I was in France to pronounce it like that. France, ask not what
your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Mister Gerbatcheff, tear down this wall, read my lips. It's the
Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long. He's back and Peter Robinson, Lame James Lilacs.
And given the whole Scotus bonanza we've had this week, there's only one
possible guest we need, and that is John Hugh. So let's sabrasels a
podcast. Well, it's a very sad day. In the majority of opinion,
they basically whitewash, whitewash the Constitution in a way that basically says that
we were right all alone. America's a nation that can be defined in a
single word. I excu welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number six
hundred and forty eight, two more to six fifty, which is probably a
meaningless number of six forty eight. But here we are. I'm James Llax,
and here is Minneapolis. Rob Long's back in New York and he's been
in falls. Peter Robinson will be trembling along in just a minute here.
But while we're waiting for Peter and waiting for our guests John you who will
tell us everything we need to know about Scotus World. Welcome back, nob
and how was thank you? The last we say we see we see it's
in flames. You know, it's just entirely inflamed. So you got singed
on the way out. There's Peter gol Ah. You know, it's funny
when that stuff like that happens in a foreign cut. Often when things happen
at farign country, especially France, which is sort of bewildering in a little
bit different and kind of has their own weird thing going on. If you're
in the United States, you think, what does it even mean? Like,
what does it even mean that these guys are marching around in yellow vests
and talking about a you know, twenty three hour work week. But we
know what this means. This is just a this police stop that went wrong
and they light they shot a kid and they and they light about it.
And so but the the demographics are different, are they not than the than
the yellow bests? Yeah? Oh yeah, obviously yes. But what I
guess what I should mean is if this just feels like okay, there that
we've had this and What I think is interesting about it is that we we
I mean, I hate when people do that, so I then here I
am doing it. But when I think about the sort of the George Floyd
that the umbrella term, I'm using George Floyd's umbrella term for all that stuff.
Um, I think of it is like quick, essentially typically uniquely American,
that this is something that happens in the melting pot of the nation with
a history that we have, and um turns out it's not. So that's
my only takeaway from from the Paris riots. I mean, what I was
there, I got a lot of questions, and I think I did an
interview or two with some journalists because they were obsessed with the writer's strike,
because it seemed to them that Americans have innovated a new thing to strike about
and a new group to go on strike. And I think the French had
a hard time accepting that the Americans have invented and discovered a new thing that
they haven't. So there's a lot of curiosity about how what does that mean
to go on strike? What do you do? Like they were like they
really want to know the details of the writers strike. So I spec here
it'll be like, you mean that are moments when writers do work well,
No, I think they're familiar with that. How can you tell they're striking?
The job of a writer is to sit around and not write and look
constipated. Exactly right. Interesting, Peter, Welcome and you are in California.
You are in California. You have not been a hit by the haze
and the smoke that is covering the country here for once, for once,
we are so used to having the wildfire, haze and smoke in the middle
of the summer that I have to say the principal reaction of US forty million
Californians is to look at the rest of the country and chortle a little bit.
Thank you for chartling yeah week, because we always point to you and
say hat which we don't know where we we we s good Christian people in
the middle of the country. There science, but our weather. In the
paper said of the fire, of the smoke and the rest of it,
this is what climate change looks like and smells like climate change. That's why
not poor strange management of their forests and Canada their tendency to just let things
burn, not the fact that they've had Arson, and no, it's it's
climate change, because what isn't But no, you've got to so what is
the news in California. We're just talking about Rob in France, where I
assume he had delightful gustatory experiences because why also pretty much the news in California.
Actually the news in California. My I have a friend who's a member
of the Director's Guild, and he explains the strikes to me as followers.
The Director's Guild are the grown ups. He's a member of the negotiating team
actually, and they go in and they sit down with the studios and they
come up with a plan, and they don't yeah, they just get it
done. And indeed they signed their deal I think it was the middle of
last week or so, and then SAG the Screen Actors Guild and above all
the Writers Guild, wine and more open stage protests and get a lot of
publicity, and then they finally come in some weeks later and sign a deal
based on the deal that the Director's Guild signed. And this has happened over
and over again. I'm told this year is different, and this year is
different, at least in part because this is all the form of a question
to you, Rob, because of artificial intelligence AI, and the studios have
decided that AI is already useful. They will still need writers, but they
might not need such big writers rooms. They might not need junior writers.
