This could never happen in America!
Or…could it?
The witches have targeted Brett Kavanaugh, who was just trying to eat his expensive steak dinner, and their protests so disturbed him that he was able to have dessert and had to sneak out the back. Politics should not trample the freedom to congregate and have dinner!
NEW: Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to exit through the rear of Morton's on Wednesday night after DC protestors showed up out front. A Morton's rep told me: "Politics … should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner." https://t.co/wlA4J2nxYW pic.twitter.com/jpsfhB3JVo
— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) July 8, 2022
The restaurant announced that Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency.
You know DINNER is not like the privilege of getting respectful treatment at a health clinic, or something.
I feel like I’m saying this three times a week at this point, but the Supreme Court has been very clear that Americans are not entitled to avoid passing through sidewalk protests on the way to or from exercising rights of their own.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 8, 2022
I’m expecting a decision at the next court session protecting the sacred constitutional right of unelected officials appointed for life to never hear a contrary word ever, followed by a group of unelected christo-fascists with lifetime sinecures deciding that burning at the stake is not a cruel and unusual punishment.
Dessert? I thought the K-man had to leave without finishing his beers. How’s he going to sexually assault some witch without the protection of an alcoholic stupor.
I had to read that a few times before it made sense to me. The first time I was interpreting “the right” as “the right wing.”
I like the placement of the ad for “Virtual dinosaurs.”
The protestors were selfish and void of decency? It appears that after decades of McConnell’s machinations and 6 years of the Trump obscenity some on the the left have finally learned that there’s no place in American politics for altruism and civility. Do the right wingers actually believe that only they are allowed to play fast and loose with the rules? There are no rules any more. The sooner that the geriatric Pelosi-Biden generation learns that, or better yet, steps aside, the better able the left will be able to fight back. What we need is a new generation of articulate, uncompromising, left-wing hotheads in Congress.
Harassment is the only tool we have right now. The protestors apparently did not enter the restaurant, and I would love it if I were there are saw them outside. However, Morton’s is a place I would never dine.
@#5: Nonsense, there is always violence.
They break rules whenever it actually suits them….
re: “some are more equal than others” and “they’re undermining US democracy” and so on:
The North Carolina Green Party was denied its petition to be recognized as an official party by the state’s Board of Elections, despite having many more signatures than was (supposed to be) necessary. It was a 3-2 vote, and unsurprisingly the board consists of three Democrats and two Republicans. It’s bad enough that things are set up this way in the first place, to hand control of the whole system over to these parties, but that’s not even the end of the story…. They were also harassing and lying to citizens, in order to get them to renounce their signatures.
old sayings comes to mind “what’s right for the goose is right for the gander”
also “what goes around comes around.”
“you don’t like the heat get out of the kitchen”
Doesn’t “void of decency” mean peeing in a restroom, rather than peeing in the parking lot?
So… just to be clear, forcing the alcoholic rapist to exit through the back door is “void of decency” but forcing a 10 year old girl to cross state lines to get an abortion–WHILE SHE STILL CAN–because of this asshat’s SCOTUS vote is just business as usual?
https://go.tiffinohio.net/2022/07/10-year-old-rape-victim-apparently-not-among-ohio-gov-dewines-most-vulnerable-needing-protection/
“”Asked Wednesday about the law he signed preventing this 10-year-old rape victim from having a choice over her pregnancy in Ohio, DeWine could only stutter and stammer through a political hack non-answer:
“Yeah, first of all, I have no more information than you do or anybody does. Reading in the in the paper, it came came as you know, from a story out of out of Indiana from from a doctor over there. This is a horrible, horrible tragedy, you know, for a 10-year-old to be assaulted, 10-year-old to be raped, you know, as a father and grandfather, it just it’s just gut-wrenching to even even even think about it. I assume that the doctor has reported this. I assume that if she was treated at an emergency room, you know, these are all mandatory reporters. So I’m assuming that this has been referred to children’s services, I assume has also been referred to local whatever the local law enforcement agency is. We have out there a obviously a rapist. We have someone who is dangerous and we have someone who should be picked up and locked up forever. And again, I don’t not knowing all the facts of the case, I’m just assuming that that process has has in fact, has in fact, been been followed. [sic]”””
Kavanaugh and DeWine can both go choke on a bag of dicks. And I hope whatever underpaid (and probably undertipped) Morton’s server had the unpleasant chore of serving Kavanaugh pissed in his beer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/08/biden-abortion-10-year-old-rape-victim/
“”Biden, Jean-Pierre said, is “going to do everything that he can to protect young people who are like this young girl.”
