Would mandated kidney donations be Constitutional?

by Ugh

Suppose State X passes a law providing "all individuals meeting the living kidney donor criteria* shall donate one of their kidneys to any discovered matching recipient in need and any individual refusing to donate shall be subject to a sentence of no more than Y years in prison."

Such a law would be consistent with similar laws imposing a duty to act or suffer state imposed civil/criminal punishment: (i) conscription in the Army; (ii) registration for the Draft; and (iii) mandatory reporting for, e.g., teachers, school administrators, therapists (see also Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328).  

What, if anything, in the Constitution would bar a State from passing and enforcing that law?  

*Other than being willing, of course

Comments

[Ugh]

"Y" being equal to the maximum criminal punishment in State X for abortion-related crimes, of course.

[Alan]

In your examples, the law imposed impacts society at large and in the case of conscription, an existential threat to the entire concept of national sovereignty. In the case of teachers, the theoretical impact is an entire generation of people. In the kidney example, the imposition would benefit unfortunate individuals, not the broader society as a whole. While it may be a lot of individuals, its seems to me a different concept.

Having said that, an interesting thought experiment, though perhaps a better thought experiment would be the requirement of giving blood. Similarly benefitting individuals, but requiring a less extreme sacrifice for the individuals making it seem more plausible but presenting the same thorny issues.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Well, these limits on who could donate would offend libertarian, Christian, constitutional originalist conservative principles, leading, I expect, to violence from the politically malignant offended among us:

"Are an incompatible cross-match (you are not compatible based on antibodies)
Have a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30
Have high blood pressure
Have a history of kidney stones
Have an incompatible blood type

You cannot be a live donor if you:

Are under age 18
Have heart disease, diabetes or cancer
Have chronic kidney problems
Have any conditions that may jeopardize your health by kidney donation (e.g., pregnancy, being underweight, etc.)

Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Thomas and Vlad Putin and any number of diseased FOX News personalities infected with Covid 19 and perhaps diagnosed with kidney cancer as well would march right into the hospital and demand the freedom to transmit those diseases via their kidney donation to kidney transplant recipients.

They would be proud to demonstrate the free speech and freedom of assembly of their constitutionally acquired and transmitted cancer cells and spikey Covid virus, which they think of as their pre-born and pre-death offspring:

https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2022/04/14/the-most-hated-conservative-college-student-in-the-state-how-a-unt-student-embroiled-her-campus-in-a-culture-war/

And there'll be none of this forced mandated mask wearing for the patients or the hospital staff during the transplant procedures at either end of the transactions or dammit, we'll bring this plane down, thrash and kick over the heart monitors and the IV poles, and when we get outta here, we'll shut down every polling/voting place within a hundred miles of a black person, so help us Rod Dreher.

And, no, we will not remove our weapons during the procedures.

Look, kidneys are people too. Do a workaround with that minimally-evasive scalpel. I weigh 548 pounds but you go get that kidney sawbones, with yer college boy elitist degree, because there is nothing in the Constitution.

So, in a word, problematic.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

I believe Amy Coney Barrett would, out of the kindness of her heart, and I do believe she is a kind, good mother, have given all seven of her kidneys, each to each of her seven children WHEN they were fetuses, but would only feel compelled by law and biology to give one of her kidneys to one of the seven, should they need it, now that they are out amongst us, and besides there is an afterlife, so the other six can wing it.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Why should men pay for prenatal care ....

https://digbysblog.net/2022/05/09/americas-pregnancy-mortality-rate-is-a-national-disgrace/

.... unless it is for after party injuries TO Men which occur during conception and before delivery, like when the arresting officer forgets to remind the guy to duck and not fracture his skull as the arresting officer deposits them handcuffed into the back seat of the patrol car.

The root word for Men is Me.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The Founding Fathers can go fly a kite:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/9/2096935/-BENJAMIN-FRANKLIN-DETHRONED-AS-A-FOUNDING-FATHER

[Nigel]

It’s an interesting comparison, giving the mortality rates for pregnancy and the year after birth are not greatly different for those for living kidney donation.

[Tony P.]

In the past, I have occasionally asked "originalists" whether the Constitution gives me the right to donate a kidney, if I want to.

Now, ugh wisely asks whether The Government has the power to make me donate a kidney, if I don't want to. I bet "originalists" would assert that the Federal government doesn't have that power, but any State government does.

Of course, no "originalist" would ever concede a parallel between forced kidney donation and forced pregnancy-to-term. For one thing, the former can be an imposition on manly MAGAts as well as on young women, so ...

Speaking of abortion, it's not abortion per se that makes me wish there were a hell for the so-called souls of Alito and his fellow lying god-botherers to spend their eternal afterlife in. I'm too old and male for abortion access to be important to me personally. In my remaining years, I'm not even likely to get a woman pregnant unintentionally.

My nieces, now in their 20s, surely feel differently. I don't know whether their generation will care enough to rise up and Abort the Court, but I figure they (and not we) will be the ones to do it. Or lump it, if they can't be bothered.

No, as I have said before, it's not abortion that will make me man the barricades -- it's the "right to die". Or "assisted suicide", if you prefer. I can't imagine wanting to snuff myself unless and until I am too incapacitated to do it on my own. It's possible the God of Abraham will have gathered the Alitos unto Himself by then, but I can't count on it. And the same "legal reasoning" that forbids women to abort a pregnancy would surely forbid me to check out before a loving Jesus has had His fill of suffering from me.

