The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

There is an argument to be made that the federal government is broken and beyond repair. The broken part is obvious, and any reasonable analysis would uncover vast swaths of the Leviathan that are maelstroms of waste, political correctness, and irresponsible use of federal power.

But is it beyond repair? Probably, and the follow-up argument that our efforts to repair the damage done to our republic by focusing on state and local races is rational. As the federal bureaucracy becomes even less accountable to the administration and to Congress, there are fewer and fewer ways to rein it in. And powerful states are already demonstrating that they can control some of their own destiny.

Except...the federal judiciary is immensely powerful, and its decisions are often immediate. Absent an overhaul of the impeachment system for removing federal judges, we must continue to pay attention to the chaotic and patronage-filled process of appointing them.

Because otherwise we get this anti-freedom, anti-science, anti-western-culture nonsense!

Appeals Court Upholds Ban on Student Wearing 'Only Two Genders' Shirt

A U.S. appeals court on June 9 upheld a ban preventing a Massachusetts middle school student from wearing a shirt reading “There are only two genders.”

Another prohibition by school administrators, this time blocking the same student from wearing the shirt with “only two” covered by tape, on which was written “censored,” is also allowed under court precedent, according to the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Administrators said the message on the shirt would “materially disrupt transgender and gender non-conforming students’ ability to focus on learning while in a classroom where the message is being displayed.” The court agreed, because of “the demeaning nature of the message” and how administrators attested to knowing of some students who identify as transgender struggling with suicidal thoughts.

“In such circumstances, we think it was reasonable for Middleborough to forecast that a message displayed throughout the school day denying the existence of the gender identities of transgender and gender non-conforming students would have a serious negative impact on those students’ ability to concentrate on their classroom work,” wrote Judge Barron, who was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges O. Rogeriee Thompson and Lara Montecalvo.

Judges Barron, Thompson, and Talwani were appointed by President Barack Obama. Judge Montecalvo was appointed by President Joe Biden.
[emphasis mine. CBD]

These are the culture-crushing useful idiots who are on the vanguard of the left's destruction of traditional Western culture and American Exceptionalism. And they and their ilk were appointed by the administrations, aided by their fellow travelers in the Senate.

That's why federal elections are important. Are we going to snap our fingers, vote harder, and return to the first principles of our republic if we elect a conservative president and a Republican majority in the Senate? No.

But flooding the federal judiciary with our own fellow travelers is a significant step in clawing back our country from the abyss. If we do that, then we will get fewer moronic holdings, and maybe a little bit of push-back against the worst excesses of the administrative state.

And yes, those school administrators should be pilloried by the good people of Middleborough. But that isn't going to happen in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

Hopefully this will go to the full Appeals court and it will be struck down, or perhaps to the Supreme Court. But either way it will be heard by federally appointed judges wielding unimaginable power.

We need to fight hard to take that power away from the left and use it for our own ends. And that means continuing to fight at the federal election level...distasteful and crooked as it may be.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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