Samuel Alito’s Arrogance Stunning.…

Simply because peo­ple dis­agree with an opin­ion is not a basis for ques­tion­ing the legit­i­ma­cy of the court,” Samuel Alito told a judi­cial con­fer­ence in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “The Supreme Court’s respon­si­bil­i­ty “doesn’t change sim­ply because peo­ple dis­agree with this opin­ion or that opin­ion or dis­agree with the par­tic­u­lar mode of jurispru­dence.”It goes with­out say­ing that every­one is free to express dis­agree­ment with our deci­sions and to crit­i­cize our rea­son­ing as they see fit. But say­ing or imply­ing that the court is becom­ing an ille­git­i­mate insti­tu­tion or ques­tion­ing our integri­ty cross­es an impor­tant line.”

Samuel Alito respond­ed to recent state­ments made by Justice Elena Kagan with­out nam­ing her; Kagan was appoint­ed by President Barack Obama. Justice Kagan said, “The worst moments have been when judges have even essen­tial­ly reflect­ed one party’s or one ideology’s set of views in their legal deci­sions.”The thing that builds up reser­voirs of pub­lic con­fi­dence is the court act­ing like a court and not act­ing like an exten­sion of the polit­i­cal process.”
Where is the lie?
Along with Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito is eas­i­ly the most hyper-par­ti­san mem­ber of the 9‑member court. Alito, a Trenton, New Jersey native who is of Ivy league stock, grad­u­at­ed from Princeton University and Yale law school. He votes a straight Right-wing Republican line on every deci­sion that appears before the court.
Alito had aspi­ra­tions of being a supreme court jus­tice from his days in col­lege, and through the largess of both Republican pres­i­dents Herbert Walker Bush and his son George W Bush, Samuel Alito has been a supreme court jus­tice since 2005 when George Bush nom­i­nat­ed him, and he was con­firmed on a 52 – 48 vote in the Senate.

It is no sur­prise that a guy who was born with a sil­ver spoon in his mouth and had doors opened for him through­out his life believes that he has the right to rule by decree, which is what many jus­tices do base on their deci­sions in cas­es that come before them.
The court is not an abstract enti­ty that may be cri­tiqued on its own; the jus­tices make up the court. Their deci­sions, indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, call into ques­tion the court’s legitimacy.
Alito can­not be so insu­lat­ed from real­i­ty, arro­gant, or just plain dumb that he believes his par­ti­san deci­sions do not decide how the pub­lic views the court, which just hap­pens to be the peo­ple’s last line of legal defense.
Recent polling shows a steep decline in pub­lic trust of the High Court. A Gallup poll con­duct­ed in June showed that just 25 per­cent of Americans report con­fi­dence in the insti­tu­tion, down from 36 per­cent in 2021.
It is fair to say that supreme court jus­tices gen­er­al­ly vote to reflect the ide­o­log­i­cal views of the pres­i­dents who appoint­ed them.
Arguably, through­out the court’s his­to­ry, the court has ruled not just along par­ti­san lines but reflec­tive of the gen­er­al mood of the pop­u­la­tion at the time, even though those deci­sions have run counter to the constitution.
On Slavery, inter­ra­cial mar­riage, On vot­ing Rights, and a raft of oth­er issues, the court has been dead wrong and was forced to reverse pre­vi­ous deci­sions that were bla­tant­ly and express­ly wrong.
Alito’s vot­ing pat­tern on the court since 2005 has demon­stra­bly been over­ly lop­sided and hyper-acqui­es­cent to the views of the ide­o­log­i­cal right. It is, there­fore, safe to say that Samuel Alito believes that the words enshrined in the con­sti­tu­tion may only be inter­pret­ed along Republican lines and points of view.
Apart from the votes cast, the legit­i­ma­cy of the supreme court has long ceased to be viewed favor­ably by the coun­try’s major­i­ty. Only a mea­ger one-quar­ter of the coun­try views the court as legit­i­mate. I imag­ine those who do are sup­port­ers of those who attacked the nation’s cap­i­tal on January 6^th, 2021.
In addi­tion, Samuel Alito and the Trump appointees to the court said they would respect Roe Versus Wade as set­tled law, then turned around and vot­ed to over­turn the 49-year prece­dent on prece­dent. How does that argue for legit­i­ma­cy when more than a third of the peo­ple on the court are known liars?
In a coun­try of laws, they would all be impeached and removed for lying to the Senate, but the United States is not a coun­try of laws; it is now an oli­garchy ruled by a small cabal who chose the under­lings that run the gov­ern­ment, includ­ing the supreme court.
Alito’s Ivy league edu­ca­tion may have blind­ed him to the fact that one does not have to have an Ivy League edu­ca­tion to be a thinker. Not every­one has con­sumed the cool-aid.
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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.