Sex is fun to argue about, but death affects more people. Abort the Court.

--TP

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Nobody's stopping your kidneys from moving to a low-tax state that protects kidneys from molestation, though they will have to to get jobs and not have sexual relations with other fugitive kidneys upon pain of legal action.

[bobbyp]

What, if anything, in the Constitution would bar a State from passing and enforcing that law?

Nothing, really. But those kidneys do have to have parental permission.

[Nigel]

Susan Collins continues to be concerned.

Susan Collins calls the cops to investigate “defacement of public property” after someone wrote a message in chalk on the sidewalk near her home asking her to codify Roe.
https://mobile.twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1523877267264487426

[Sebastian H]

At the very least it is going to be considered a taking, right?

Also contra abortion where there are long established duties of care between parents and children, there is none such between kidney doners.

I wonder if the focus on *rights* hasn't rotted our democracy muscles a little bit. 2nd term abortion bans have super majority support. If you could get that for kidney mandates, we would live in a very different world. I don't think your proposal would get 10% in any state.

[CharlesWT]

The reason for the severe donated kidney shortage is that everyone in the donation and transplant process gets a cut of the action except for the person doing the donation.

[Hartmut]

Iirc in Germany it is even illegal to sell one's own organs (as opposed to donating them). Blood is a gray area though.

[wj]

"Y" being equal to the maximum criminal punishment in State X for abortion-related crimes, of course.

You really should note that it is a foundational principle in this discussion that X and Y are entirely different. As in, if you don't have a Y (chromosome) you are treated entirely differently by any law where that's convenient.

[LAWRENCE WINANS]

(1)Contrary to the contention of the post that there are similar laws mandating a duty to act, there are no such laws.

(2) As far as Constitutional provisions, the 14th Amendment holds "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated" You have a right to secure your kidney against seizure.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

For Janie in the Open Thread, below.

I now do stay off your comment threads.

As I explained, I neglected to check the title or the author of the post before commenting the other day. I had been previously avoiding that comment thread, per your druthers, and then screwed up.

It was an honest oversight on my part. I'm sorry.

The comments can be deleted without causing me or the cosmos any harm or loss.

[wj]

... the 14th Amendment holds "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated" You have a right to secure your kidney against seizure.

Ah, but you see, the authors of the Constitution (including the first 10 Amendments, but no more) had no understanding of kidney transplants, and so made no explicit provisions regarding them. So the Constitution does not come into it.

Besides, the 14th Amendment says "unreasonable searches and seizures" [emphasis added]. Would the current Court majority regard a mandated kidney donation as unreasonable? Would you care to place a small bet that they would? (Although, admittedly, it might make a difference who the donor and recipient were....)

[novakant]

Kidney's? How about livers? Monty Python had this covered decades ago (warning: rather gruesome...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-pU8TFsg0

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I think the above comments about "search and seizure" refers to the *4th* Amendment, not 14th.

The 13th, prohibiting involuntary servitude has been ignored by judicial fiat when it comes to military servitude or incubator servitude, thanks to dishonest judges ignoring the plain meaning of the words.

Maybe they should be enslaved until they figure that whole thing out.

[Ugh]

At the very least it is going to be considered a taking, right?

Takings are fine as long as there is just compensation. Would be interesting to apply the takings jurisprudence to the womb.

Also contra abortion where there are long established duties of care between parents and children, there is none such between kidney doners.

Doesn't matter if state law provides for such a duty. See, e.g., the mandatory reporting laws (former Penn St. administrators were sentenced to between 4 and 23 months in prison for failure to report).

2nd term abortion bans have super majority support. If you could get that for kidney mandates, we would live in a very different world. I don't think your proposal would get 10% in any state.

Well sure, but that's not the point. It's supposed to be "under litigant X's view of constitutional law, would mandatory kidney donations be constitutional" and then comparing that answer to their view on the constitutionality of abortion bans and if the latter is okay and the former not under said view, what is the difference?

[Ugh]

Constitutionality aside, the policing and enforcement mechanisms for these abortion bans are going to be monstrously inhumane. Any woman who has a miscarriage in one of these states will automatically be a suspect. If the states are going to try to keep women from going out of state for abortions/abortion pills, are they going to have a border patrol? "Come join Missouri's Border Uterus Inspection Squad!"

Are they going have a registry of pregnant women and check up on them?

It will be nightmarish and is already nightmarish in Texas/other states right now.

[Ugh]

Listen to today's NYT's The Daily podcast for examples.

[hairshirthedonist]

It seems to me the best strategy is to avoid getting pregnant in the first place. These are the best ways to do that, IMO:

1. Be born male. (I list this one first, because it requires the least effort, assuming you've already done that as a matter of pure luck.)

2. Get sterilized before the onset of fertility. (There wouldn't be any impediments to that, legal or otherwise, right? I mean, it sounds simple enough.)

3. Avoid all contact with people who managed "1." (There's a lot of them out there, so you're going to have to be very resourceful and elusive. Best of luck!)

Freedom! Rights! Liberty!

Feh...

[wj]

Nice idea, hsh. Unfortunately, there are problems.

