Notes on "[s]upreme" "[c]ourt" "[j]ustice(s)"

“…I’m standing here with the New Justice of the Supreme Court, a joker of sorts who will only say that he is a Jester. So how does it feel to be the newest member of the Supreme Court?”

“This has always been a court with no kings or queens, but only fools.”

“Ok…well, you have been saying that you are going to add more to the show or, or, the spectacle that is the supreme court. How are you going to liven the show up for the viewers at home? How do you plan to make it more colorful?”

“I’m going to make it so all opinions are written in the scholarly prose of Pig Latin. And before they are finally written, they will be sung out loud while the Justices dance a jig to whatever song the lawyers and the audience inside the courtroom and the viewers at home want them to; we’ll dance around in a circle, either going left or right, according to what the audience wants.”

“Spectacular! Anything else?”

“I’m thinking about allowing members to wear red or blue robes—all of them seem to like one color more than another.”

“I see, well that certainly sounds like a racy court to me.”

“We have some very important controversies to settle. The most important and pressing of which is whether or not the smiley faces on American Online’s Instant Messenger are discriminatory because they seem to be ethnically centered on the Caucasian male perspective that has heretofore been entirely responsible for the very real and lasting prejudices and oppression that marginalized peoples the world over, but most especially in these United States, experience on a day to day basis. In addition, we will finally decide whether it is appropriate to microwave a Hot Pocket for one minute and forty-five seconds or the entire two minutes, as is recommended on the product’s box. Too, we will decide just how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop and whether or not a 10.0 rating on Hot or Not dot com is possible for anyone to achieve. Oh yea, and we are all going to wear dunce hats too. Like those big white bandage-crowns you see all the people with these days? From their swollen heads? We’re wearing them too.”

“Dunce hats? Really?”

“Of course! All justices have been big fans of the dunce diadem—I’m sure it will rest comfortably on all the members of the current court, and of those to come.”

“No one ever mentioned seeing justices from the past or present in a dunce hat before.”The Jester shrugged. “I guess no one ever noticed.”

The interviewer chuckled. “Maybe we should all get our eyes checked! But back to this deconstruction of Justice[1] and the Supreme Court…”

The Jester’s eyes narrowed. “The what?”

“The deconstruction[2]—”

“I don’t think you really know what that word means, or all that it entails.”

“Care to define it?” she said.

“Define or define?” he said.

“…Aren’t you afraid Justice might suffer under the new Court?” she said.

The Jester grabbed the microphone and shoved it up between his buttocks. Then, squinting his painted face and grimacing directly into the camera, he let loose a long, loud, fart and his butt-cheeks flapped so hard that they quivered and smacked against one another like a pair of clapping hands.

“That’s what the Court thinks of Justice.” With that, the Jester produced a small spring from his sleeve and after fastening it to the bottom of the microphone, which was still firmly lodged between his cheeks, bounced on his bottom up the stairs and into Court to hear the first of many, many, stupid arguments and meet them with many, many, stupid opinions.

[1] The language is obscure here; this part of the dialogue could easily be rendered as the following:

Jester: You still believe in Justice?

Reporter: Yes, why?

J: Justice, shouldn’t a thing like that exist at all times and all places, and for all people? Shouldn’t it be universally true? That is to say, what is just for one time and for one place and for one people must be just for all times and all places and for all peoples?

R: Yes what is Just is just for all times and all places and all peoples. And yes I believe in Justice.

J: Justice—the thing-in-itself—constant, true for all times, for all people, and for all places. Do you have any idea what this has been called before?

R: No, I do not.

J: Justice, the thing-in-itself, was called by the wisest man, indeed the greatest man our civilization has ever produced, an Idea.

R: Justice is an Idea.

J: Excellent. So if Justice is a universal, true for all times, all places, and all people, then how come wherever we look we find this is not the case; indeed we see that if anything is universal it is injustice. We see many societies, both past and present, claiming to be “Just” yet they are rife with things we deem unjust—murder, rape, theft, treachery, revenge, and slavery. Justice then, must not be true, and there must be no Idea of Justice. Do you agree, or think I have spoken wrongly?

R: I agree.

J: The slogan of the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Under Law”—does that disturb you, as it disturbs me?

R: I’m not sure what you are saying.

