David Warren notes the passing of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a particularly fraught moment in US political history:
US Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Screencap from a report by CBS News.
The death of the prominent American jurisprude, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will be this morning’s example. I noticed that a favoured rightwing blog said, “Breaking news. Try to show some respect for the dead.” This comes more easily to a human being, if he is at least superficially decent. Self-discipline may make it possible for others.
Mrs Ginsburg was toward the left side of the Supreme Court in Washington, in her rulings and often articulate dissents, but I loved her anyway. So did the late Antonin Scalia, who when he died inspired real grief to exponents of the other side. They were notorious buddies, Ginsburg and Scalia. They were more than willing to hear each other out; neither was a hothead. Both were deeply informed about Yankee law, and human law generally, unlike most judges. They could discuss its principles at a high level; and at a low, with a sense of humour. Their mutual respect set an example in their vicinity, claquers who included other Court members. They were both utterly worth having at their stations.
One wonders if those days are gone, for the foreseeable future, when some degree of civilization was possible in legal and political debate. When I look instead at electoral campaigns, in which knowing, malicious lies are repeated by both sides, and both are trying to raise the temperature (I won’t say “equally”), I see something larger than the current political issues. We cannot have public order if this continues; only tyranny can be imposed by one side. Mistakes are being made by “my side,” when we forget that daily life requires negotiation. Or rather it doesn’t, if one prefers civil war.