#2 suffers from the fact that it would certainly be seen as a form of contraception. Which, to be fair, it is. And so, given the distinct possibility that the Court's political hacks move on to that next, not really a solution except in the very short term. And it wouldn't be amazing if the ban on ex post gacto laws got overturned in order to punish anyone who has done so. Even if they not only did it before the law was passed but in a state where it is still legal. Even if they were not residents, but just passing thru.

#3 suffers from the fact that many states are passing laws with no exceptions for rape. So you would not only have to be incredibly elusive and inventive, you'd have to essentially never go to one of those states. Fine, mostly, for those already there (although "there" seems likely to contract), but hard on those too poor to decamp. And, as with #2, you also have to never pass thru one of those states, even on a plane that you never leave while it is grounded.

And in both cases, it won't be amazing if the laws get broadened to include anyone who ever had an abortion, even if long ago and/or in a place where it was legal. There just doesn't appear to be any limit on these fanatics ambitions on the subject.

[nous]

Get sterilized before the onset of fertility.

Would probably be made more difficult because of the anti-trans legislation in some places.

Also, my wife was told that doctors usually refuse to perform sterilizations unless the patient is over the age of 35 and/or already has children because they fear being sued if the patient has second thoughts.

So mostly 1. Because patriarchy.

[hairshirthedonist]

Also, my wife was told that doctors usually refuse to perform sterilizations unless the patient is over the age of 35 and/or already has children because they fear being sued if the patient has second thoughts.

I'm pretty sure pre-pubescent children can't get sterilized in any case, at least not short of some dire circumstance. I guess the facetiousness of my parenthetical wasn't apparent.

#3 suffers from the fact that many states are passing laws with no exceptions for rape.

What don't you understand about "avoid all contact"? That means physical, social, and whatever other kind you can think of (telephone? USPS?). I never said it would be easy!

[nous]

I figured you were being deeply facetious, but given some of the other replies here that focus on feasibility rather than principles, I figured we should probably consider this argument for more than just minors.

[hairshirthedonist]

In that case, nous, perhaps the calculus regarding lawsuits shifts toward greater favorability of sterilization in the face of potentially being sued after forced pregnancy and childbirth. It seems second thoughts will be coming from more and more directions in our brave, new world.

[wj]

"avoid all contact"? That means physical, social, and whatever other kind you can think of

Which, realistically, means move out of state. Which, for some (mostly the same people who cannot afford to travel out of state for legal (elsewhere) abortions) is simply not feasible. Beyond "not easy"

[Ugh]

Note that compulsory sterilization is still Constitutional in the United States under Buck v. Bell (274 U.S. 200), which I'd say is worse than having one of two healthy kidneys removed to save someone's life. YMMV

[hairshirthedonist]

Which, realistically, means move out of state.

It doesn't mean anything realistically. It's satirical. It's about the absurdity of the whole thing. And moving out of state doesn't allow anyone to avoid males. Think federal ban.

[JanieM]

In that case, nous, perhaps the calculus regarding lawsuits shifts toward greater favorability of sterilization in the face of potentially being sued after forced pregnancy and childbirth. It seems second thoughts will be coming from more and more directions in our brave, new world.

I get that you're being satirical, but I don't think you've grasped the thing you're trying to satirize quite fully enough.

Read this, remember who we're dealing with (people who are concerned, in the draft of a Supreme Court opinion, about the "domestic supply of infants"), and rethink your notions of how easy it's going to be for a woman to get herself sterilized.

Our bodies, in the view of the people trying to take complete charge of them, are, and I repeat myself, not ours.

PS In "fairness," the history of the "domestic supply of infants" phrase is more complicated than a lot of online commentary has made it. But the the actual (?) complicated history isn't any comfort. They do mean it.

[JanieM]

And you know, maybe I should revise that comment to opine that it will be white women who have a hard time getting sterilized if they want to, while women of less desirable colors (in terms of the domestic supply and all that) may have just as hard a time avoiding it in some circumstances.

See here, which (true confessions) I have not yet read carefully.

Underlying point: it's their decision, not ours, either way.

Our bodies? Our country? We'll see.

[wj]

I get that you're being satirical, but I don't think you've grasped the thing you're trying to satirize quite fully enough.

It's a bit of a problem to satirize people whose actual positions seem like satire (and farcical satire at that) to the rest of us.

[JanieM]

And have a look at Betty Cracker's righteous rant at the top of the fold at BJ this very minute.

I can't even count the women I know who have had miscarriages, some more than one. I was lucky enough not to go through that, but I've seen the pain and grief it causes. What fun it will be to go through that in the delightful company of law enforcement in states like Texas.

[hairshirthedonist]

...and rethink your notions of how easy it's going to be for a woman to get herself sterilized.

I don't think it's going to be easy, and that comment wasn't the (fully*) satirical part. It was specific to nous' comment regarding doctors refusing to sterilize specifically out of fear of being sued by a subsequently regretful patient. (*I suppose the whole topic is within an at least partly satirical framework.)

If it's out of fear of criminal sanction or licensing removal or whatever other tricks the American Taliban (aka "GOP") can come up with, that's a whole other consideration for doctors to refuse.

[JanieM]

If it's out of fear of criminal sanction or licensing removal or whatever other tricks the American Taliban (aka "GOP") can come up with, that's a whole other consideration for doctors to refuse.