J: The Supreme Court, would you say that its primary function is to rule on cases and controversies, and to issue “rulings” in the form of opinions?

R: Sure.

J: And these rulings, which are opinions, they are laws?

R: Yes.

J: So the Supreme Court makes law these days? Or don’t you suppose that’s what is intimated when people say they “legislate from the bench”?

R: Yes.

J: Can you recall their slogan?R: Equal Justice Under Law.

J: Right! If the Supreme Court is making laws, are they under it or over it, are they a part of the law or are they apart from the law?

R: I’m not sure.

J: When we say someone is above something—is grand, is high, is supreme—doesn’t that intimate that someone is apart from something? And don’t those words, grand, high, supreme, imply mastery? And it would be foolish to believe that someone who is master of something or exhibits mastery over something is ruled by something beneath it. Is this correct or do you disagree?

R: Oh, I agree with you.

J: So if the Supreme Court makes law—is not the Supreme Court the master of law? Does it not exhibit mastery over the law?

R: You have spoken truly.

J: And as we just said, wouldn’t it be foolish of us to believe that the Supreme Court, the master of the law, is ruled by the law, as though a slave might rule a master?

R: What you have said is correct.

J: So the Supreme Court is not ruled by the law, and is apart from the law.

R: Yes.

J: What do we call things that are not ruled, do we often say, as when scolding irresponsible children, that they are unruly?

R: Yes.

J: And something apart from another thing, what might we call that? Might we call that thing outside? And people who are outside or not a part of something, might we call them outsiders or foreigners or barbarians?

R: Yes.

J: And the Supreme Court, is it not outside of the law, insomuch as we have just said?
R: Yes.

J: So then, it seems that the Supreme Court is a bunch of unruly outlaws with no idea what they are opining about.

R: Yes, you have spoken wisely.

J: Have I? I think we have spoken wrongly when we have agreed to call these barbarians mere unruly outlaws.

R: Well I don’t see what else we might say of them.

J: What might we call someone who is outside yet makes the rules?

R: I do not know.

J: You don’t? I think we were right to call someone or something that is apart from some other thing as foreign, since it is outside.

R: Sure.

J: But these outsiders, these foreigners, make rules and rule others from afar, simply through opinions. Do you know what those kinds of people are, you fine American?
R: I know this one—Tyrants!

J: So then, we would be just in calling them foreign tyrants, since they are both foreign and ruling?

R: I agree.

J: What an odd thing that what America fought to free itself from hundreds of years ago, and paid dearly for in the price of life, now again rules, yet this time the Americans are completely unaware of their foreign masters!

J: And surely you have heard all the wise men speak about what tyrants are ruled by.
R: To be sure it’s not the Law. But if the Court is not ruled by law, what is it ruled by?

J: The answer is not obvious to you?

R: No it isn’t, and I’d like to hear what you have to say about the matter.

J: It is ruled by the fickle winds of whim and folly. Its supposed well of “wisdom” is naught but a yellow puddle filled by the idle urinating of passing cows and donkeys with blank eyes amidst a field of wet, brown, rut-ridden mud; even desperate scavengers know better than to sip from such foul waters.

R: So what should we do about them? Should we kill them?

J: This much I can tell you: when one holds their life in hand, one realizes how pathetic that life is—and gives it back. For in taking the lives of the empty, one gains nothing. Let them write opinion upon opinion until it becomes a tower of Babel; let them scribble with their thin, vengeful wrists; with every clumsy word they erect sable, twisting, mendacious, malicious, “laws” that like all tall buildings will be toppled. You should laugh: laugh at such green and fetid waste being piled up so high; laugh at such a bleached, withered, valueless existence; laugh at the mislead who still believe they lead a life of value by participating in “courts.”

R: Those don’t appear to be reasons for laughter.

J: They don’t? Notions such as Justice and Truth remain unreachable to the short pig-arms of a supreme court justice; and even if such notions fall into their pit, well what will they do then? They can no more hold them with their awkward pig-hoofs than they can enjoyably dine on them with their fat pig-snouts. Such are these foreign tyrants—not even worthy enough for the backside waste of old philosophies.

[2] If people were as careless in walking as they are in speaking, then all would have busted lips, bloody noses, and black eyes.