MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS JULY 05 2023
June ended with a series of high-profile rulings from the United States Supreme Court that drove many on the left side of the aisle – elected, commenting, or glued to social media – fuming. The so-called “progressives” don’t know what actual progress looks like, so they make arguments that sound so objectively racist you would think that the Democratic Party was back to its slaveholding, KKK-founding roots.
The Affirmative Action ruling garnered the most headlines and op-eds as it makes illegal what many Democrats enjoy doing – discriminating on the basis of race. The Court ruled that universities could no longer take race solely into account when considering applicants for admission. Life experience, as told to an admissions department by way of an application essay, is still going to be a major factor. This merely says that two people with similar backgrounds but different races will be treated equally.
What is left unsaid by many of the Left is that black people, according to them, cannot compete on their own merits. As Chuck Schumer said, “students of color will face an admission cycle next year with fewer opportunities to attend the same colleges and universities than their parents and older siblings.” This gives away the game completely. The affirmative action admission process was never meant to shed more light on exceptional young people from difficult backgrounds; it’s to privilege those minority races that Democrats deem too inferior to achieve for themselves, even with college-educated parents and siblings.
Former President Barack Obama made similar claims. “The Court’s ruling would hamper minorities’ educational opportunities,” he said. MSNBC commentator and professional race-baiter Al Sharpton said, “I think that this is tantamount to sticking a dagger in our back because what they have said now is that it is unconstitutional to even consider race.” Nancy Pelosi went so far as to praise the dissenting opinion, which legal scholars can’t stop mocking. “Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion does violence to justice and fairness in America,” she said. “In contrast, Justice Jackson’s powerful dissent is inspiring to us, as we continue to fight to widen the path to success for all Americans.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is herself an affirmative action appointee to the Supreme Court by every definition of the term (yes, when the President says his first qualification for a Justice is that the person is a “black woman” and then he chooses Ketanji Brown Jackson, that makes her an affirmative action pick), ignored the law when writing her dissent. She instead focused on the “lived experiences” of black people in the country, which is irrelevant to law. Brown Jackson is essentially a commentator for MSNBC in a black robe.
What they are all ignoring is that this decision is actual progress, unlike the phony progressivism they all claim to love. Is it objectively good for society to ignore race? Ask any of them if, in an ideal world, race would not be a factor in any aspect of society. Privately, they would have to agree. Publicly they would hem and haw because they, like all politicians and public figures, care about power. Gaining power by telling a race of people that they are useless and incapable of getting ahead unless they vote as Democrats is completely acceptable.
Conservatives are on the morally right side of this issue. As Candace Owens tweeted, “This is a MAJOR WIN in the strive for racial equality, removing the bigotry of low expectations against Black students, while permitting Asian and White Americans an EQUAL chance to be rewarded for their hard work. RACE should never be a factor in deciding whether or not you are qualified for anything.” As for why people are so shell-shocked by this decision, Thomas Sowell’s wisdom is necessary. “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”
Preferential treatment took another hit from SCOTUS, as Biden’s unilateral plan to spend over $400 billion to bail out the wealthy and privileged who don’t want to repay their student loans was also struck down by the Supreme Court. In another 6-3 decision, the court correctly ruled that the President does not have the power to do this. For some reason, the liberal minority on the court believes that it’s “progress” to have a monarch who can do whatever he wants with the stroke of a pen.
In a win for religious freedom and expression, the Court also ruled that artists cannot be forced into compelled speech or expression that they disagree with. In the case of a Web designer being sued because she refused to create a custom website for a same-sex wedding, the Majority said that “The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.” This is reminiscent of other cases from around the country, from bakers to florists, and is, of course, progress. There are few ideas older and more arcane than a government forcing its citizenry to say what it makes them say.
As always, Progressives hate the notions of freedom, equality, and progress, because that detracts from their utopian vision of the world. These utopian visions can only create one thing, as all utopian visions do: dystopia. A world in which people are treated because of the color of their skin, is unaccountable for their actions, because the government gun will just steal from someone else, and being forced to create art against their will is not progress. Yet there are three Supreme Court Justices, and an entire political party, that says it is. They need to be told emphatically and repeatedly: No.