Don't forget the existing and longstanding motivation of the godlike doctor arrogating to himself the position of knowing what's best for the patient better than she does herself -- as mentioned in the piece I linked. ("Himself" used advisedly, but I'm sure this isn't limited to male doctors.)

[Michael Cain]

Get sterilized before the onset of fertility.

Started me wondering about whether they will want to ban vasectomies? Or the use of some of the new male birth control methods coming along?

[JanieM]

@Michael Cain -- two minutes in the fever swamp of Catholic websites was two minutes too many for me, but on a quick glance it seems like the Catholic church considers vasectomies to be no different than any of sinful way of trying to thwart the deity's plans by blocking conception.

On the other hand, if I had a fortune to bet, I'd bet a good chunk of it that legislatures around the country will keep their dirty little hands away from men's decisions about their own bodies....

[JanieM]

"any other sinful way" -- not "any of...."

[wj]

Started me wondering about whether they will want to ban vasectomies?

But that would be constraining men!!! Surely not on the agenda. (Crafting a rationalization for this is left as an exercise to the user.)

[nous]

My best role here is probably just to leave this in JanieM's capable hands. I'm glad these things are being said.

[Girl from the North Country]

hsh: I'm pretty sure pre-pubescent children can't get sterilized in any case, at least not short of some dire circumstance. I guess the facetiousness of my parenthetical wasn't apparent.

nous: Would probably be made more difficult because of the anti-trans legislation in some places.

Just in case anybody (hsh or anybody else) didn't understand the point of nous's comment, it is that puberty blockers (when taken early to delay, or avoid puberty forever) have been found in some cases to lead to lasting infertility, a side-effect that (like the rest of the poor quality and quantity of data into their use) was not necessarily understood and not notified to the child or their parents as a possibility before the start of treatment. And of course, some people feel that pre-pubertal children are not in a position to understand what that might mean for them in later life in any case.

(I believe that one of the other possible side effects of early usage is that the child who then goes on to cross-hormone therapy - which most do - may never experience orgasm. But this, of course, unlike fertility, would be of no concern or interest to the religious zealots trying to enforce on women the carrying to term of unwanted children.)

[nous]

Medical decisions are messy and fraught, and often feature hard choices with long-term ramifications, some of which cannot be predicted at the outset.

Just the sort of thing that you want legislators to decide for you, based on their own personal religious beliefs, wrapped in whatever objective-sounding pretext they think will get it past judicial review. Much more reliable than a decision made under consultation with a medical professional.

Is that facetious? It might be facetious. (It's facetious).

[wj]

Is that facetious? It might be facetious. (It's facetious).

Nope. The word you want is fatuous. Meaning "reasoning to be expected in MAGAt campaign ads."

[JanieM]

My best role here is probably just to leave this in JanieM's capable hands. I'm glad these things are being said.

Thanks nous, but I think your best role is to stick around and be your usual self. Your framing of issues like this is invaluable, and all the more right now compared to mine, because I am lit up with a useless incandescent rage that ends up in a lot of venting, and not much in the way of clearheadedness (yet) about how to go forward.

[JanieM]

And hsh -- apologies if my state of mind made it seem like I was getting on your back. That was not at all my intention.

[hairshirthedonist]

No worries, Janie. It seemed that way at first, but I figured out pretty quickly it wasn’t me, but the world we find ourselves in, that you were reacting to. We all are in our own ways. It’s a sh*t show.

[hairshirthedonist]

Meanwhile, so-called “conservatives” are up in arms over critical race theory and kids who don’t identify with their assigned genders and whatever other bullsh*t culture-war garbage they eat for breakfast because Tucker Carlson says so. All that oppression.

[Nigel]

I note Collins just voted against codifying abortion rights.

[JanieM]

@Nigel -- Oh, no Nigel, you've got it all wrong. Susan Collins can't do wrong, she can only be wronged. And religious people should be allowed to inflict their beliefs on the rest of us whenever they like. And... And... And...

And of course, here's a typical headline:

Axios
Senate Democrats fail
to codify Roe v. Wade

even though all but one of the D senators voted for it, and none of the R senators did.

Nope, it's the Dems who failed.

(Facetious? Satirical? ... )

(Please don't waste pixels telling me that this is customary framing in relation to the party in the majority.)

[bobbyp]

It’s a sh*t show.

Yup.

[JanieM]

Me: Oh, no Nigel, you've got it all wrong.

Wrote in haste. Yes, she voted against a bill that would have codified abortion rights. But you see, she didn't *really* vote against codifying abortion rights (she has her own bill for doing that), she voted *in favor of* preserving the right of religious people and their institutions to refuse to do them. Or something like that....

Going out for the day. Maybe for the best.

[Girl from the North Country]

Since Susan Collins is not up for re-election til 2027, she can do whatever the hell she likes, and weasel out of it in five years.

a decision made under consultation with a [fully informed] medical professional

Yes, this would be the wholly desirable course.

[russell]

Susan Collins calls the cops to investigate “defacement of public property” after someone wrote a message in chalk on the sidewalk near her home

hopscotch players of the world, watch out.

susan collins is coming for you.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Strolled through a Banksy exhibit yesterday:

https://cdn.sanity.io/images/dqllnil6/production/376608c971f3288891e2a5fffa31efed7ce423e5-1200x388.jpg?w=1920&q=65&auto=format

That's a portrait of Susan Collin coming at ya with what Dreher calls "soft totalitarianism" and stolen elections in perpetuity.

nous is correct that the nation's tax-supported government constabularies are becoming the private enlisted militias for the malignant, murderous, racist, fascist, woman-lynching conservative movement.

