The ABA supports the rule of law | Hacker News Reader

The ABA supports the rule of law

americanbar.org

71 pointscmurf22 comments

As a trial attorney for over 40 years, it is sad to bear witness to the end of democracy.

Prior to the election, multiple billionaires belonging to the 'Tech Right', referring to themselves as Dark Gothic MAGA, backed Curtis Yarvin's plan to overthrow democracy in three simple steps:

1. Gut the federal bureaucracy and replace all federal workers with 'true believers'

2. Render Congress impotent by refusing to spend money allocated by Congress for programs contrary to MAGA philosophy.

3. Ignore directives issued by SCOTUS upon the basis such Orders are only advisory, because the Judicial Branch does not possess the Constitutional power to issue binding orders to the Executive Branch.

It is distressing to see the overthrow take place in real time with hardly a whimper from the public.

IMO the only thing that will defeat the plan is a nationwide general strike threatening the billionaires with a total deprivation of their sources of income. Sadly, I have never seen any indication the American people have the ability to do what what the Europeans have successfully accomplished on multiple occasions.

> IMO the only thing that will defeat the plan is a nationwide general strike

Or a boycott of their products. Save America: don't buy Tesla.

They need to feel the pain first. If there is a major economic issue, folks will sit up and take notice. I don't wish that, but it is unfortunately the only thing that might prevent this calamity.

When Andrew Jackson defied the supreme court, it took congress to eventually rein him in, but that did not stop the Trail of Tears from happening.

The vice president sure doesn't:

https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-comment-questioning-court-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo

This isn't a new idea for J.D. Vance. He was saying the same thing 3 years ago:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...

The philosophy behind this thinking comes from Curtis Yarvin. He believes American democracy is a failed project and it should be replaced with an American monarchy:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23373795/curtis-yarv...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin

America fought a war of independence to rid itself of monarchy. Yarvin and Vance want to bring it back.

These people are treasonous. Yes, I said it, and I will keep saying it. If you don't believe in the rule of law, get thee to some other country, you don't belong in this one.

> Vice-president JD Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence, saying in 2021, "So there's this guy Curtis Yarvin who has written about these things," which included "Retire All Government Employees," or RAGE, written in 2012. Vance said that if Trump became president again, "I think what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'

It's been interesting to see the largest constitutional crisis the US has seen in 50+ years intersecting with massive social media operations. Turns out, all Richard Nixon had to do was call the constitution "woke".

We've gone from "unprecendented times" to "constitutional crisis" to now.

The canaries are wheezing and our country is in the midst of a full-on coup.

...but I gotta put together this microservices design because that matters I guess.

We all know humanity won't last another 100 years and it seems like our government (as a representational, constitutional, democratic-republic) probably won't last another 100 days.

I'm reminded of this saying:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...

While I wholly agree with the premise, I feel the ABA has lost much of its authority as it has become an extremely partisan group. Its leaders donate lots of money to Democrat candidates, its criticisms—while often valid—are entirely one-sided, and recently the ABA has been sued for illegal "reverse" racial discrimination.

As an attorney, I will say I don't know any fellow attorneys who are currently members of the ABA who are right of center.

> its criticisms—while often valid—are entirely one-sided

If the criticisms are valid but one sided, then is it a problem with the ABA, or is that the two sides aren’t equivalent?

Not enough information. The ABA may choose not to issue criticism of the other side, even though their would be valid criticism available.

Or the other side might not do anything the ABA could object to.

Ad-hominem and irrelevant to the facts. As you say, the premise is still spot-on here.

This logic is infuriating.

One party is blatantly opposed to courts and legality and law. The idea that the ABA should be obligated to be non-partisan against their interests makes no sense. Nobody "owes" both sides anything. This logic would also not make sense if leveled at the NRA, farm groups, etc - or any other group with a partisan lean.

If one side is just plain wrong - they are not owed 50/50 representation. And accusing them of "reverse discrimination" is ironic if you are also going to criticize them for not forcing inclusion of a political party.

To put it another way: if the American Marxist Party was to suddenly become an important party, would the ABA gain authority by catering to them? In the name of non-partisanship? It makes no sense to me.

Demanding that the ABA treat the Imperial Presidency folks the same as normal mostly-law-abiding citizens is affirmative action for despots and criminals. It's "both sides" taken to an absurd extreme; anyone who really cares about the rule of law (however imperfect that law or its administration might be) would reject that idea.

They are not one-sided by taking one side. GOP is wrong.

It's like saying that the priest is one sided because he is not giving Satan the same treatment as Jesus.

While the GOP is wrong here, that doesn't mean every criticism of them is true or that the Democrats are flawless. Calling out one party's illegalities while ignoring the other's is literally being one-sided.

I guess it's tangential to this article, but it's sad to see the ABA being essentially the left-wing version of the Federalist Society.

The language of rationalizing fascism.

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