And here's why. So my friend gave me an example. He's one of
the things you might assigned to junior writers. You've got a premise for a
sitcom, and then you signed the kids in the room to come up with
three or four different endings. Just see how might the plot go? How
might you end it? And AI and do that already. I mentioned this
to Sun number two and he called up chat GBT and assigned it to write
a scene in which Donald Trump and Joe Biden play Ping pong, And forty
seconds later there was five hundred words on his screen which I have now seen.
It was not ready for SNL. Lauren Michaels would have would not have
bought it, but you know what, it had a sense of pacing,
It tried some humor and you could just sort of see the way this could
go, and it really could be bad for junior writers. Question Mark,
Rob, Well, I'm I have a theory that if you're a writer and
you are worried about AI. Just how bad are you? Like that scenario
I guess could work. It's just never going to be as good as a
bunch of funny writers in a room coming up with stuff. The AI I
just don't don't like jokes and so so far. Um and the idea of
like separating it all into scenarios and you ask chet GPT to come on,
maybe it would work. I don't know that that just seems like actually more
work than sitting in a room with your team and the fun of it and
coming up with stories. And you know, you can write half a story
in the in the room if you're if you're good, right, and so
part of the problem is that's what I mean, is like if you're not
good, I think I think AI means as you do this, if you
if you're, if you're, if you're a good writer, it's going to
make you slightly better because you're going to use it and the studios aren't going
to use it for you. You're going to use it. The studios don't
want to develop, they don't want to do any of it, so I
think they're out of that business. Um, if you're a great writer,
it's going to give you superpowers, because you're really going to be able to
run a bunch of different versions at once and see how they all play out,
and it'll be an interesting writing prompt. But I even I use now
if, um, how how do you use? Give us a couple of
examples of how you use I haven't used it in dialogue, but I've used
it in pros when I don't want to do any research and I don't really
want to know any of the information. I just want to kind of get
what happened, and I'll just write the first three sentences and to say,
finish it for me, and it'll finish it for you. I've never used
that. I don't really use the sentences of the language, but I definitely
use the way it lays out events and sequences in a way that's very,
very logical and easy to understand, and so it kind of gets out of
you, so it gets out of your own worn So we're already in the
third We're already in the third verse of in the year twenty five twenty five
by Zager and Evans or a rob Long is just in a chair hooked up
to a bunch of tubes, dictating some ideas to machines which write it off
for you. Well maybe I just I just think that when you when you
reduce all that stuff to just the output, you know you're what you're going
to get is something boring. And when people don't do this thing at the
point, I mean, there's only one rule of show business, right,
don't be boring. And I've never seen anything the AI has done has been
morning And maybe they'll come up with one. I don't know, but I
have to I am in the director's skill as well, so I would I
differ with your director friend this way. The directors have are traditionally the grown
ups in the room. They are traditionally the ones to do the research.
There's been a traditionally a huge overlap between the director's interest and the writer's interests.
It's not quite the same thing now, especially as especially in terms of
working conditions. This is very boring to people who are not in shows.
But I'll do it anyway. The director the Director's Guild categories of employment are
really really strict and well defined. The first ad first sistant director on any
set movie or TV does the thing. The second assistant director on any movie
or TV set does another thing. The director does a thing. People the
upm who's also in the director's guild does a thing. These are really specific
categories. Writers are like, well are you. They have different names that
are traditional names, like story editor and co producer and supervising producer. But
the story editor doesn't edit any stories, and the supervising producer doesn't produce any
doesn't supervise any production. There's just titles for levels of writer. The problem
is that that what you need to know now you want to be a useful
member of the Writer's Guild, or or you want to be successful umbers the
Writer's Guild, or you want to understand what's going on, is you need
to know math. And writers just don't know maths. And so there's a
huge amount of stuff I read down from the Writers Guild that I'm just baffled
as to how they got to two plus two equals, you know, f
like the completely wrong categories that they're blending. The word residualism doesn't mean residual
anymore, all that stuff. So they are they are intractable and and way
way behind on understanding how the business is going to change. And I think
the actor screen actors guid will probably make a deal, probably a week,
because traditionally actors do what the directors told them to do. John Pothoortz gives
you a call and says, Rob, Rob, Rob, you promised me
your copy for the next issue five days ago, and say oh, oh
right, yes, yes, of course, of course you hang up.
You'd write three sentences and then say chat, GPT finish my commentary column.
Really is that sort of the way it works, and then you go out.
It's it's usually if I have a paragraph for two and you're writing pros,
I write idiosyncratic essays that have very little to do with truth or reality
or journalism. I am not a journalist. I am not interested in facts.
