A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has been sharing her political opinions far and wide of late, but that's scarcely new. Her Honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn't nuts, just honest. And she's been that way for years. It can be illuminating, having a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court tell us just what she thinks and letting propriety take the hindmost. By now she's had second and more respectable thoughts. ("On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.") The candidate in question was Donald Trump, and her badmouthing him only made him--The Donald!--look like the soul of discretion compared to her. Quite a feat.
It would be a pity if Madam Justice did stop talking out of school, or rather out of court. Because every court needs a Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if only one. Back in 2009, on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Dred Scott decision of this era, she was brutally candid about the reasons Roe was handed down. As she acknowledged back then:
"Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
Madam Justice Ginsburg has never been able to open her mouth without letting at least one cat out of the bag. Back then, she was emphasizing what she felt were the economic advantages that abortions offered upper-class, professional women like herself. At the same time, she might have also looked at Roe as a useful tool for keeping the lower classes in their place--those lesser breeds without the law, to use Kipling's phrase. Her "reasoning" echoed that of leading German scientists in the Weimar period and their talk of lives not worth living. Eugenics may have been an American invention but its seeds had been sown long, long ago. Consider the ancient Spartans who exposed unpromising babes to the elements. They were the ideological forbears of our modern advocates of euthanasia.
This time Madam Justice Ginsburg took sides in the presidential race ("I can't imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president"), supported Barack Obama's choice for the next appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, and telegraphed how she'd vote on cases likely to come before her. ("I'd love to see Citizens United overruled.")
Even justices of the Supreme Court are entitled to their private opinions, but they should make it a point to keep them private. It is incumbent on Madam Justice Ginsburg and the other members of the court to pretend that their decisions are brought by constitutional storks. Instead she invited plaintiffs to bring still another challenge to the Second Amendment and Americans' right to bear arms.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wouldn't be the first justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to go crackers, except she's not nuts at all. She may only sound that way to the easily shocked. Once again she's violated social and political convention by speaking frankly about her motivations and intentions. Instead of entering the polite conspiracy to avoid mentioning the kind of politics that has always played a role in the Supreme Court's deliberations.
The wheels of justice still grind slow but exceeding fine. There was no reason for Justice Ginsburg to throw even more sand in the gears.
Editorial on 07/21/2016