“But at the same time, he’s going to call it out and use his bully pulpit to make it clear of what is happening out there is unacceptable,” she added.””
Everything except packing the Supreme Court. The courage of your convictions are duly noted Joe.
And the SCOTUS better get used to it. Not every restaurant is Morton’s. There’s always the Red Hen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/06/25/was-sarah-huckabee-sanders-denied-public-accommodation-when-a-restaurant-kicked-her-out/
“Sepper, on the other hand, said Sanders was denied service based on her individual actions, not because she is registered as a Republican. Restaurants reserve the right to boot someone out for a trait that is not protected. “If your boss fires you and you open a business and only refuse to serve your former boss, that’s not a violation of discrimination law,” Sepper said.
Charlie Gerstein, a D.C. civil rights lawyer, put it this way: “You can kick someone out of your restaurant because you don’t like her, because she was mean to you in high school.”
J. Kenji López-Alt, a cookbook author and Serious Eats columnist who is also chef and partner at Wursthall in San Mateo, Calif., said he would ask a customer to leave “if they make other guests or my staff uncomfortable. So basically, if you’re a jerk, you get asked to leave. If you’re in a job where you’re publicly a jerk or a liar, we don’t have to find out you’re a jerk in the restaurant, because we know you are.””
OT, but important
“How I know USA messed me up…since living in Germany”
https://youtu.be/rtWCQXA91iM
THIS is the passion you need in your elected officials
https://youtu.be/eHBBZpKNLcI
or
https://youtu.be/eHBBZpKNLcI
I think that it is a serious mistake to harass political figures during their private life for what they do in their public life. If it is reasonable to harass a prolife supreme court judge it is equally reasonable to harass a prochoice judge or politician in a red state who wants to allow abortion. There are plenty of anti abortion activists who have the moral intensity to do this as they see abortion as a life and death issue.
If harassing public figures in their private life becomes common, the only people who will go in to public affairs are those with the money to insulate themselves from this sort of behaviour.
@9. flange : Void of decency = a puritans porn collection maybe? ;-)
@houseplant : I strongly disagree. I don’t think it “equally reasonable” to harass or protest someone who is taking rights like bodily autonomy away as it is to do so to someone supporting such rights. The Forced Birthers are ethically wrong and are causing real pain and torment.to people..No, it isn’t common practice to protest public officials like Trump’s picks for his treason SCOTUS but the circumstances and their actiosn here aren’t common either but rather exceptional. If they think they can take the USA backwards over 70 years and reverse all the pain-staking progress of past generations towards a better world and do so without facing repercussions including for their personal lives (do you think that? Guess you do?) then I think they should be in for a nasty surprise and given their illegitimate appointments – the perjury, sedition and way ACofB was appointed where Garland wasn’t; I think these “justices” should face the most extreme daily & nightly protests without rest until the day they resign. I think progressives have played too nice with them and its long past time we gave them hell. After all that’s – metaphorically speaking – what they are giving so many others.
@ 15 StevoR
https://imdb.com/title/tt0060665/quotes/?ref_=tt_trv_qu
See also:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Special-Pleading
Stevo R, you don’t have to convince me, you have to convince the anti abortionists. If you seriously believed that a foetus was a human being and that aborting it was equivalent to murder, wouldn’t there be moral imperative to make the lives of those who pass laws to do so intolerable ? The only thing that would prevent this would be some kind of agreement that harassing people in their private life was not fair play. Some kind of agreement of how the game is played ?