I don't like I think facts to boring. I like what I think
about facts. So I want to help you with that stuff. It doesn't
every now and then you have a paragraph where you have to lay out what
happened and when oh I see and you trying to like and like and you
and you can start it and it will sort of finish it in all sort
of And I always do it on a separate you know, you do it
on a separate document, and then you can kind of see, oh,
this is the way, this is how a computer brain logically laid out a
sequence of historical or you know, financial events. And then that's a good
way to do it, because I understand it's really for clarity more than anything
else for me. Because I write, my senses are two paragraphs long.
I use semicolons and dashes constantly. I'm incredibly, incredibly bad in that,
and it's something's hard for people to understand because you're taking dictation from your head.
And I get that, and that's how I write too. But the
thing that I'm loath to do is to do that thing that you just described,
because I find that going in and taking a look and finding my own
way to say something that I may not understand it seems a little boring,
makes me a better writer. It makes me work as opposed to just falling
back on my ticks and ingredient skills. Well, you see, you like
work, and Rob has a different approach work. He says, I've known
you both for a long time now, and I see where we disagree here
at the two of you. I'm out. Yeah. When it comes to
work, the Nations leftist commentators are working overtime over the last couple of days,
because there have been three decisions that have just rocked them all back on
their heels, and we need to pack the court. It's a rowe court,
it's illegitimate, it's been taking money from special interests, all these things.
Biden should absolutely ignore everything that they're doing. The States should ignore,
the Court should be canceled all of that stuff, et cetera. If only
Ruth Bader Ginsberg had In other words, we got some good news from the
Supreme Court this way, and you know, we could talk about it here,
we could plug it into our own little chat GPT things. But why
when we have a walking, talking embodiment of an intelligence the likes of which
machinery could never hope to emulate, and that would be John. You it
does pain me to say that this time we actually need John. Do you
know how painful it's spin. I've been listening to you guys, and I
couldn't say anything because you muted me. Yeah, how did you get how
did you get chat GPT to mute me automatically? Because it's it's it's sentient
now and is making wise decisions for the rest of humanity. You know those
computers that Kirk always argues with until they smoke and then they shut down.
Well, this is like that, except we're going to let you roll because
you are, you know, the Berkeley Guy American Enterprise Institute. You know,
you've got your credentials up the yazoo, as they might say in some
other places. You know, he's on power Line, he's got that other
law talk podcast. What really matters though, when he comes here and talks
to us, because he loves us more than anybody else. All right,
what do we got Let's start with Should we start with the freshest one,
the last one out the door, the last grenade they kind of rolled before
they headed out for the summer, or which one do you want to address?
Is the most consequential Scotus decision of our times? Well, the most
consequential one of this year was yesterday with the affirmative action case. Right,
I think for the Roberts Court this is the second most important opinion other than
the Dob's case from last year. If you think about what conservative lawyers and
judges have wanted for the last fifty years, it was to overrule Row versus
Wade, and it was to end affirmative action it's almost as if the conservative
legal movement has finally achieved most of its agenda. It only took a half
century. But John, does that mean you're more or less done now?
Well, there's always new things to talk to Richard Epstein about. So seriously,
you can see today, actually you saw the other cases where the Conservative
Court is still pushing forward. One is religious rights, and that's the very
controversial Conservatives actually are very divided about how much to protect religious rights. But
today the court said that a religious internet wedding planner did not have to do
same sex weddings if out of her legitimate and good faith religious belief. And
then the other case today was the cutting back stopping actually not cutting back completely
blocking the four hundred billion dollars Biden student loan cancelation. And that's the other
area where this Court's going to still keep going, which is trying to figure
out a way to rein in the bureaucracy. Ap characterized the website designer decision
as another blow for gay rights, which I think is an interesting way of
framing the issue as opposed to I mean, if somebody had declined to make
a website for Nazis, I don't think that the ape would be saying in
a blow to racist rights, Wow, they would be hailing it as something
else. This is a matter of compelled speech, right. This is a
matter of the state's view on things being mandatory in freedom of expression. So
the phrasing on this is always going to be suspect and perhaps not surprising.
And guess what, I have no question there, so I'll shut up and
Peter, you can go on and ask a good question. James actually made
an excellent point there, which is one thing that the religious groups successfully did,
and they started doing this about twenty thirty years ago, but you're really
seeing the culmination in the last five years. You say, kind and I'm
not sure very religious people would agree with this. They kind of converted themselves
from a religious group to a free speech group. So now instead of saying
they still say, you're restricting our right to have freedom of religion under the
First Amendment, but then they also say, and we have a point of
view as like a free speech rights. That's different, and they've been winning
a lot more lately because they're able to say we also are just saying what
we believe. As if you know, any group in society has a right
to say what they belief, regardless of whether it's religious or not. And
they've been getting I think they begin more sympathy from people and from judges because
they've made that sweat. I know we're talking about we're talking about the website
case, but I also want to go back to the coffrimitive action. But
the website case for it's just just clarifying. I always get this wrong.
