Originally published at: Meet Sir Matthew Hale, the 17th century misogynist that Justice Alito mentioned 9 times in his leaked SCOTUS opinion | Boing Boing
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This. And the fact I hear or see zero Democratic politicians screaming in public, on camera, on the radio about the fact that this racist, misogynistic, 300 year dead man with his regressive ideas would be the foundational basis of the majority ruling - even on a draft opinion - is why I wrote long, nasty letters to all my Democratic representations and the President. Progress cannot be made in society when we base reality on the regressive and vile policies of those who lived centuries before us. Three centuries of working towards equality are now on the chopping block.
Many of our founding fathers were racist slave holders. And even they are turning over in their graves at this ruling. They may not understand women’s rights, but they damn well know you don’t walk back centuries of progress purely because of biblical teachings. That way lies the failing of Democracy.
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Here’s what I wanna know: when finally the “states rights” assholes have their way, and the Union is more or less broken up, who is going to rush in and take over? Unfortunately, I’m seriously asking/wondering. I will NOT live in a religious state and would rather die trying to fight it.
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Basing current legal decisions based on ideas for a long time ago is such wisdom (/sarcasm).
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No worries. It’ll be all about “State’s Rights” until they have enough control to end the rights of states that disagree with them. Then, it’s Gilead from ses to shinig sea! They seem much better at playing the long game than we are. Now it’s “protecting TX from federal overreach,” next it’s “stomping out heresy in NY and CA.” Stop them now, or buckle down for ugliness.
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The road widens a bit after you surrender your humanity and join the mighty forces of the GQP. /s
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I have a mind to suggest that Adam was the one who took the apple from the serpent and blamed it on Eve.
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Its going to be abvout State’s Rights exactly the way the Old South was all about State’s Rights with laws like the Fugitive Slavve Act that forced other states to comply with their laws. It has always been and will always be “Laws for thee, not for me”.
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It sure would be nice to have a constitutional amendment that would displace such misogyny from the law.
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Never going to happen. They’ll have to arrest or kill me first, because I’ll never join those nasty, vile, disgusting, christo-fascists and their destruction of progress in equality.
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The show and book are not that far off from reality, honestly.
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“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” – Frank Wilhoit
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I was worried that she was going to do what a lot of others have done by focusing on Hale as a person and his views (which were terrible, even for the time), as looking just at that sort of misses the point and moves the focus to the wrong place. (Some terrible people with regressive views can still make legally valid points.) But thankfully not, as she’s quite right to point out that the really fucked up thing is that Alito is making the argument that we need to base our notion of rights granted by the constitution on “legal traditions,” and by going back to Hale - both his legal positions and his time period - the “legal traditions” that are being pretty explicitly referenced here are “women are not legally persons.” That was the basis for Hale’s arguments. (And yeah that is part of the legal tradition - but an obsolete one.) This really needs to be acknowledged - and emphasized, because it’s an incredibly unpopular idea that the vast majority of people would reject when put so baldly.
Reading the old Babylonian story of the taming of Enkidu, I was stuck by the parallels to the Abrahamic apple story and became convinced the two tales were essentially telling the same story. (In both, there’s originally little distinguishing the people from other animals, but then there’s this change, this new knowledge, that prevents them from continuing to live in this wild state in nature peacefully alongside other animals.) Both stories were relating a myth of how they thought their ancestors had become “civilized” (i.e. moved from gathering-hunting to agriculture) or even had become human. The apple story made a lot more sense to me in that light - and helped me understand how various Christian heresies saw the eating of the apple as a good thing, and even viewed the serpent in the garden as a prefiguration of Jesus.
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Who pulls their pants on in the morning and thinks “ya know, the 17th century… Those were the days”
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They want the social structures of the 17th century, with all the conveniences of the modern world. Many people fundamentally believe that a world prior to more democratic institutions that did some serious levelling of the social hierarchy (though not far enough) was where humanity “went wrong.”
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i think it’d be awesome for the democrats to put forward as many bills as they can now on child care, maternity, and paternity support.
bring back the child care tax credit, add fully funded daycare and parental leave, medicare for all children, more pre-k and school funding… make the list as long as possible and prove again and again the gop has no interest in protecting children at all.
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While disregarding the science that underpins all of that convenience
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Justice Alito sure pulled off some ugly confirmation bias there. Like, fugly.
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Sir Matthew Hale.
We declared independence from England for a reason. 
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