Here is Alito's and the conservative movement's "Opinion" of Susan Collins:

"Hale, (Alito's originalist confidante) once wrote a long letter to his grandchildren, dispensing life advice, in which he veered into a screed against women, describing them as “chargeable unprofitable people” who “know the ready way to consume an estate, and to ruin a family quickly.” Hale particularly despaired of the changes he saw in young women, writing, “And now the world is altered: young gentlewomen learn to be bold” and “talk loud.”

The entire thing, if you'd like to trouble yourselves:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Letter_of_Advice_to_His_Grandchildren/kvABAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

Alito's and the entire conservative movement's "Opinion" of Susan Collin's marriage"

"The so-called marital rape exemption — the legal notion that a married woman cannot be raped by her husband — traces to Hale. So does a long-used instruction to jurors to be skeptical of reports of rape. So, in a way, do the infamous Salem witch trials, in which women (and some men) were hanged on or near Gallows Hill."

Alito believes another originalist from back in the day, in the latter's absolute prescience (just like English Common Law had in its possession the first drawings of semi-automatic military grade weaponry to be placed in the hands of murderous fucking conservative American citizens many hundreds of years later) fortold and blessed with their rape God's holy imprimateur the actions of Brett Kavanaugh and his wingman's (yeah, the Puritans and toffey-nosed Brit jurists had wingmen too) criminal actions committed against the virgin Christine Blasey Ford, who was burned as a witch by 100 million subhuman rapist lying Christian conservative murderous filth in America.

"When a virgin is defiled," Bracton writes, "let her defiler be punished in the parts in which he offended. Let him thus lose his eyes which gave him sight of the maiden's beauty for which he coveted her. And let him lose as well the testicles which excited his hot lust." The truth of the victim's accusation would "be ascertained by an examination of her body, made by four law-abiding women sworn to tell the truth as to whether she is a virgin or defiled."

Last I noticed, Kavanaugh's big swinging balls are still out walking the streets.

THIS:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/alitos-draft-abortion-decision-is-brilliantly-persuasive

Until the 18th Century, there was no support in American law to any fucking right, though shooting the Other was widely practiced until we got used to it.

My kidneys are potentially trans because they could transition for use in both females and males as long they are free of bullet holes, a less and less likely prospect as events expire, before I distribute them.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/crystal-masons-illegal-voting-conviction-must-be-reconsidered-texas-court-says?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition

You'd think in Texas where tax evasion, the crime for which her voting rights were removed, is a hobby and a profession that this woman would have been permitted to vote as many times as she wished.

Well, she was black. That makes sense, when ya tally up other conservative movement hobbies and professions in that northern province of Mexico.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

They are, and they will be executed for treason, along with their leaders, Trump, Carlson, and Greenwald.

https://twitter.com/Tehdon/status/1524743080674533376/photo/1

[Nigel]

...this is customary framing in relation to the party in the majority...

Only if they are Democrats.

[wj]

...this is customary framing in relation to the party in the majority...

Only if they are Democrats.

I suspect that a part of the enthusiasm for the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen is a desire to believe that they are, in reality, still a majority.

Messing with the Census is another leg of the same compulsion. If you can avoid counting those outside their group, you can continue to pretend that they don't really exist.

And, of course, the MAGAt position on immigration is another part of the same thing. They need, desperately need, to believe that theirs is still the majority, and the majority view, in this country

[JanieM]

Only if they are Democrats.

True enough.

I suspect that a part of the enthusiasm for the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen is a desire to believe that they are, in reality, still a majority.

The hoi polloi, probably yes. SCOTUS justices, Congress folks, no way. They know damned well they are not, that's partly why they're going to such lengths to rig elections etc.

[Nigel]

One thing the abortion obsession might go some way to explaining is the otherwise demented, determined refusal to either recognise, or be corrected on, scientific realities.

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1524782858602172417
It appears the Missouri House and Senate have passed a gag rule forbidding pharmacists from proactively questioning the efficacy of ivermectin treatment for anything. https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills221/hlrbillspdf/4028H.06S.pdf…

[Pro Bono]

Does the next bill they're voting on rename Missouri the "lie-to-me state"?

[nous]

They do say Missouri loves company.

[wj]

Does the next bill they're voting on rename Missouri the "lie-to-me state"?

Perhaps the "Show me . . . but I won't believe my lying eyes" state

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

As alluded in that Twitter mess, the first woman in Missouri who effects an abortion with ivermectin will be sued, prosecuted (she could plead equine miscarriage), and jailed and her child given over to a Christian cult of cross-eyed child molesters.

The pharmacist will be executed for holding his tongue.

Will pharmacists in Missouri ... Arkansas will be next ... be required to translate the small print on the Ivermectin package into Russian for all Missourians who will be required to speak and read fluent cracker Russian, and only Russian, English being now being too contaminated from its frequent use by the OTHER in America?

The savage violence of Civil War across America approaches apace, at full gallop.

One of the historical charms of driving thru the countryside in the South are the frequent Civil War battlefields one comes across, one after another with little distance in between.

