Perry Mason Had Faith in the “Eventual Supremacy of Reason”
Actions Have Consequences.
2/26/2020 — Corona Virus continues to spread around the world.
Many people have no idea that in 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.
2/25/2020 — Donald Trump calls for liberal SCOTUS member’s recusal.
2/5/2020 — US Senate finds Donald Trump not guilty on 2 articles of impeachment.
Thinking back, my mind began to free associate in overtime as I reviewed thoughts previously published.
2018 — Republican’s rule Senate and the White House.
Do you wonder how men like Chuck Grassley, Orin Hatch, Mitch McConnell & Donald Trump sleep at night? Probably better than you or I. “Lack of conscience breeds contentment and mindless ignorance at the destruction it wreaks.” ~MM Marvel
The result: an accused sexual assaulter is confirmed as Associate Justice of The Supreme Court three days after a rigged, limited 4-day investigation.
Those of us who care about humanity and justice ought not to let our sleep at night be disturbed. Rather we should have faith — “Faith in what Judge Learned Hand called the eventual supremacy of reason.”
I’d like to play the highbrow telling you that on Friday night of Brett Kavanaugh’s first week as a member of SCOTUS I was reading quotes and decisions of great jurists. I wasn’t. I was watching a video of Perry Mason quoting Learned Hand on the eventual supremacy of reason. Suddenly I had an aha moment and did a search on the quote.
I began to explore the life of Learned Hand a past Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
It got me thinking. There have been so many learned jurists in the history of this great country. We often forget most of what they said, recalling only their notable decisions.
My thought was that as important as the results of a case may be, the specific words uttered by men of conscience and knowledge are equally significant.
Judge Learned “… Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge…”
I reasoned simply recounting a few of his most famous words with “light commentary” might serve a greater purpose than pontificating my views of the political travesty of the last month and indeed since the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015.
Here’s a thought to reflect upon.
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…”
I wonder if Judge Hand could ever have imagined the Republican efforts to suppress the vote all over our country. Here’s an article that illuminates what they are doing!
A major factor in Republican success is that most march in lockstep with party leadership. Independent thought and action are not encouraged. The party has all the answers and are unflinching in their positions. “Toe the line or no money for your campaign!” In Trump World, “We might even primary you!”
The video below is a stark reminder of the danger of blind obedience.
Democrats are often hurt by the fact that they engage in open discourse stretching from ultra-progressive to moderately conservative. Although laudable, it doesn’t create party unity and often causes problems at the polls. And let’s not kid ourselves, Progressives can be very rigid too.
Only time will reveal the consequences of the Democratic 2020 Presidential primary.
“ …The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women…”
Below a quote to read carefully. Judge Hand was not referring to any political party. Who do you think the statement most closely describes and is this a world that we should tolerate?
“Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers.”
In the quote above I extrapolate the word “market,” to be the Republican party. What’s your opinion?
Here is a thoughtful statement about our Constitution and its creators. Kind of ironic that most Republicans are strict constitutional originalists.
“We believe… the men who met in 1787 to make our Constitution… made the best political document ever made; but, remember, they did so… because they were great compromisers… The condition of our survival… is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world…”
“There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.”
If only SCOTUS conservatives and the Republicans adhered to this philosophy!
The following quote seems to have foreshadowed President Trump’s outlook. I’m guessing he might approve of the cause of Judge Hand’s frustration.
“I believe that the community is already in process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence, where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.”
This isn’t my America, how about you?
In the year 2020 justice for all does not prevail. More so if one is a person of color, an immigrant, lives in poverty, has differing sexual orientation or holds particular religious beliefs.
To thrive and survive we all must strive to be our best selves and live lives that respect the views of others. Only in this way will America achieve the greatness we claim to possess.
Finally, I found the following excerpt from Learned Hand to be particularly poignant.
“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.”
Let’s hope that someday the “supremacy of reason” and not of power will be a tenet by which we all live.
Author’s Note: All italicized type in this article reflect quotes of Learned Hand.
Originally published OpEdNews
