Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Demeritorious RBG
Poor Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Dead for only slightly more than a year, and the jackals have already started on her legacy. No, not the Right. People like the ACLU, who–on the recent anniversary of her death–bowdlerized one of her famous quotes, tweeting it as follows:
The decision to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity…When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices
…pretending that these were, WRT to RBG, and as a beloved elderly Canadian fisherman of my acquaintance once said of the King James Bible, “the actual words Christ spoke.”
What the ACLU (core value: “the innate equality and dignity of every human being”) wiped from the face of the earth with their meddling is any mention of the approximately 50% of the world’s equal and dignified “human beings,” and the population of whom RBG was actually speaking: women and, of course (I take especial offense to this part), “she.”
No matter what you think of her position on a particular matter (I’ll take that as read), that a liberal feminist icon should have her legacy so diminished within twelve months of her death, in a way that is meant (falsely) to burnish it, and that many people should fall for that nonsense (as I’m sure they will) is terribly sad.
So. (As the young folk say.) Now I find that her allies and propagandists didn’t even wait till Ruthie (as her best friend and fellow opera lover Antonin Scalia used to call her) was taking a dirt nap (h/t Boss Mongo) before throwing themselves in the breach when they thought she’d messed up.
Katie Couric (who’ll live in my memory forever by the name that Mr. She dredged up from his bottomless inventive memory for such appellations: “Corky Cootie”–others include NPR’s “Snot Simon” and “Croaky Roberts,” not to mention “Nina Totalbitch”) has described, in her recent memoir, an interview with RBG from 2016 in which Ginsburg opined on the activities of those who kneel for the National Anthem at sporting events as follows (quotes pasted together from several sources):
According to excerpts from Couric’s “Going There,” released Wednesday by the Daily Mail, Ginsburg told her that the act of taking a knee during the anthem — started by activist and former NFL player Colin Kaepernick to protest racial injustice — showed “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.”
“Which they probably could not have lived in the places they came from,” the justice added, according to Couric. “[A]s they became older they realize that this was youthful folly. And that’s why education is important.”
“Would I arrest them for doing it? No,” Ginsburg elaborated. “I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act.”
Couric then asked, “But when it comes to these football players, you may find their actions offensive, but what you’re saying is, it’s within their rights to exercise those actions?”
“Yes,” said Ginsburg. “If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.”
Katie Couric found these remarks so at odds with what she expected her venerated role model to say that she completely wiped them from the interview coverage. And she’s proud to announce that in her book, saying that she did so in order to “protect” her heroine.
But it gets worse.
Katie then says that she thought that Ginsburg’s comments were “unworthy of a crusader for equality” such as Ginsburg was known to be, so she completely erased them from the interview. (She was helped in this regard by a Supreme Court PR flack who subsequently said that Ginsburg had “misspoken.”)
Does it sound to you, based on the above, that Ginsburg “misspoke” or had lost her marbles on this matter?
I thought not.
Couric concludes in her book that Ginsburg was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.”
Isn’t this where “journalism” starts? If you think that an elderly white woman you’re interviewing is senile and probably not able to follow the plot? Especially when said elderly white woman represents slightly over 11% of the vote on what is, arguably, the most powerful branch of the government in the most powerful country in the world?
Shouldn’t you want to expose that?
Or, would you rather “protect” her intransigence, to further your own agenda?
I know. Stupid question. Just look at the media coverage of Joe Biden and draw your own conclusions.
PS: I’ve always loved the jabot. Can’t quite make out if it is torchon lace or another kind, but as a bobbin lace-maker myself, it’s all good.
Published in General
As much as I disliked her positions, I always appreciated that when she wrote an opinion, you knew what logic she used and how to apply it to future cases. Clear laws and precedents I think are wrong are still preferable to ones that can’t be used as a guide for the future.
Give me a Ginsberg over a Kennedy or a Roberts.
The trend of writing women out of their role as mothers is gaining popularity. I don’t think the ACLU started it, but several recent news stories on the Texas abortion law refer only to “people” seeking abortions or “reproductive healthcare.” Euphemisms all around. Why do we need a euphemism for “women”? I think it’s pretty recent that the left started treating the word “women” as if it had the sort of derogatory connotations associated with the word “retarded.”
Ginsburg is the patron saint of government officers whose oath meant nothing to them. She disparaged the Constitution, neither supporting nor defending it.
I agree that some of her opinions made my teeth itch and my head almost explode. Especially when she punted to international law as something that should have any relevance in these United States. Still and all, it entertains me (in a less than joyous sense) that her devoted advocates are finding some of her pronouncements problematic and covering for her apostasy in certain areas.
In much the same way that (I understand this morning) a school district in Texas has been told that if it wants to teach about the Holocaust, it must include “opposing views.”
As offensive as I find the specific, I encourage its extension to the general: Let’s teach “opposing views about slavery.” Or “opposing views about Christopher Columbus.” Or “opposing views about the Founding Fathers.” Or “opposing views about British Colonialism” (a subject close to my heart).
And so on.
Let’s. Just. Do. It.
What a great post. Thank you.
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy: “If you think that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a reactionary opponent of your political agenda who is out of step with the times, you might be a Wokeist loon.”
I remember that Ginsburg thought the Australian Constitution was superior to ours. So what? That complements her Leftists ideas.
Still, Couric shows an abundance of arrogance and stupidity for trying to cover up Ginsburg’s comments.
What??? Oh, please. Let’s see, whether it was 6 million Jews or 20 million Jews or it never happened?? Good grief . . .
I don’t think that quite captures what they want. Trans men are men, and they can get pregnant and have abortions, same as women, so the ACLU can’t use the word “woman.”
Yes, exactly, but I sense that those beliefs are are a sort of cover for all sorts of misogyny. The trans activists really have it out for women who defend themselves as the real thing.
Hence the misogynistic term “TERF” Trans Excluding Radical Feminists, attacking feminists who object to men reasserting superiority by the trick of asserting female identity. Bruce Jenner becomes Woman of the Year. Boys beat all the girls in high school track and field events, likely depriving one or more girl of an opportunity to go to college on a scholarship, required under Title IX. Boys who would not get on the high school or college team now do so by pushing out a girl, while the school administrators pretend they are not violating Title IX’s mandate to balance the total opportunities in mens’ and womens’ sports programs. When the girls’ mothers object, they are shouted down as TERFS.
Red.
If Perky Katie Couric (h/t Rush) thinks RBG was elderly, didn’t fully understand the question, and probably just misspoke, just wait till the revisionistas start publishing books on Biden, and asserting what he meant when he said “trunalimunumaprzure” or [any of a few dozen other incomprehensible bits of Biden gibberish].
Isn’t the Zinn Columbus hate fest the opposing view?
And there’s nothing wrong with teaching about it, as an example of the current destructive trend in history revisionism. Teach about the folly of applying modern standards to historical events. That would be a valuable class to take.
I suppose it all depends on which you think is the prevailing view at any given time.
What Couric did is an outrage, and should have gotten much more media play. Let’s explore why, because even conservative media subordinated this story and didn’t follow up.