What planet have you been living on? There is no such agreement. They have been harassing people in their private lives, for a long fucking time at every abortion clinic in the whole fucking country.
CR, “would be” ≠ “is”.
You get that this “they do it so why don’t we?” appeal is, um… shortsighted at best.
(Never mind its ethical basis)
“It” means two utterly different things.
I think what what pro-choice activists are doing to one justice who was trying to eat dinner at a restaurant is nothing like what the death cultist anti-woman brigade does to women who are trying to get healthcare. If it were going to be eye for an eye, many would have their lives ruined and many wouldn’t have even survived. Being outside a restaurant (saying mean things perhaps) while he steps out the back is … not that.
It is also our right to criticize and pressure our government officials. Some random woman getting an abortion is not anybody’s fucking business other than her own.
edit: “I think that what…”
consciousness razor, you don’t see where this could lead to ? If you believed any of the crazy things that the right believed you would think that you had the right to harass public figures just as much as Kavanaugh was harassed.
This is not about the rights and wrongs of abortion, but a question of how a Democracy works. Would right wingers have the right to stand outside a restaurants yelling as Bernie Saunders “was going to introduce communism to the USA” was eating there ? Qanoners could do the same with Hilary Clinton for some other batshit reason.
It would not take much time before the only people who risked public life were those who could insulate themselves from incidents like this. They would be more likely to be rich and/or well connected with law enforcement.
We don’t have a democracy, and “never upset the theocrats and fascists” will not make it one.
Yes. Why the fuck not? Have you heard of the first amendment?
Maybe it could even scare her into being a decent person, but it makes no difference either way. They should have the same rights as me. If you don’t like that and want to be an authoritarian dipshit, then you’re free to join the other side.
Again, what fucking planet did you come from? Did you just arrive today? This is already the case of our “leaders” in government, elected or otherwise. If you’re ready to revolt and end capitalism, so we can have democracy and all that, just give the word. But you’re apparently much more upset about some rich fucking judge being slightly irritated one time by an angry mob than you are about millions of ordinary women/peasants being denied their privacy every single fucking day.
Also, you act like Kavanaugh has all that security around him because he’s paying those bills, which is not true. They just passed a law giving them even more security just last month.
CR (to another):
Not even slightly.
It’s been put as a matter of ethics, civics, pragmatism. The high moral ground.
As for “slight irritation”, again, the subject upon which this digression began was “I think these “justices” should face the most extreme daily & nightly protests without rest until the day they resign.”, and houseplant is clearly (so clearly!) addressing that proposition’s implications.
(Also, now you’re proposing some sort of calculus of suffering to justify that.
Not a great rhetorical gambit)
Houseplant is an idiot concern troll.
He is implying that christofascist US Supreme Court justices get harassed all the time when they are in a restaurant or at a movie or the opera or at the stockbroker or whatever.
So far, this has happened to one of them once!!!
With an N of 1, this is hardly an indication of a nationwide problem.
(I would even agree that it is not a very good tactic for the anti-forced birthers, which is why it is likely not to become common. Registering poor nonwhite people to vote would be better.)
And, the champions at being harassers are the xian terrorists and murderers of the female slaver/forced birther movement. Daily for decades, screaming at women trying to get into a family planning clinic. Firebombing and burning down dozens of clinics. Assassinating MDs and wounding dozens of health care workers.
Tossing off death threats like normal people say hello.
It began with houseplant’s #13: “I think that it is a serious mistake to harass political figures during their private life for what they do in their public life.”
StevoR’s statement in #15 came later, obviously. (Myself, I’d be happy if lots more people resigned.)
I think we can make very clear distinctions about what people on either side are doing, and I disagree with your attempts to treat them as if they were somehow equivalent.
CR:
Again; not what they’re doing, but what would happen if they did.
