The New Normal (for now) of the SCOTUS
The Chicago Cubs world championship drought lasted 71 years. For conservatives to celebrate SCOTUS decisions beginning with 2022, it seems longer…there is still work to be done, however.
Huh…now that it can be applied to the current United States Supreme Court, the expression, ‘the new normal’ isn’t being used in the media propaganda.
With all due respect, President-on-lease-to-China Biden, this is a normal court – for now, anyway.
The difference of course, is that the number of justices who, for the moment, are more like the late Justice Scalia is greater than the ones who are more like Chief Justice Earl Warren.
For any readers who might be of a more leftist orientation, allow me to offer you this ray of hope: if history and human nature are any indication, you can expect Justice Kavanaugh to eventually side with the liberal justices, or at the very least, prove to be a most unreliable conservative voice and vote – and if not he, then Coney Barrett.
For conservatives, we’ve come to expect it – it happened with Justice Kennedy; before him, David Souter; and before him, Sandra Day O’Connor. One of the reasons conservatives so admire Justices Thomas, and Alito is because they have remained staunch constitutional originalists – Gorsuch may prove to uphold the constitution in the manner of Scalia, but only time will tell.
In the unlikely event that you are unaware, dear reader, of what transpired on Thursday of last week,
the United States Supreme Court continued the reclamation of its reputation and return to constitutional originalism by handing down a decision that overturns decades of institutional racism practiced by colleges and universities and sanctioned by the federal government1.
Ironically, those who claim to be social-justice and anti-racism warriors are the ones most incensed over it.
As I posted in the comments on Sasha Stone’s post,
RFK, Jr.'s tweet should disabuse anyone of the notion that he was anything but an old-school Democrat – his views on vaccines notwithstanding.
The reason why, one might imagine, is now that affirmative action has fallen vis-à-vis university and college admissions criteria, there’s no telling where it might next be struck down.
Despite the ruling, colleges and universities will continue current practices, because ignoring this decision carries no consequence. The left and its institutions only recognize the authority of the SCOTUS when it benefits their ends, and this is but one symptom of a much larger problem.
Ignoring the ruling by SCOTUS (on the false grounds that the court is illegitimate because it is no longer owned by the left) allows white liberal presidents, deans, and regents of almost every university and college the luxury of believing the lie that every black man, woman, and child needs wealthy, white liberals in order to be accepted and to participate in society at large – but especially in higher education – as demonstrated by RFK, Jr.’s tweet.
Such a mentality is one of a modern-day plantation owner that prefers blacks to be dependent on white liberal charity. Sadly, there are far too many black folks who are not only comfortable with this type of relationship, but they dutifully do their part to preserve it. That’s just one reason the left can’t tolerate Justice Clarence Thomas – his ascension to the land’s highest court is proof that white liberal charity is unnecessary in spite of an uneven playing field that puts any motivated black man at a distinct disadvantage.
The Kenyan Light Bringer, on the other hand, is the product of white liberals’ design for every black people – to know their place, and be grateful to the white liberals for it – regardless if it’s public housing projects, gang-infested and crime-ridden “neighbourhoods” in the middle of turf wars, and for a select few, plum placements in the administrative state: the pentagon, intelligence community, congress. To the white liberals, that’s where it has been determined you belong and you will be grateful to them for it.
Whenever the federal government acts to mitigate an injustice (real or perceived), said injustice is only exacerbated and the correction proves to be more harmful than that it was intended to rectify. Examples? Prohibition, Affirmative Action, the War on Drugs. In SCOTUS finding for the plaintiffs, just one node of the metastatic cancer of leftism has been excised – the cancer remains an existential threat to the nation.
For this reason, I prefer a more comprehensive approach.
First though, let’s understand the enormity of the task before us and recognize an unpleasant fact:
Wealth destroys respect, and excessive wealth destroys respect excessively (the exception to this rule is H. Ross Perot).
“I'm in the high-fidelity first-class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet”
The inequitable privileges and advantages that are derived from excessive wealth are as established and constant as the firmness of the earth, so attempting to make it “fair” is a fool's errand.
Those who attain such (regardless of how humble their roots, and of how well they’ve been served by possessing the protestant work ethic), inevitably realize that their wealth enables them to exert influence, and gain access to corridors of power they never dreamed would be open to them. They find that representatives, senators, and other highly placed members of the Political Class are a bargain.
Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates did not come from humble beginnings – Bezos had connections to the Political Class at an early age, and Gates’ father was a rather high-profile attorney, and his mother served on the board of directors of First Interstate BancSystem as well as the local chapter of the United Way – not exactly obscure2.
Just to be clear, both Bezos and Gates were possessed of smarts – in Bezos’ case, one doesn’t graduate from Princeton with bachelor’s degrees in Electirical Engineering and Computer Science by being lucky – though, I would argue that those degrees would be more impressive had they been earned at MIT. Gates attended (but didn’t graduate from) Harvard – but then, his background is decidedly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant3.
An enterprise that achieves a certain economy of scale is able to eliminate competitors through leveraging the power of the regulatory state, local legislatures, and congress. Similarly, the newly excessively wealthy man finds he now lives in a completely different world – one of very rarified air – and he is now in a position to attempt to effect the future he envisions. Suddenly, he thinks he’s Noah Cross.
…until the 00:40:00 mark.
Thankfully, the same doesn’t seem to hold true of the heirs, for the most part. Recipients of outrageous fortunes, be it an inheritance, or winning the Power Ball lottery – seem to be prone to pissing it away – so common is this phenomenon it is almost cliché. The rather dubious exceptions, of course, are this nation’s political “dynasties” – the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Browns/Pelosis/Gettys, et al. They exist in each state, as well. Texas is cursed with having to claim HW, W, and George P.
