The Supreme Court on Not Standing for Standing
19th July 2024
Human beings are animals that often operate by proxy. Here’s a familiar example from the world of — well, I was going to say “the law,” but what I have in mind is not the law but its perversion, so let’s say “the legal bureaucracy.” Everyone has heard the phrase “the process is the punishment.” It covers a multitude of sins. In its core signification, the phrase describes an increasingly common situation in which the machinery of the law is deployed to harass, enervate, stymie and otherwise hobble someone the regime does not like but whom, for the time being anyway, it chooses not to incarcerate. Sometimes it is easier to bankrupt and demoralize an opponent into submission.
Relevant here is a conversation I had more than a decade ago with a couple of worldly friends who can fairly be described as experts in the operation of the law. A prominent businessman had just been indicted and one of my friends observed that the indictment meant that he was sure to be cashiered, and soon. But what about being presumed innocent until proven guilty? I asked. My friends did not actually laugh, but they did smile as they explained that in our system the actual dispensation was “innocent until indicted.” Once indicted you are a marked man, as your banker will explain.
The political landscape is littered with victims of our extralegal legal process, as such names as Mike Flynn, Peter Navarro, John Eastman and of course Donald Trump will remind you. Their fates help to explain why you hear more and more people talking about our “two-tier” justice system, which is just periphrasis for “injustice,” and our “Stalinist” courts and judges, which is just an illuminating historical parallel to what is actually happening.