Are you really quite fine with “I think these “justices” should face the most extreme daily & nightly protests without rest until the day they resign.”?
Basically, harass them until they quit.
—
raven:
Nah.
Principles matter.
“When,” not “if.” In the case of women being harassed and their rights denied on a daily basis, the consequences when that happens are very bad, as I think you know perfectly well.
Which very bad things do you believe happen when a judge is the target of a peaceful protest? houseplant evidently thinks there’s a risk the right wing might begin to do some things I may not like very much. I want to hear what you have to say about it though, unless that’s also going to be completely detached from reality.
I don’t think protests would accomplish that — some wishful thinking from StevoR that I had nothing to do with. However, I would be quite fine if they all quit, yes.
CR,
Nothing much at all (as you note, it’s a mild irritation) other than perhaps prejudicing (heh) said judge against the protesters’ cause.
Question might better be: what utility does it offer?
Do they? That’s not evident to me.
But quoth PZ: “I’m expecting a decision at the next court session protecting the sacred constitutional right of unelected officials appointed for life to never hear a contrary word ever […]”
I imagine steps would be taken in response.
Again: I’m referring to principles, not to tactics or specific circumstances.
As I have done all along.
Either you condone the principle of harassment as a policy tool, or you do not.
Quite simple, really.
No it fucking well isn’t. Harassing someone for doing right and harassing someone for doing wrong are not morally equivalent.
It’s not a fucking game. A game of theocratic fascists is busy killing people.
game -> gang@31.
KG:
houseplant @17: “If you seriously believed that a foetus was a human being and that aborting it was equivalent to murder, wouldn’t there be moral imperative to make the lives of those who pass laws to do so intolerable ?”
(Your objection has been addressed pre-emptively)
John Morales@33,
And if you seriously believed Jews were participating in a worldwide conspiracy with the intention of destroying the white race, wouldn’t there be a moral imperative to make the lives of Jews intolerable? “Moral imperatives” drawn from false andor immoral premises do not justify anything at all.
@ ^ John Morales : If you seriously believe that though you are very seriously wrong – and the Forced Birthers already do harass women and kill doctors and do things like bomb and burn down abortion clinics. Moreover, they are trying to take away people’s human rights. So false equivalence here I’d say.
Onprinciples, yeah thing is, the Democrtaic progressiev side has been prinicp0led all along and keeps getting screwed here because the otherside isn’t.
Exhibit A : Garland vs Amy Comey Of Barrett. Exhibit B : Well, thewholeperhjuring, lying cehating thing that tehseditionist REpug Trumpists side does. They don’t give a damn and aren’t playing fair so when it gets like that, what do you think can actually work to stop them? Platying fair and being prinicpled isn’t working currently is it? Not in this area or with the SCOTUS.
Besides protest is free speech and legitimate and non-violent protests are about the least they should expect and face given what they are doing here.
KG, many of those who think “abortion is a sin” agree with you, entirely — not the premises (yours are evil, theirs are righteous), but with the principle that the end justifies the means.
StevoR:
To what do you refer by your “that” there?
I really seriously believe that houseplant wrote what I quoted, and that it addresses KG’s objection, if that’s what you intended. If not, what?
Yes, I get what you advocate.
Whatever it takes, playing fair and principles are for losers, that sort of stuff.
@ ^ John Morales : My “that” there referred to :
Which is seriously false. Abortion isn’t murder and a fetus is NOT a separate individual being though it may eventually develop into one. As someone else has noted it is the equivalent to saying a seed is a plant or an egg is a chicken or a ball of string is knitted jumper.
This isn’t a game, its a war. Metaphorically for now though the way things are going that may change. Its real and real people are suffering and will almost certainly die as a result of these SCOTUS rulings. I am advocating for massive public protest and demonstrations that are unceasing and strong and hopefully result in making Trump’s treason SCOTUS “Justices” voluntarily resign.