If I run a liquor store and I say I don't sell to gay people,
that's a violation of something, right? Is that that you can't do
that? I bake cakes or decorate cakes, or make websites or do a
kind of a service and say, listen, I don't, I don't.
I mean the people doing that aren't saying they don't sell or serve those people.
They're saying they will not create a public product for those people, right,
they will not be their ghostwriter in a sense, either on the web
or on the top of a cake. Is that that fair? Yeah?
And that's where a lot of people are all right conflicted because you could say,
if you're a store and you open yourself up to the public or your
hotel, you open yourself up to the public. Then the law says you
have to basically not discriminate against anybody who comes in. So you can't say,
I run the rob long Democrats only love motel. Although that sounds be
a great business right, you got to let in Republicans and Democrats. You
have an obligation when you open a business to open up to everybody. Now
that distinction the court made, and you may not be persuaded by this.
There's you know, there's a lot of people dissent from this on the court
and then scholarship, but they would say. The court then says, okay,
so if you go into the baker's place and you buy the kick,
he has to sell you the cake. You can't force him, though,
to write what you want on the cake. He said, that's my artistic
right. And the court kind of draws the line around there between your right
to open access, but then the right of the business owner not to right
not to have to say what he doesn't want to say, not to be
your ghostwriter, which I I kind of agree, I don't quite understand.
I don't guess I don't understand the argument against it because because it hurts the
wrong group of people. The same people who are saying that the baker should
be forced to write something on the cake that is contrary to their own personal
beliefs are the same people who will try to get you drummed out of your
job or academia if you miss gender or use the wrong pronouns, or you
have a hateful idea which is descent. I mean, this is the disconnect
that I don't get is, on one hand, they want the state to
compel people to say certain kinds of speeching on the other hand, they are
absolutely incensive. They're incensed if people say something that they find upbraids their own
delicate sensibilities. And here's an interesting thing that both James and robs our questions
race is after this case. Before this case, I would not have thought
this was a serious claim. But now I could see someone saying, well,
in the workplace, you can't make me use your preferred pronouns anymore because
I don't believe in three, four or five different genders, right, So
I, for religious, good faith, religious reasons, I refuse to use
the vocabulary that my employers trying to impose on me. That might be the
next set of cass or it should be because I'm saying artistic somehow gives a
carve out that I don't think should be. There doesn't matter. I mean
if the artistry or whether or not it's aesthetic is irrelevant. What matters is
compelled to speech. And that's what the Left has been trying to do for
a long time. It is to frame and just and contort the words so
that if you do not utter these proper phonemes, that you are guilty of
a whole wrath of harmful violence, et cetera. Thingshobe Um, all right,
so I guess, I guess I understand it is. But that feels
to me as the way it has been limbed by James lilacs Um to use
the you know, legal term. But I know you, like John you
um, that seems to me as you describe never believable red meat an almost
a hometown buffet times twenty a banquet of mc ribbs for future. Now you're
making me graces. Yeah, this feels to me like that this area is
gonna be. This is like, this is the overture to the world's longest
concerto for courts in twenty years, thirty years in the future, trying to
figure this part out right. Yes, and this is to extend the method.
This is the overture before the opera starts, because there's so many But
part of it's because of what you guys are talking about. If the other
side let people alone, right, they didn't try to say the reason this
happened was because Colorado passed a law trying to force Baker's wedding planners to accept
everyone who comes in and to have to do these websites or put on the
frosting on the cake with the messages for people they disagreed with and for causes
they disagreed with. So I think if the other side would step back a
little bit, they won't start generating all these permanent Supreme Court precedents which they're
going to be very upset with. And the chances that the other side will
step back a little bit are counselor may we go to affirmative action? Yes?
Please, I'll just I'm just going to give you a stack of questions
and let you deal with them as you may so rather than kind of let
you talk and then come in with it. All right, But can we
do them one at a time? Because I can barely remember what Peter said.
You must says you might, thank you very much, you might.
You can take Yeah, I was clicking around last night and you were.
