What do cats, self-importance and the Supreme Court have in common?

© 2021 Peter Free

 

15 July 2021

 

 

Humility never to be seen?

 

Not to pick on Justice Breyer, who merely represents a generally American actuality.

 

But still, get this:

 

 

Justice Stephen Breyer has not decided when he will retire and is especially gratified with his new role as the senior liberal on the bench, he told CNN in an exclusive interview -- his first public comments amid the incessant speculation of a Supreme Court vacancy.

 

Far from Washington and the pressures of the recently completed session and chatter over his possible retirement, Breyer, a 27-year veteran of the high court, said Wednesday that two factors will be overriding in his decision.

 

"Primarily, of course, health," said Breyer, who will turn 83 in August.

 

"Second, the court."

 

Liberal advocates, law professors and some Democratic members of Congress have tried in public statements to persuade Breyer to leave the bench. They want Democratic President Joe Biden to be able to name a younger liberal while the Senate, which has the constitutional "advice and consent" power, holds a thin Democratic majority.

 

© 2021 Joan Biskupic, Stephen Breyer says he hasn't decided his retirement plans and is happy as the Supreme Court's top liberal, CNN (15 July 2021)

 

 

I am amused . . .

 

. . . by four elements contained in that overview.

 

First, the (typically cat-like) Democrat in Justice Breyer cannot quite see himself doing anything for the supposed overall good of the purported cause.

 

 

No Republican Party discipline in him, exactly emulating the same lack of it in his Democratic Party fellow travelers.

 

 

Second, the arguable arrogance with which the Justice assumes that he's 'gonna' live somewhat forever.

 

 

I'm in my mid-70s — and though in supposedly good health — I enter each day thinking that the odds of falling over dead are quite excellent.

 

Too many near-death slaps by Fate along the way (to where I am now) for me to think that I am enclosed in any kind of armor against Life's split-second, terminating twists.

 

 

Third, "the Court" — yes, Stephen, that most Supreme Bench needs you.

 

 

No one else could exactly take your place, could they?

 

We are all so very precious in our unique geniuses.

 

That's another typically Democratic Party 'liberal' thought. One retches at its over-repeatedness.

 

 

Fourth and implied by the foregoing — "Y'all young folk ain't got nothing to teach this 'dodster' (a human old enough to dodder in one form or another).

 

 

Evidently, law (writ large) needs to be generated by those too aged to have to live with it for any duration.

 

 

I guess that 'liberals' may be in for a repeat . . .

 

. . . of Justice Ginsberg's parade of the same kind of apparently self-centered thinking.

 

We are, according to both Justices' pre-croak behavior, all going to live forever.

 

Doing that most admirable extension of our (apparently interminable) presences on Earth — while still exhibiting minds as spry — as they were when we were young.

 

 

The moral? — Isn't ego wonderful?

 

This is why soul-admirable spiritual folk become neither politicians nor jurists.