I also think Biden should call for those seditionist, perjuring regressive Trump picked “Justices” to resign. He should demand and insist on it. I think the Democratic party and congres should do the same and impeach them or at least attempt that. Ithink they should be disabrred and denied all insurance cover. I also suggest that Thomas be arrested for sedition and Gorsuch, Kavanugh and Amy Comey OffBarrett be arrested for perjury and contempt of Congress and held in custody – no bail because of the seriousness of charges – and the same for members of the Federalist society for attempting to pervert the course of Justice & maybe also seditious conspiracy. Or suchlike.
These “Justices” are doing immense damage to the USA and the rest of the world as well. They deserve and need every bit of legal peaceful pressure applied to force them out. They are hurting and killing people needlessly with these regressive rulings wiping out the socio-cultural progress of many decades. If they aren’t pressured into resigning voluntarily or impeached and removed; well, there is one more more drastic option for getting rid of them and stoping them from continuing to do harm.
I draw the line at and am NOT advocating for that non-peaceful non-legal method of removal. The consequences are too likely to spiral into another American Civil War. (If, in fact, we’re not already having one post Jan 6th in later historians assessments.) But if it happens then I won’t shed a tear for the Trump’s treason “Justices” and I fear if they aren’t removed in other ways that final least desireable means of removing them will be both foreseeable and durn near inevitable. Because if this is what I’m thinking and I’m an Aussie unaffected by most of the SCOTUS rulings*, i’m sure many others far clsoer and far more badly affected by their disgraceful and backwards rulings will have similar lines of thought as well.
.* Except of course when it comes to the SCOTUS rulings affecting the USA’s Climate policies eg. see :
https://proxy.freethought.online/oceanoxia/2022/06/30/shock-doctrine-the-u-s-supreme-court-has-declared-war-on-humanity/
@13, 17 News flash: Antiabortion misogynists have been KILLING abortion providers for decades. And you’re upset that the alcoholic rapist skipped dessert and had to leave through the back door?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/abortviolence/stories/hill.htm
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-09-03-1993246081-story.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/166333/abortion-clinic-knoxville-roe-wade
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/07/us/after-abortion-victory-doctor-s-troubles-persist.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01tiller.html
“Dr. Tiller’s death is the first such killing of an abortion provider in this country since 1998, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot by a sniper in his home in the Buffalo area. Dr. Tiller was the fourth doctor in the United States who performed abortions to be killed in such circumstances since 1993, statistics from abortion rights’ groups show.”
https://www.salon.com/2015/05/02/“when_it_got_to_the_murders_i_think_i_was_surprised_by_that”_an_abortion_providers_story/
“By the early 1990s, the protesters started targeting Rodney in a much more direct and violent manner. One day, Rodney was working at the clinic when he received a call from a police officer who told him that his house and barn were on fire. The fire was so large that an Air Force plane flying over the scene saw the fire and reported it. Rodney said that despite the call from the pilot, it took three calls before firefighters appeared. By the time the firefighters arrived at the scene, the fire had been burning for nearly two hours. Rodney and his family lost everything they owned other than what they were wearing at the time. They lost their house, their barn, and three separate outbuildings. Their dog, cats, and seventeen horses were killed. Thankfully, the human members of Rodney’s family were not injured because none were home at the time.”
“The targeted harassment did not end with the arson. Immediately after the fire destroyed their home, Rodney and his family rented an apartment. The first weekend they were there, protesters broke into their apartment and wrote all over the walls. Rodney’s new neighbors identified the people who broke in, but the police never prosecuted them. It was then that Rodney realized just how vulnerable he was as an abortion provider. He likened his vulnerability to his time in the Air Force during the Vietnam War when he knew that any day he could be killed. Nonetheless, he found himself more committed to the cause because of the high stakes.”