One hundred years from now, how will we negotiate the enormous craters from the thermonuclear explosions of the coming Second Civil War ... I guess by narrated passenger drone tour and half-life suits.

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

The deafening silence of the stockpile of military grade weaponry in the fumbling hands of Texans once again proves the pointlessness of the Second Amendment’s empty girly-boy promise to water the tree of liberty with the lilly-livered, HIV- positive blood of all hat no cattle conservative Christian patriots and to execute fascist subhuman genocidal gummint led by wheelchair cowboys and shock jock east coast outta town malignancies.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2022/05/12/gop-death-cult-open-thread-governor-abbot-literally-wants-babies-to-starve/

Round ‘em up , boys! They don’t have the guts to use the firepower fer what it was meant fer.

We can wish, but wish in one hand and shit in the other in America and see which one fills up first.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1525259951903543296

Pedo-Grifters?

Hey, toots, you wanna say that to my face?

I remember an America in which you could sit down for a quiet drink and civil conversation with your equals, perhaps colleagues, even, in a bar, or say, the hallowed halls of government, and ya know, work out your problems over heah thru face to face deliberation, give a little here, give a little there, pretty soon, everybody has their share of the sausage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Tf4uF4MyI

The Republican Party.

Or America.

Choose wisely.

Or else.

[wj]

JDT, I particularly love this comment:

In other news, http://DangerousPedophile.com redirects to
@mattgaetz (seriously)

Somebody should get props for setting that up!

[Nigel]

Clarence Thomas doesn’t even know the history of his own court.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/03/04/Justice-Harry-Blackmun-who-has-received-numerous-death-threats/7512478760400/
WASHINGTON -- Justice Harry Blackmun, who has received numerous death threats for writing the high court's opinion legalizing abortion, today said he was shot at through the window of his home last Thursday night.

In a statement issued by his office, Blackmun confirmed that one shot had been fired through the front window of his Arlington, Va., home. No one was injured, and the FBI is investigating the incident.…

[JanieM]

@Nigel -- I'm sure there's some reason why that's got to be allowed for, but chalk on a sidewalk must be clamped down on. Hard.

[wj]

Clarence Thomas doesn’t even know the history of his own court.

You have to remember that there is a critical difference: nasty things happening to me and mine are vastly more important/threatening that anything that has ever happened to those other guys. It is, after all, at the core of the MAGA worldview.

[russell]

I remember an America in which you could sit down for a quiet drink and civil conversation with your equals, perhaps colleagues, even, in a bar, or say, the hallowed halls of government, and ya know, work out your problems over heah thru face to face deliberation

when was that?

in other news, Yet Another Disaffected Young White Man decided to take out his resentments toward the world at large by shooting up a grocery store. Streamed it live on Twitch, apparently. A manifesto was involved.

13 people were shot, 11 of them black. 10 people died, including the Good Man With A Gun, the grocery store security guard, who tried to bring the dude down, but was defeated by the young man's body armor.

It strikes me that a country that requires security guards at its grocery stores may be overdue for some self-reflection. A head check, as it were. A look in the mirror.

Lots of other things strike me, but I'll leave it at that.

I haven't been commenting all that much of late, because I just don't think I have all that much to say. Or, rather, I have things to say, but they're all both obvious and of no consequence whatsoever.

We have security guards in our grocery stores now. And they die in the line of duty.

WT actual F.

[JanieM]

@russell -- WT actual F indeed. I don't think it's possible to deprogram dozens of millions of people; I don't know how we're going to get out of this mess. I can't imagine things are not going to get much worse in this country before they get what I would call better, if they ever do. I won't be surprised if it doesn't happen in my lifetime.

Which grieves me enormously for my offspring, their offspring, everyone's offspring coming along behind us old folks.

But I have been vaguely/mildly both-sides-ed recently by someone I care deeply for, someone who basically agrees with me about (e.g.) Roe but thinks I live in a bubble. That deepens my own feeling that "I have things to say, but they're all both obvious and of no consequence whatsoever."

Shorter me: wrs. For a change.

[wj]

I don't think it's possible to deprogram dozens of millions of people; I don't know how we're going to get out of this mess.

At a guess, we have an incident which motivates the MAGAts to believe that their moment (for violently seizing the government) has come. So they start several somethings around the country.

And discover, to their amazement, that they are generally getting their asses kicked. Because there's way too many members of the US military who take seriously their oaths to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Not everybody in the military, of course, but a substantial majority. And they have the big guns. Old saying: God fights on the side of the heaviest artillery.

Mostly, the MAGAts decide to fade away, nursing their Lost Cause the way their ancestors did theirs. Be a lot of people dead, of course. But fewer that covid has taken down. And, since it's disproportionately MAGAts after the first couple days, their ability to win by stealing elections is down. If it reminds you of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, well it should.

[Nigel]

Yet Another Disaffected Young White Man

‘Terrorist’ is a politically fraught word, buy I don’t see how he’s much different from one of Al Qaeda’s murderers.

[Nigel]

The terrorists’ chief propagandist.

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1525635226415808513

Word for word the ‘manifesto’ of the latest murderer.

[Pro Bono]

Old saying: God fights on the side of the heaviest artillery.

