The United States Supreme Court revealed what some justices touted as a landmark new ethics code last year.
But critics noted that the scandal-plagued institution’s new rules lacked any enforcement mechanisms, making them essentially a 14-page long list of suggestions.
A new leak of secret discussions from behind the bench, published in The New York Times Tuesday, reveals which justices fought to keep the code of conduct toothless.
The Times reported that the court’s nine justices started passing ultra-confidential memos, kept in paper envelopes and off email servers, back and forth at the end of last summer.
I get the sense that she is less “corrupt” and more “complete and total adherence to strict laws, mostly biblical laws.”
Yeah, people can be entirely earnest and sincere and still be awful people. A terrible person doesn’t have to be based in a self-serving/opportunistic mindset. They can just have backwards beliefs that result in destructive ideas and actions even while being technically principled and upstanding in terms of the ethics of their role and the law.
The way I explained it as a science major who went to undergrad at a very conservative Christian college is “If you start from a flawed premise, you can use valid logic to get to very flawed conclusions without making any mistakes.”
Religious conservatives are starting from a flawed premise (edit: that premise being the existence of a just, omnipotent, omniscient deity) and either imposing biblical law or libertarianism is the logical outcome of that flawed premise.
As an aside, this is my biggest problem with religion in general. I’m all for “live and let live,” but the logical outcome of believing that your sect has a monopoly on capital-T “Truth” is to spread that “truth” to others by any means necessary for their own good. Most religions, especially Abrahamic monotheism, do not logically allow for pluralism, and the paradox of tolerance means that if we tolerate intolerant religion, eventually that religion will control everything.
Yeah, fucked up though it might be, I think that within the moral framework she’s chosen to operate in she’s “doing the right thing”. That framework is monstrous and should be disqualifying for a position on the judiciary. But I think she’s got no moral qualms and would treat the morality that most of us have with a mixture of confusion and hostility.