Levity alert: the character of Charlie Mackenzie’s father has his own take on the worldwide cabal of dynasties controlling global events.
The players may be different, but he could just as well be referring to Claus Schwab and his fellow robber barons of the World Economic Forum.
I digress, however.
These now ultra-wealthy individuals, having purchased entry into the company of the Moneyed Class, will seek to preserve their new status in the Cool Kids clique, the “In” crowd. They will leverage laws and institutions to benefit themselves, their enterprises and foundations; and their progeny, who will attend the Ivy League school of their choice, or on the highly unlikely event that not even they can gain access to those august and hallowed halls, they’ll attend Fordham, Holy Cross, Columbia, or Stanford.
Despite lacking the pedigree, they will preserve their almost-elite status at the expense of others through diminished or lesser quality opportunities for those who matriculated from state schools (even relatively prestigious ones like the University of Michigan or Penn State), or decidedly Christian institutions such as Liberty, or Bob Jones University.
As a graduate of a third-tier state school, I know for a fact that for someone holding a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Accounting from Governor’s State University in Illinois, the entry-level job at Citi or JP Morgan Chase is not the same as that for one with the exact same credentials from Princeton, Harvard, or Yale, and even then that “entry-level” job at Goldman-Sachs is not the same for someone whose surname is not Kennedy, Bush, or Clinton. To quote the character of John Keating in the film, Dead Poets Society,
‘Twas always thus, and always thus, ‘twill be4
– it’s a condition to which the rest of us must adapt.
Let’s marshal our resources toward ends that may be more achievable.
Let’s allow for the full breadth of the first amendment's protection of freedom of assembly to include skin color and ethnicity. Even without the Civil Rrights Act of 1964, most people find such outward and brazen expressions of bigotry and racism to be repugnant, so we should let such people "out" themselves and face whatever consequences follow. We might find what we’ve always suspected – that all of us are bigoted in one way or another and to varying degrees. Once that is out in the open and we can accept each other in spite of it, the accusation of, “Racist!” will be rendered powerless.
Though, if we really wish to slay the hydra, we ought to consider what J.D Vance has to say in his address to those in attendance at an event sponsored and hosted by The Claremont Institute in 2021:
‘All across our country we have non-profits – big foundations that are effectively social-justice hedge funds. The Ford Foundation has 14 billion dollars in assets under management [and] its leadership is serving on many of our corporate boards, and of course, [many members of] the corporate boards of our biggest companies are serving as the leadership of the Ford Foundation. They're investing in the racial division all across our country. They're invested in all of the progressive social causes of the moment. [It is] one of the biggest investors the Black Lives Matter movement that destroyed many of our towns and cities last summer.
One of the biggest capital allocators in the world is that woke social-justice hedge fund known as Harvard University, which has over 120 billion dollars under management, which funds some of the most destructive ideologies all across our country, which literally trains the next generation of priests in the woke seminary that's dominating our professional class. That university's endowment pays not a dollar of tax, it has no obligation to draw down the principle – it is literally ammunition for the left and we, through our public policy, have given that endowment more power.’
Given this:
Our public policy has enriched and prioritized the foundations and the non-profits that are destroying our country.
There needs to be a complete legislative overhaul of the Donor Economy, and this is not as heavy a lift as one might think. It was this nation’s public policy that resulted in the legislation that enabled the Donor Economy to flourish, it ought to be this nation’s public policy that all but shuts it down. Were I in a position to act accordingly, I’d be inclined to draft legislation that achieves the following:
Levies a dispropotionately punitive tax on the endowment when the donation is made, and on the foundation and/or university when it is recv'd – this is not unprecedented, by the way – any business is taxed on wages paid to employees, and the employee is taxed on the wages received as income. The federal government has been double-dipping on the same monies for decades, now.
at the 00:45:00 mark
Additionally, the same disproportionately punitive tax levied on the market value of those assets under its management, and further requires by law that each institution draw down the remaining principal to $0 by the end of the fiscal year, each year going forward.
Makes it illegal for one who serves on a corporation’s or a foundation’s board of directors, or a university’s board of regents to be paid for doing so – either by said institution or by one’s primary employer. A directorship on any corporation’s and/or not-for-profit organization’s board of directors must be one hundred percent voluntary.
At the risk of overreaching, includes measures to outlaw DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) initiatives in corporate HR departments and education, and excessively harsh penalties for corporations that make ESG initiatives a priority.
Even if it were to be enacted into law, there’s no legislating moral and ethical behaviour – but if the playing field can be made more level through the elimination of regulations that protect the largest enterprises from competition, perhaps there is a better chance of allowing something more akin to a meritocracy to emerge and flourish.
Lest anyone fear that ours becomes one that is cut-throat and dog-eat-dog, let me point out that to a large degree, that describes the nature of our most competitive industries and institutions, already – further, that is not inherently bad because as dismal as is the state of our economy, it is not a zero-sum prospect. One can swim with the sharks and not be eaten alive.
I still believe that many who are blessed with prosperity, material wealth, or influence, have a sincere, if not entirely honest desire to help others less so (the small, petty, selfish sons and daughters of wealthy parents described above notwithstanding).
Whether the motivation to do so is altruistic or selfish is less important than that such assistance (grants, private low-interest loans, apprenticeships) is available.
Doing right is still doing right, regardless of the reason.
Thank you, dear reader, for your time and your indulgence.
I agree with you entirely that we need to rewrite the tax laws governing the "Donor Economy" as you put it. We also need to rewrite the tax laws so that you cannot make a tax deductible donation to a nonprofit you control.
Really nice piece.