The Texas Abortion Law Is A Blueprint For Republican Tyranny

[Celerity]

This bounty hunter law, if allowed to stand, will allow Republicans to reshape America in their image in every conceivable detail.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/the-texas-abortion-law-is-a-blueprint



If you are not angry about the Texas abortion law, you should be. If you’re not furious at the Republican extremists on the Supreme Court for allowing it to go into effect, you should be. If you’re not absolutely terrified about the larger ramifications of the type of law used to strip women of their constitutional rights, you, like most of the press, do not understand how depraved the Republican Party is. This bounty hunter law, if allowed to stand, will allow Republicans to reshape America in their image in every conceivable detail. If this law becomes normalized, it will become the blueprint for Republican tyranny. This is no more an exaggeration than Hillary Clinton’s warning that Trump would appoint enough extremists to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Law Gives The Judiciary Ultimate Power By Taking It Away

Vox has a very detailed explanation of how this law works which is worth reading in full, but the basics are as follows. The federal and state governments have something called “sovereign immunity”. This means the public cannot sue them unless they allow us to. There are caveats though, and this immunity is not absolute. We can sue the people in the government who enforce the law. Not Jane or John Doe the government employee personally, but their agency/office/position. We sue the Attorney General or the DMV or the IRS. Thus, laws passed by the legislative branch (federal or state) are subject to review by the judiciary to see if they are constitutional before they go into effect. The Texas law “gets around” this by handing off enforcement to anyone except a government employee (in this case, a Texas state government employee because it’s a Texas state law). If no one in the government is enforcing the law, the legal theory goes, there is no one to sue in order for the courts to rule on its constitutionality.

The law can still be challenged when the bounty hunter lawsuits are filed but a single person or organization can be hit with an unlimited number of lawsuits given anyone can sue them. They’ll have to fight every single case and if they lose even once, they can be ordered to pay anything from $10,000 (the minimum) up to Jeff Bezo’s annual earnings if the judge is one of the hundreds of anti-abortion extremists Republicans have placed on the bench. Even if the defendant wins them all, the cost of the multiple lawsuits will be astronomical. Which is precisely the point. You don’t dare risk it so the constitutionally protected medical procedure of abortion becomes a fugitive act that can destroy your life if you are caught. And the courts are powerless to stop it. The law allegedly takes away the power of the courts to review an unconstitutional law before it’s enacted. How, then, is it giving them ultimate power? It seems quite clear that the Republicans on the Supreme Court are more than ready to let this law stand as “constitutional” if it manages to reach them through the normal process of litigation. What comes next is a dark path to real tyranny.

Picking And Choosing (Republican) Winners

During the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, Republicans discovered that without a massive national tragedy, passing their legislative agenda beyond tax cuts was almost impossible. They could launch wars based on lies, unconstitutionally spy on Americans, and illegally torture people but they couldn’t privatize Social Security, a longtime Republican goal. During Trump’s tenure, they passed more tax cuts but couldn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act. At least Social Security had been in place for decades and enjoyed the benefit of incumbency, so to speak. The ACA was barely a decade old and Republicans slammed into a brick wall. Legislating is hard. Having extremist judges strike down laws and rewrite the legal code, on the other hand, is really easy. That is what Republicans have been working on for decades now. With a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and 5 wild radicals as Justices, it is time to reshape the country. That is where the Texas law comes in. By allowing this law to ban a constitutionally protected right and pretending the law itself is “out of their hands”, the extremists on the Court have cleared the way for Republicans to ban anything they want. Remember, the right is not truly defined by the things they want to do. They are defined by the things they want to take away from others. Should this law stand and be normalized, there is nothing to stop Republicans from expanding it to outlaw every form of contraceptive, another longtime goal of theirs.

After that, the sky is the limit. How many teachers will risk a $10,000 lawsuit for teaching evolution in the classroom? How many will risk it by saying the Civil War was fought over slavery? Hey, that gay couple over there are holding hands in public. That’s a $10,000 lawsuit. Black Lives Matter protesters are gathering to complain about police brutality? Get their names. A $10,000 lawsuit for each. Hey, look over there! Those people are registering Blacks and Latinos to vote! $10,000 lawsuit for you, you, and you! If this sounds implausible to you, I would ask you why. Is it because people wouldn’t stand for it? Or that Republicans would never go that far? Republicans have passed laws to make it legal to run over BLM protesters. They have passed laws to make it all but illegal to register voters. They have never stopped waging a war on LGBTQ rights. Republicans attempted to overthrow the government just eight months ago. Exactly where do you think the line is for Republicans? Let me assure you: they do not have one. Once this kind of law is incorporated into our legal system, Republicans will use it to ban everything they loathe. They will use the courts to win the culture wars they always lose. Lest you look for the silver lining that Democrats can use this scheme to ban things like guns and voter suppression, this is where the full extent of the judicial tyranny comes into view.

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[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. What will be next? A National Religion? But which one?

Christianity is not a religion. It is a belief of the words and acts of Jesus Christ.

Being a Roman Catholic is. The Reformation of the early 16th century saw to Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinism. Then into the 17th century, there branched Methodists and Presbyterian, and Baptists. Those are religions

There have been Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, since before that. Those are religions too.

So what are Republicans to decide on?