And if you think Antonin Scalia makes absolutely no sense, get on the bus
I like what the Supreme Court is doing. They’ve worked out this new intriguing style that keeps us guessing, sort of like that girlfriend in college who demanded I see the movie “Ordinary People” with her to prove I was sensitive and then threatened to dump me immediately afterward because I had an emotional collapse at the ending.
By randomizing their decisions, the court can keep us from taking them for granted. In the future I will never say that the Supreme Court could never decide a case the way I’d like, only that, if they do, their explanation will probably make no sense, because all of the justices are crazy. I don’t mean to say they’re crazy in a bad way but, rather, in an honorable way that I can deeply respect, like the way I respect a gentle and kind man with a hatchet who just happens to think I am kindling.
Reading Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent to the decision to strike down DOMA I thought, first of all, if it weren’t for Justice Anthony Kennedy, this prolonged satanic screech would have been the majority opinion. Then I thought, secondly, what a caring, sweet, thoughtful man Scalia is.
We know he really cares because he wants to protect us all from legalistic argle-bargle, which is the worst argle-bargle mankind can ever experience, way worse than date-from-hell argle-bargle or boss-with-hidden-head argle-bargle.
He’s absolutely right, of course. The rulings in favor of gay rights this week are as argle-bargled as possible. So, here’s how it stands. It’s a complete win for states’ rights, OK?
If the state says you’re married, the feds have to go along with it. If the state passes a law restricting voting, {shrug} {smiley face} {LOL}. But if the voters in a state vote against same-sex marriage, the justices won’t even rule on it. Which would be OK (states’ rights.) Or is that OK?
Happily, Anthony Kennedy obviously doesn’t give a rat’s patootie whether he makes sense or not, which brings me back to my original point, which is, there’s hope for us yet. We have a court that is unhinged from the ideological gridlock that grips every other branch of government we have.
We have a court that can make no sense.
Argle-bargle may set us free. At random intervals perhaps. Or on days that begin with a T.
Scalia makes a kind of insane sense. He makes more consistent coherent sense than any Supreme Court justice I’ve ever heard of.
He is a heroic sense-maker.
He tells you how things ought to be. He has a vision. He knows what the Founding Fathers were trying to say when they wrote the Bill of Rights. He has the answers, and his answers never contradict one another. Which makes them true by definition (True: that which can be faithfully, reliably, continued forever, straight as an arrow.)
The trouble is, he thinks a lot of us are kindling.
Hence, his sense-making has no bearing on reality. His truth is that of a mathematical theory that doesn’t apply.
Speaking of some of us being kindling, what is up with King County Metro? First, they told us that, as of July 1, they would not let anyone buy ticket books for bus fare.
This was a big concern for many service organizations because Metro had made a commitment to supply discounted bus tickets to such organizations for distribution among their clients. How do they supply discount tickets if there are none, we asked?
No worries, we were told, Metro will still have tickets for them, just not for the general public.
Oh, lovely. So now anyone caught using a bus ticket will be marked as the recipient of the giveaway program? It’s the Clown Van of Shame Part II: Tickets of Shame.