Tacitus, c.100
Deos fortioribus adesse
The gods are there for the stronger

Roger de Rabutin, 1677
Dieu est d'ordinaire pour les gros escadrons contre les petits
God is usually for the big squadrons against the small

Voltaire, 1770
On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons
They say that God is always for the big battalions

Voltaire, c.1740
Dieu n'est pas pour les gros bataillons, mais pour ceux qui tirent le mieux
God is not for the big battalions, but for those who shoot the best

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The Republican Party and conservative movement Buffalo New York operative Payton Gendron was armed and groomed, not surprisingly (though in our desperate attempts to escape the deadly gravity of this racist, conservative movement genocidal fascism pulling us into its vortex of subhuman Aryan exceptionalism and well-nurtured nihilism, WE try .. try .. to maintain our own fragile human capacity to BE surprised) and not only by the Radio Rwanda Trump-heiling Republican Party hate media (expressly created over the past 40 years precisely to bring us to this hate and murder-filled moment in history; racist killer Limbaugh has a stiffy right now saluting his jackbooted Nazi-American offspring in his crypt) but this subhuman, monstrous Harvard grad Auschwitz matron-wanna-be, just cited above for ordering (some stinking conservative will be along soon to caution us that it was only a "suggestion" protected by the First Amendment), the murder of all liberal Others because we are accused of pedophilia.

https://www.rawstory.com/elise-stefanik-great-replacement/

Stefanik, Carlson, the entire devil army of conservative Republican Party pig fuckers are no different than mass killer Charles Manson and his hypnotic arming and administrative grooming of the Tate and Labianca murderers.

My government must execute all of them. Because, it will be better in the long run for a decent government to do so, otherwise no one is going to like what is coming in savage vengeance to these millions of EVIL ones.

There will be no restraint:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73vRi5CS81M

Clarence and Ginny Thomas, the originalist standard-bearers of the Republican Party's Great Replacement Theory of Jurisprudence and Insurrection, were both wearing body armor yesterday in celebration of Gendron's achievements in furtherance their fascist vermin cause.

None of the six fascist Republican Party operatives and their families sitting on the Supreme Court went grocery shopping yesterday.

How did they know?

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Gendron? Where have I heard that name before?

https://sheeplywolves.com/remembering-the-reformation-mike-gendron/

Check the palms of their hands for the telltale Dreher-similar bleeding stigmata of deadly white conservative Christian American victimhood.

[nous]

Molecular and regional civil wars have more than just the combatants' autism in common. Their participants must also be selfless. In 1951, Hannah Arendt wrote:

"I suspect there has never been a shortage of hate in the world; but...[by now] it had grown to become a deciding political factor in all public affairs.... This hate could not be targeted at any one person or thing. No one could be made responsible--neither the government, nor the bourgeoisie, nor the foreign powers of the time. And so it seeped into the pores of everyday life and spread out in all directions, taking on the most fantastical, unimaginable forms.... Here it was everyone against everyone else, and above all against his neighbor....

"What distinguishes the masses today from the mob is their selflessness, their complete disinterest in their own well-being.... Selflessness not as a positive attribute, but as a lack: the feeling that you yourself are not affected by events, that you can be replaced at any time, anywhere, by someone else.... This phenomenon of a radical loss of self, this cynical or bored indifference with which the masses approached their own destruction, was completely unexpected... People were beginning to lose their normal common sense and their powers of discrimination, and at the same time were suffering from a no less radical failure of the most elementary survival instinct."

Arendt was writing of the period between the two world wars, describing the situation which led to the establishment of the totalitarian regimes. The relevance of her analysis to today's situation is plain. But in contrast to the 1930s, today's protagonists have no need for rituals, marches and uniforms, nor for agendas and oaths of loyalty. They can survive without a Fuhrer. Hatred on its own is enough. If in those days terror was the monopoly of totalitarian regimes, today it has reappeared in de-nationalized form. The Gestapo and the OGPU are superfluous when their infantile clones can do their work for them. Every car on the subway can become a miniature Bosnia. You don't need Jews to have a pogrom; counter-revolutionaries aren't the only elements that need cleansing. It's enough to know that someone supports a different football club; that his greengrocer's shop is doing better than the one next door; that he dresses differently; that he speaks a different language; that he wears a headscarf or needs a wheelchair. Not to conform is to risk death.

Their aggression is not directed only at others, but at themselves. It is as if it were all the same to them not only whether they live or die, but whether they had ever been born, or had never seen the light of day. However huge the genetic pool of stupidity might be, it is not big enough to explain this urge to violent self-destructiveness. And the nexus of cause and effect is so obvious that any child could understand it.

Howls of protest at the loss of jobs are accompanied by pogroms which make it obvious to any thinking capitalist that it would be senseless to invest in a place where people go in fear of their lives. The most idiotic Serbian president knows as well as the most idiotic Rambo that his civil war will turn his country into an economic wasteland. The only conclusion one can draw is that this collective self-mutilation is not simply a side-effect of the conflict, a risk the protagonists are prepared to run, it is what they are actually aiming to achieve.

The fighters know very well that there will be no victory. They know that, eventually, they will lose. And yet they do everything in their power to up the stakes. Their aim is to debase everybody--not only their opponents, but also themselves.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger - "Civil War"

I think about this and Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism a lot these days.

