Do we really want to get into an escalating contest of who can better intimidate the other side’s judges and officeholders?
Do we really want to get into an escalating contest of who can better intimidate the other side’s judges and officeholders?
I f the leaker of the Alito opinion wanted to initiate an unprecedented pressure campaign against the justices who might vote to overturn Roe, it’s mission accomplished.
Over the weekend, protesters showed up at the homes of justices, targeting Brett Kavanaugh and — ignorantly given that he’s evidently not part of a prospective majority — John Roberts.
This is a shameful further step down for our political culture, which wasn’t particularly elevated to begin with. It is a deeply illiberal act that adds an element of menace to the deliberations of a body that is supposed to be above the fray and not subject to physical threats.
If we continue down this path of perdition, it will tear at our status as a nation of laws and further derange our public life, with consequences no one can predict. It’s up to all people of goodwill to condemn these demonstrations, yet the White House pointedly refused to discourage them in a shocking betrayal of its duty to good order and lawfulness.
These weren’t run-of-the-mill protests. No one doubts that demonstrations have an important role in showing popular support for, or passion around, a given cause. No, these protests were — and were meant to be — threatening.
There’s no reason to go to the homes of the justices unless it is to send the message that people outraged by their prospective decision know where they and their families live. In other words, to the justice who dares say that Roe and Casey have no constitutional basis: Beware.
Intimidation is always wrong in a democratic republic and nation of laws. It substitutes the threat of force for the democratic will as refined by our representative institutions and seeks to short-circuit reasoned deliberation.
It is especially egregious when aimed at the members of a judicial body, charged with neutrally interpreting the law.
As Allahpundit of Hot Air points out, it is also illegal under 18 U.S. Code § 1507:
Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
And yes, if you’re keeping score, that is one of the laws that President Biden took an oath to faithfully execute.
The protesters should never have been allowed to gather anywhere near the homes of any of the justices, and any protesters who defied the police should have been arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The threat here is larger than to the justices, appalling as it is. This kind of direct action invites retaliation. Do we really want to get into an escalating contest of who can better intimidate the other side’s judges and officeholders?
And, if the dynamic spins out of control, it suppresses free thought and rational decision-making. We are, of course, very far away from the twisted political culture of Imperial Japan, but one of the reasons that its decision-making prior to Pearl Harbor was so atrocious is that officials feared attack by fanatical militarists if they sounded cautionary notes about the country’s latest real or contemplated act of aggression.
Of course, mobbing was part of the American Revolution. This, though, was a genuinely pre-revolutionary and, then, revolutionary situation. Whatever the fanaticism of the pro-abortion demonstrators, I doubt that they are on the verge of calling out the militia.
Even when Americans were on the cusp of dissolving the political bonds connecting them with Britain, we honor the memory of patriots who refused to give in to the logic of mobs — John Adams representing the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre, Alexander Hamilton protecting the Loyalist president of King’s College from an angry crowd.
All that said, at least the demonstrators are consistent. Roe and Casey were never constitutional decisions; they were acts of will imposed from on high. Now, with those decisions at risk, the demonstrators are taking that same willfulness into the streets to try to pervert the workings of the Supreme Court yet again and even more flagrantly.
Friends of the republic mustn’t let it happen.