Sweet Irony, How Thick You Flow and an Addendum of Warning
A Two-Pronged Statement on the Supreme Court’s Border Wall Ruling
The news on the judicial front seemed relatively straightforward: a federal trial court had placed an injunction on President Trump’s efforts to take money out of the defense budget towards his self-proclaimed ‘border wall’. However, it wouldn’t be very long before the long arm of the Supreme Court, in its traditional 5–4 high-partisan ruling style, swung out and knocked down the injunction. According to the ruling, as appeals play out, the executive branch has the authority to use defense funds as they please. Whilst the ACLU and others recoil in horror at this ruling on its simplest basis, at first I can’t help but to think how this could benefit a future progressive. Let me explain why.
The modern firebrand conservative perches himself or herself on the long-standing controversial theory of the unitary executive. Under the theory, the president is the ultimate executor; practically and logistically infallible, he or she can do as they please. What we saw play out in the Supreme Court is an affirmation of the unitary executive. There is no denying it. The belief of the high court is as of this ruling that a president, unless and until the high court itself rules otherwise, can do what he/she pleases and allocate funds as their heart desires.
So should the Democrats gain office, and the holder of said office be a progressive: one willing to act and execute up to the very limits of the office they’ve been appointed to; there is nothing stopping them from applying the high court’s ruling on the way they run the executive. A Warren and Sanders type would be fully in their rights, according to the ruling, to allocate defense funds under an actual national emergency: man-induced climate change.
The irony is that man-induced climate change is listed by the Pentagon (Department of Defense) as one of the biggest and most important national security priorities of the United States, and one of the biggest risks we face as a country in the coming years. The same is not said about undocumented immigration, or the lack of a costly physical border barrier. Perhaps this is because undocumented immigration, in of itself, does not truly hurt the United States of America. Or perhaps, it’s because a physical border barrier has been shown to increase crime rates where it is built, and has been shown to be largely ineffective at halting undocumented immigration across the border. They don’t stop ladders, they don’t stop tunnels, and they certainly don’t stop plane tickets and overstayed visas. Funds allocated towards airborne surveillance, manned patrols, and ground-based intelligence are so much more effective, and have been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.
As such, whether or not you agree with the facts behind climate change, should you find a Democrat taking defense funds towards fighting climate change, the court would have to let such a ruling stand through the myriad of appeals processes until it has the time to rule on it itself.
The federal government is yet again full steam ahead at building a barrier whose only true purpose is symbolically ideological warfare. This is the future of governance, and the Democrats would be fully in their rights to allocate the same defense funds towards actual national security priorities, at least until the courts finish battling it out. Sweet irony, how thick you must flow.
Addendum:
As you can see in the photograph at the top of this piece, the words that are carved into the very building the Supreme Court of the United States occupies read “equal justice under law”. However, I maintain a very real fear. That the highest court in our land now takes these words with the heaviest grain of salt. That five out of four justices could very well decide to divide justice on two separate and unequal scales and treat Republican office-holders to a much lower standard than their Democrat counterparts. In which case on that truly dreaded day, we would have officially entered the Orwellian phase of our fine Republic. It would be one of the final judicial death blows to our government and democracy, and finally prove to all that our great nation may truly be beyond saving. Seeing the recent ruling on gerrymandering that quintessentially claimed the Supreme Court as incapable of defending the constitution and our democracy, we may not be too far from reaching it.
The Republic is entering tumultuous times indeed. It is my personal belief that the men at the helm of entering the constitutionally mandated course corrections that are intended to save us are asleep at the wheel. We are spinning helplessly because of it, closer and closer to an event horizon which we may never cross out of. Political and judicial expediency may very well be the end of our great nation.
Heed this warning and stay vigilant, fellow Americans.
