpone Trump’s trial where the facts can come out is arrogance and scorn at its worst.
Disdain for women. Ending Roe vs Wade and turning one’s back on the terror and pain it has caused to pregnant girls and women everywhere constitutes pure misogyny. And unleashing fear on doctors by threatening them with jail for doing their job assisting pregnant women is also misogynistic. (As if America has a surplus of doctors and no one will notice if they go off to jail.)
Disdain for the rule of law.
Disdain for the constitution which never talks of immunity for presidents (that was for kings and fresh in the minds of those who wrote the constitution after all).
Disdain for the separation of church and state.
Disdain for democracy, defined by the first Republican president as “government of, by and for the people.”
To be continued.
See “Arrogance” in Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 185, 198f., 202-206, 218, 225, 232, 259-261, 307.
Banner Image: Clarence Thomas: “Face of the Republican Party” Image by Jeff Gates on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you sense disdain and scorn along with arrogance and patriarchal privilege in the decisions and attitudes of at least four men on the current “supreme” court? How omnipresent is disdain and scorn in politics today? How move beyond it?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
4 thoughts on “The Triumph of Disdain: Patriarchy & the Boys at SCOTUS”
Eliminate SCOTUS immunity to start. No gifts just salary not unlike law enforcement. They all need to follow the ‘highest’ of standards if they are chosen to uphold the ‘highest’ of laws for all, regardless of wealth, gender, race, age, social standing and citizen status. — BB.
YES! YES! In answer to the first two questions. Patriarchy, racism, and ignorance are alive and continue to thrive in our ‘Supreme’ Court along with many other patriarchal institutions such as the Republican Party in the US, and our unjust capitalistic fossil based businesses and governments around the world. Spiritual values of Love, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Compassion… are always being challenged, especially by Truth/Justice social leaders, Indigenous peoples, and the young around the world trying to compassionately save our Sacred Mother Earth, Her essential graceful abundance, and All Her living creatures, including our own human species, in our hearts/Souls and daily actions with one another and the support of spiritual beings & angels….
— D. Maureira
Disdain and scorn rule politics today. It must change. Do what you can in local and state government to start, and as Sue Safford said yesterday vote, and most of all, PRAY, and as one noble deceased statesmen used to say ‘make a little good trouble’
The older I get, the more biblical references are so appropriate to these parlous times: Psalm 1 in the old words: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful…..” I wish SCOTUS would take these words to heart. They most likely will not. The Psalm ends with hope, but that does not take away our responsibility to act.