# The Supreme Court isn't done: Watch and see a lot of individual rights fall **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** roe\_vs\_wade\_abortion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843 "2022-06-25T15:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/41 "2022-06-26T13:01:18Z")
Traditionally poorer (and mostly ex-Confederacy) states sent lifetime appointments to congress, so that they’d earn more seniority and accrue more committee control. The Northern factory and breadbasket states would earn more money and pay more taxes, but Senator Cornpone would decide how it would be spent. That wasn’t all that bad when it was just money. The Tennessee Valley Authority was overall good nation-building, and military facilities are more effective when they aren’t socked in with snow. But now we’re unable to cut off the moral pork barrel, where rural constituencies can impose retrograde, isolated values on a society that needs to engage in a globalized world, not just materially/economically but also culturally or face decline. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/42 "2022-06-26T13:41:40Z")
Yes, it is simplistic. Less simplistic than blaming the SC for the current mess the US is in. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/43 "2022-06-26T13:43:30Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Less simplistic than blaming the SC for the current mess the US is in. It’s not simplistic. It’s just wrong. And I don’t see anyone in this thread “blaming the SC for the current mess the US is in.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/44 "2022-06-26T14:09:44Z")
The whole premise of this thread is that the SC is taking away your rights. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/45 "2022-06-26T14:51:10Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And I don’t see anyone in this thread “blaming the SC for the current mess the US is in.” I keep reading SC = South Carolina. Not SCOTUS ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/46 "2022-06-26T15:27:56Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Isn’t it a sad state of affairs, such that so many ostensibly benign folk are moved to wish death on others? Very sad. When I was a child, I was so horrified by news stories of George Wallace’s racism that I said I wished he’d die. My mother was appalled and gave me a stern, impassioned lecture on how wrong it was to wish anyone dead. It made a powerful impression on me, and I avoided that sentiment in the decades since. However, there are a very few people who have wrought so much evil and destruction that the world really would have been better off if they’d died earlier. My wish that McConnell would die isn’t vengeful and doesn’t arise from hatred. It comes from a desperation to save my country’s basic ideals, the ideals my parents (both pro-life, and my father a conservative) sacrificed for and taught me to believe in. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/47 "2022-06-26T15:52:24Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > However, there are a very few people who have wrought so much evil and destruction that the world really would have been better off if they’d died earlier. - “However, there are obituaries I read with a great deal of satisfaction” (paraphrased) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/48 "2022-06-26T16:18:34Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > But now we’re unable to cut off the moral pork barrel, where rural constituencies can impose retrograde, isolated values on a society that needs to engage in a globalized world, not just materially/economically but also culturally or face decline. A phenomenon that has been noted for some time: > New York to a Kansan is not only a place where he may get drunk, look at dirty shows and buy bogus antiques; it is also a place where he may enforce his dunghill ideas upon his betters. > –H. L. Mencken ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/49 "2022-06-26T16:43:56Z")
Were going OT here, or at least too far into its historical origins, but time was the rural boobs could be placated only with suppression of civil rights legislation (both right _and_ left: the Grange movement for farmers’ rights was racist too), and overall they were shut out with the defeats of William Jennings Bryan. They take too much blame for Prohibition (the US was more worried about drunken factory workers than farmhands). How soon rural Americans forgot that the New Deal saved them from near-extinction, and now believe the Bible is their only salvation, as well as everyone else’s ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/50 "2022-06-26T17:56:08Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > How soon rural Americans forgot that the New Deal saved them from near-extinction, and now believe the Bible is their only salvation, as well as everyone else’s Ah, but you see: to many of them, the New Deal was just the instrument of the salvation to which God had _entitled_ grandpa and great-gramps. It was either that or a revolution but the rurals _would_ have been saved one way or the other, it was all of our obligation to save them. _“And it was WW2 that really revived the economy anyway”_, they’ll remind you, so they “owe” nothing. Then there are those for whom the New Deal, or later the Great Society, or earlier the Progressive Age, have been propagandized as having been something even worse: city-slicker-academic-concocted instruments of deliverance of millions of the _unworthy_, preventing the cleansing that would have left in place a better world for the Elect, among whom of course _they_ would be. (For a bunch of Bible-thumpers, they are really fierce _Social_ Darwinists…) ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/51 "2022-06-28T05:08:06Z")
