By Rich Lowry
Sunday, May 08,
2022
If the leaker of the Alito
opinion wanted to initiate an unprecedented pressure campaign against the
justices who might vote to overturn Roe, it’s mission accomplished.
Over the weekend, protesters showed up
at the homes of justices, targeting Brett Kavanaugh and — ignorantly given
that he’s evidently not part of a prospective majority — John Roberts.
This is a shameful further step down for
our political culture, which wasn’t particularly elevated to begin with. It is
a deeply illiberal act that adds an element of menace to the deliberations of a
body that is supposed to be above the fray and not subject to physical threats.
If we continue down this path of
perdition, it will tear at our status as a nation of laws and further derange
our public life, with consequences no one can predict. It’s up to all people of
goodwill to condemn these demonstrations, yet the White House pointedly refused
to discourage them in a shocking betrayal of its duty to good order and
lawfulness.
These weren’t run-of-the-mill protests. No
one doubts that demonstrations have an important role in showing popular
support for, or passion around, a given cause. No, these protests were — and
were meant to be — threatening.
There’s no reason to go to the homes of
the justices unless it is to send the message that people outraged by their prospective
decision know where they and their families live. In other words, to
the justice who dares say that Roe and Casey have
no constitutional basis: Beware.
Intimidation is always wrong in a
democratic republic and nation of laws. It substitutes the threat of force for
the democratic will as refined by our representative institutions and seeks to
short-circuit reasoned deliberation.
It is especially egregious when aimed at
the members of a judicial body, charged with neutrally interpreting the law.
As Allahpundit of Hot Air points
out, it is also illegal under 18 U.S. Code §
1507:
Whoever,
with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the
administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge,
juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or
parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in
or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness,
or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or
resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
And yes, if you’re keeping score, that is
one of the laws that President Biden took an oath to faithfully execute.
The protesters should never have been
allowed to gather anywhere near the homes of any of the justices, and any
protesters who defied the police should have been arrested and prosecuted to
the full extent of the law.
The threat here is larger than to the
justices, appalling as it is. This kind of direct action invites retaliation.
Do we really want to get into an escalating contest of who can better
intimidate the other side’s judges and officeholders?
And, if the dynamic spins out of control,
it suppresses free thought and rational decision-making. We are, of
course, very far away from the twisted political culture of Imperial Japan, but
one of the reasons that its decision-making prior to Pearl Harbor was so
atrocious is that officials feared attack by fanatical militarists if they sounded
cautionary notes about the country’s latest real or contemplated act of
aggression.
Of course, mobbing was part of the
American Revolution. This, though, was a genuinely pre-revolutionary and, then,
revolutionary situation. Whatever the fanaticism of the pro-abortion
demonstrators, I doubt that they are on the verge of calling out the militia.
Even when Americans were on the cusp of
dissolving the political bonds connecting them with Britain, we honor the
memory of patriots who refused to give in to the logic of mobs — John Adams
representing the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre, Alexander Hamilton
protecting the Loyalist president of King’s College from an angry crowd.
All that said, at least the demonstrators
are consistent. Roe and Casey were never
constitutional decisions; they were acts of will imposed from on high. Now,
with those decisions at risk, the demonstrators are taking that same
willfulness into the streets to try to pervert the workings of the Supreme
Court yet again and even more flagrantly.
Friends of the republic mustn’t let it
happen.
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