I do not think that we will ever get the sort of confrontation that wj imagines. The fanatics will use power where they can to enforce government sponsored terror up to the state level, and where they can't it will continue to be this sort of molecular, lone wolf executions. This will continue to be messy and indecisive.

[wj]

I do not think that we will ever get the sort of confrontation that wj imagines. The fanatics will use power where they can to enforce government sponsored terror up to the state level, and where they can't it will continue to be this sort of molecular, lone wolf executions. This will continue to be messy and indecisive.

I disagree. If both sides were falling en masse into the kind of free floating hatred that characterizes the radical right, it might be accurate. But, as far as I can see, the left definitely has its nut cases, but overall they haven't succumbed to the insanity.

So my guess is that we will reach the point where those outside the insane right will say: "Enough of this sh*t! We refuse to put up with it any longer!" And the power of the state, backed by the support of the majority of the population, will be directed at shutting down the radicals and the private militias and the rest of institutions of insanity. Absolutely including Fox News. (The latter maybe by something that forbids anyone working for a self-labeled news organization from defending charges of incitement by claiming that nobody with any sense would believe what he says is anything but entertainment. Although there may be a different approach employed.) And that probably includes amending the Constitution to repeal, or at least radically clarify, the 2nd Amendment. And making gun manufacturers liable for the damage done by their products in private hands.

[nous]

Amend the constitution how? There's currently a 50/50 split of red vs. blue states. Good luck getting to a 2/3 majority *by state.*

The constitution is built in a way that plays into the hands of the saboteurs, and the saboteurs are using their institutional powers to further erode any ability to self-correct.

I believe in your sentiment, I just don't see any mechanisms to get from sentiment to self-correction that does not in essence dissolve the constitution.

[Priest]

OT directed to Janie, any info on what’s up with Balloon Juice? I had not seen any notice of server maintenance, my paranoid side is wondering if they attracted hacking because of Adam Silberman’s daily Ukraine updates.

[Priest]

Silverman, dammit.

[wj]

Amend the constitution how? There's currently a 50/50 split of red vs. blue states. Good luck getting to a 2/3 majority *by state.*

That wouldn't be the first step, for the reasons you give. But I expect it would happen, once sanity was restored to our civil discourse.

Then again, we might merely decide that "a well-regulated militia" means the National Guard, and not individuals. That would merely require restoring sanity on the Supreme Court. Which we will need to reestablish anyway.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Kyle Rittenhouse was a guest of Herr Trump at Mar-a-Lago last night. And THAT's not even the headline in this post:

https://digbysblog.net/2022/05/15/18-year-old-gun-nuts/

The great thing about the efficiency of modern military grade killing weaponry is one conservative gunman can take of killing the Other in Buffalo, while another can bide his time and join his genocidal brethren and view a movie about killing the Other.

Two California subhuman fucking Judges just armed and groomed and recruited more young fascist republican vermin operative fucks to "copy that" Buffalo slaughter.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Then again, we might merely decide that "a well-regulated militia" means the National Guard, and not individuals. That would merely require restoring sanity on the Supreme Court. Which we will need to reestablish anyway."

Wish with one hand and .... well ... you know the drill.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

If true, Trump will claim credit for organizing this:

https://fortune.com/2022/05/14/does-putin-have-cancer-coup-underway-blood-cancer-ukraine-war/

.... and then tell America that similar events will occur against Biden in America at an early date.

[GftNC]

Gosh, look at this, not just the shaking hand but also the way he walks straight afterwards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg3HgN11nG0

[wj]

Certainly cancer makes a convenient excuse for a coup. Leaves the option of either letting him retire to a rest home (if he's a good little boy and goes quietly), or putting him in a casket (if he resists). And muddys the waters with the other unrepentant KGB types.

[JanieM]

@Priest -- I don't know, it's pretty weird to have two whole daytimes (and a night!) without BJ or any way to get word about what's happening. Funny you should think of Silverman's posts, I thought of WaterGirl's massive efforts to raise funds for democratic and Democratic causes.

I wish they'd put up some kind of message somehow, thought! But their hosting company is down too, so it seems to be bigger than just BJ.

[Priest]

Thanks for the reply Janie, I thought about checking Wayback Machine to see if I could get an email address for checking directly, but hoping whatever it is gets cleared up soon.

[JanieM]

I happened to still have Steve's photo post from Friday open, and hadn't refreshed it, so I looked for their hosting company at the bottom. I do have WaterGirl's email address because of photo correspondence, but I don't think this is the time to interrupt her with inquiries. :-)

It does seem like it must be something pretty disastrous, to have caused this much downtime.

[CharlesWT]

According to John Cole:

"Balloon Juice is still down. They know what is causing the problem and have told us, and are working to fix it as it is impacting a large volume of websites including hospitals, etc.

I don't understand what the problem is, but I have been told."
John Cole @Johngcole: 11:11 AM · May 15, 2022

[JanieM]

Thanks, Charles! I looked at BizBudding's Twitter (and Facebook), but never thought of John's.

[JanieM]

For that matter, ObWi has been loading very very slowly most of the time over the past couple of days, and now and then it doesn't load at all and I get the "this website isn't responding" page.

Anyone else getting that? Not that it matters, sine we can't do anything about it.

[CharlesWT]

I've gotten slow loads, incomplete loads, and website-not-responding messages.

[Girl from the North Country]

I haven't had any trouble at all with ObWi recently, FWIW.