Our Supreme Court is nine idiotic theocrats. Their robes will be donned while awaiting rapture. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/52 "2022-06-28T14:42:40Z")
For all the tragic damage done to individual lives with their gross decision on _Roe_, the worst thing the Supreme Court has done is to de-legitimize one full branch of government upon which our democracy is rested. They have severely undermined confidence in the rule of law. This will have repercussions far beyond _Roe_. When states and individuals no longer recognize the authority of the rule of law over us as our guiding principle, we can only descend into anarchy. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/53 "2022-06-28T15:21:06Z")
Six (currently). Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer are not religious nutjobs. Nor is Brown-Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/54 "2022-06-28T17:24:01Z")
So the Justices you disagree with are religious nutjobs, and the ones you agree with are not. That’s a rational argument. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/55 "2022-06-28T17:30:50Z")
I don’t think it’s an argument. It’s an observation. All nine of the Supreme Court justices are religious. I think only two of them are nutjobs (Thomas and Coney Barrett), but I think a rational argument could be made as to how far religion influences their decision making. If the answer is greater than “not at all,” it’s a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/56 "2022-06-28T18:24:25Z")
As disgusted as I am by _Roe_ being overturned, I can at least understand the relentless of _Roe_ opponents based on what they say they believe – that they’re protecting the rights of unborn children. (Just to be clear, I don’t agree with that for a second, and furthermore believe that opposition to legal abortion is actually little more than opposition to women’s sexual and reproductive choice. I’m merely observing that anti-choice people could plausibly _tell themselves_ they were defending someone’s rights.) So, in the case of these other examples, whose rights are they defending? Who is hurt by gay couples marrying? Who is hurt by people using birth control, or blacks and whites marrying? How can anyone justify laws banning these practices with any basis other than adhering to (their interpretation of) the Bible, or just good old-fashioned bigotry? And, given that (lack of) rationale, how could even this SCOTUS uphold states’ rights to enact such laws? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/57 "2022-06-28T18:31:47Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > So, in the case of these other examples, whose rights are they defending? Who is hurt by gay couples marrying? Who is hurt by people using birth control, or blacks and whites marrying? They use the same argument: they are protecting the children. As you said, it doesn’t need to be a rational argument, it just needs to be something they can tell themselves in order to justify what are actually their faith-based actions. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/58 "2022-06-28T18:36:20Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > (Just to be clear, I don’t agree with that for a second, and furthermore believe that opposition to legal abortion is actually little more than opposition to women’s sexual and reproductive choice. I’m merely observing that anti-choice people could plausibly _tell themselves_ they were defending someone’s rights.) > > So, in the case of these other examples, whose rights are they defending? Who is hurt by gay couples marrying? Who is hurt by people using birth control, or blacks and whites marrying? Remember that it wasn’t abortion that spurred creation of the religious right political movement. It was desegregation. At some point, however, it became untenable to openly advocate for segregation. _Roe_ gave them an issue to plug in as a substitute. Before that, abortion was not generally an issue that fundamentalist Protestants in America cared about. But their leadership got together and decided to make them care about that. They added on all the other social issues as well, primarily anti-homosexuality. They also created the pro-gun issue almost from scratch just to add to the arsenal, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/59 "2022-06-28T18:36:29Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > They use the same argument: they are protecting the children. But in the case of abortion, there are literal (potential) children being harmed. I can’t believe any competent adult would believe children are legally and literally harmed by, say, seeing a gay couple on the street. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843/60 "2022-06-28T18:41:56Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > I can’t believe any competent adult would believe children are legally and literally harmed by, say, seeing a gay couple on the street. I find your incredulity baffling. Millions of American adults (I don’t know your criteria for defining “competent”) do sincerely believe that gay couples enact homosexual identity in the presence of children specifically and deliberately to “groom” them for pedophiliac abuse. Yes, that’s not actually happening, but at least tens of millions of people who are generally considered competent adults sincerely believe in the reality of many things that aren’t actually happening. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-isnt-done-watch-and-see-a-lot-of-individual-rights-fall/966843.md?page=4)