“Rodney started working for a clinic in a South Atlantic state about a year before we interviewed him. Once Rodney started working there, the protesters targeted the clinic in ways they had never previously done. In the past, the clinic rarely saw protesters; now, the clinic is under siege. Protesters appear in numbers approaching fifty or sixty, and they show up all the time. They bought an office in the building across from the clinic so that they can continuously monitor Rodney. They come right up to the door and incessantly scream at Rodney when he comes and goes from the clinic. From his long career, Rodney is used to this type of verbal abuse and sometimes reacts in kind. When a priest called him a murderer, Rodney responded by calling the priest a child molester. When protesters told Rodney they were praying for him, he responded, “You mean you’re preying upon us. There’s a difference.””
Antiabortion misogynists have been pulling this crap for decades. Now suddenly that the SCOTUS Six are targets, they’re suddenly all whingy and demanding extra-special protections and privileges that to date they have failed to provide for other vulnerable groups and targeted people. As far as I’m concerned, this was a foreseeable consequence of judicial and police indifference to prochoice activists, groups and abortion providers. Now the pigeons have come home to roost and are crapping all over the SCOTUS Six, suddenly it’s a problem.
But you’re concerned that Brett the Alcoholic Rapist can’t enjoy a steak in a restaurant. Doubtless washed down with an excess of beer. Because he likes beer. And assaulting women. Both physically and judicially.
Memo to self: shed a tear.
John Morales, #30:
They could hardly be more prejudicial now. If it means the possibility of another drop in the bucket, so to speak, then I still hold them responsible for their own failures to adequately do the job, which is to not be prejudicial.
I think the more fundamental questions are about rights. We should be able to express ourselves, assemble, protest our governments, and so on. You want principles? Those are some principles.
There hasn’t been much utility in this conversation between us, if you ask me, yet we should still be able to have it.
I guess it would be, with the simplistic assumption that there are no distinctions to make about a huge variety of things in many different circumstances, which could conceivably be branded (by you) as “harassment.” However, there is no principle I agree with or recognize, according to which I must condone all such things, merely given the fact that John Morales has stipulated that they’re all the same thing or should all be given that label. If you want to make an argument which attempts to support that, go right ahead.
@17 “The only thing that would prevent this would be some kind of agreement that harassing people in their private life was not fair play. Some kind of agreement of how the game is played ?”
Maybe it’s a game to you, a armchair quarterbacking diversion, with rules that everyone agrees to, like fantasy football.
For the millions of women who need or needed an abortion, IT IS NOT A GAME.
houseplant & John Morales – You argue as if everybody had a right to privacy.
We used to have such: it went away on June 24, 2022 (49 years, 5 months & 2 days after the Roe decision).
Brett Kavanaugh played an active role in taking away all of our rights to privacy: why doesn’t that include his privacy?
Pierce,
Nope. Well, I don’t, at least. Can’t speak for another.
(BTW, it’s ‘autonomy’ to which you intend to refer)
—
StevoR @38, well, you’ve already got my answer @37.
(You do realise that when I quote something to someone with an attribution, it doesn’t necessarily mean I endorse the proposition or sentiment that I’m quoting, right?)
Stupid slogan, that.
Anyway, it was you who wrote “Platying fair and being prinicpled isn’t working currently is it?” to which I then responded and to which your response is that slogan.
You do get I acknowledged your sentiment, right? If that acknowledgement is not applicable because it’s a war rather than a game, then the sentiment is likewise inapplicable.
An unusually stupid remark for you, John. On reflection, you are surely able to grasp that the relationship between ends and means is not as simple as that implies. Bad ends justify no means. Good ends justify means in proportion to how important it is to attain them. Really not that difficult.
I should add to #44 – the likelihood of the means helping to achieve the ends is also relevant.
KG:
So someone who thinks abortion is premeditated murder and wants it to stop probably finds it rather important. That is the good end, because murder is bad. The means being employed, if they’re anything short of murder are therefore not disproportionate.
Perhaps that should have given you pause for thought.
It’s like you’re pleading the validity of the logic applicable but ignoring that, if the logic is valid, then changing the premises changes the conclusion.