>>> sokol at jhu.edu 05/16/01 01:07PM >>>
Charles, you are too generous to those opportunistic power-grabbing schmucks. Their only *principle* (as opposed to rationalizations and excuses) is the country club/clan mentality - us the select few versus the rest of them. Them screw us - bad; us screw them - good. That is all. Capitalism, racism or sexism imply a consistent model of behavior instead of ad hoc opportunism, which as you convincingly argue, is the modus operandi of the SC.
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CB: I admit that "cap , rac and sexism " is a bit of boilerplate language, but I do think that Rehnquist and his associates act as protectors of bourgeois rule more than individual powergrabbers. There is a fairly consistent thread on the main political issues in their decisions, supporting rightwing ideology as much as their own individual self interests.
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If racism or sexism were the principle, you would expect Thomas and O'Connor to dissent, no? Not to mention that a true laissez faire capitalist would oppose government restraints on individual choice that involves smoking weed.
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CB: I think Thomas and O'Conner can pretty much be sure that they will not as individuals be impacted by the main forms of racism and sexism today, but I do see them as passing for white and male , so to speak.
On the individualist ethic of laissez faire capitalists, that is a bit of a mythology today in that those running the show for the ruling class in 2001 in the U.S. rely heavily on the "war on drugs" to divert everybody from really dealing with problems, so keeping the legal basis for the "war on drugs" in place is more important to today's capitalist class than abstract laissez faire ideology. Anyway , laissez faire was always really " leave me alone, but oppress the masses".