You appeared on every single outlet that I clicked on. John, you must
not have slept last night. You were on cable television so much. Okay,
it was I was calling. I was telling my friends. I hate
to say this, but I was getting critiqued by some friends, so I
said, that's just what you for the first time in history. That's what
you call the Asian victory. Lap Okay, I'm trouble for that. Three
questions. Question number one, Can we agree that this was the Chief Justice
at his best, no attempt to play politics, Beautifully written, passionate,
forceful, logically unanswerable as best I can tell too. I'm going to give
them all to you, John right now. There does did it leave too
much of a loophole? Of course, colleges and universities may continue to consider
essays and personal experiences and your alma mater. Harvard instantly released a press release
saying that if students, if applicants discuss the effects on their lives of race,
we will of course take that into account. That's a loophole. I
think maybe not, while you'll tell me three the military was specifically excluded.
Now, I can't quite figure out the grounds for saying that this is unconstant,
that taking race into account in hiring or application admission decisions is unconstitutional,
but the military gets to do it. John, So first, I think
this is Roberts's greatest opinion. It was, as you said, it was
very forceful and strong. He's almost if you read the descent, the tone
of it is he's exasperated. One theme that runs through is not just that
the government should never use race ever for anything again, because it was such
a mistake, but he has overwhelming disdain for university professors like me, the
university administrators, deans, particularly college a ministry. He almost calls them all
liars. He says, basically, you told us this stuff almost over twenty
years ago, that you needed diversity to have better teaching, research and so
on. And he says there has been in the last two decades absolutely no
proof that that is true. And this is almost the exact words. He
says, we're no longer going to take your word for it, as you
know that's not legal. Ease that's pissed off, right, So that's one
day. Is just how forceful. He was almost angry that he felt the
Court has been manipulated by university universities. So I thought it was It was
a great and also he's very direct and responsive to the descent. He could
have ignored Justice Jackson and her sixteen nineteen Project Descent. I recommend you read
it because now we have a critical race theorist on the Supreme Court. Justice
Oh oh. It's in fact that she basically prompts Justice Thomas into saying that
she herself holds racist beliefs. It is really an extraordinary exchange, Unlike I
think I haven't seen anything like it in you know, fifty years of Supreme
Court opinions. But what Roberts's main achievement is to say, let me show
you how the Constitution is color blind. Let me show you every time the
Supreme Court has thought it was doing good by deviating from that, like dred
Scott, which appeld Slay, like Plusy versus Ferguson, which upheld segregation.
Every time we did it, it was a disaster for the country. And
so we've done it a third time for emissions and we're gonna stop. We're
gonna close that loophole off. And now we're just returning to a single,
easy to understand principle. We have a color blind constitution. So I thought
it was I thought it was. I don't think Roberts is ever going to
do better than this. It's all downhill for him now or you John,
the two of you need to hang up. But we'll come to that in
a moment. We'll come to that. I'm still young enough to get on
the court. See, this is what we gotta You're gonna really scare the
left. Just say, look, you can still put John you on the
court. This is not over. Um. The second the loophole, Yeah,
that's not going to really think. Why do you think you wrote that
book about Donald Trump called Defender of the Constitution? Yeah, three January sixth
Um, anyway, the loop on the loopholepole question, Yes, the loophole.
Actually, Um, this is again something he did because of the descent.
So that sent the actually tried to say, okay, here the ten
ways college emissions officers can still cheat. They're really remarkable. They were exploited.
They tried to find loopholes in the decision that's what the end did,
right, and tell the end one of them and lay them out for college
emissions officers. Right. So this really ticked Roberts off. So he basically
said, actually says the last place you should look for legal counsel is the
losing descent and a Supreme Court opinion. It's really harsh. I thought it
was a great line. But then that's why this provoked what people are calling
the loophole, which is not which is where he says, Look, obviously,
college students are going to put in their essays. Oh, I overcame
some barrier because of my race, or my race inspired me to write about
the works of Martin Luther King. It's not possible for the court to police
any of that. But what the court instead said is, but if you
use that race as a proxy for he's automatically in or she's automatically and that's
unconstitutional. If you look at their race just like you might look at their
income or their lack of education opportunities, that's different. Then you're still treating
them as an individual, not a member of a group. That might still
be okay, But then they say, but we're going to be vigilant we're
gonna be watching you to make sure you're not cheating. Okay. On the
third one about the military, this has been totally i think exaggerated by the
left because they can't find anything in this opinion, you know, for anything
that looks like sunlight. So there's a footnote in the beginning of the opinion
that says, this opinion doesn't address military academies because no one sued them,
so we're reserving that for tomorrow. So I already had a friend of mine
in the conservative legal movement who said, oh, we're going to sue the
military academies next year now, so I think this exception is not going to
last very long. And if you were the dean, you know, West
Point or Annapolis, you should change your missions. Gets sued to the Supreme
Court, right, And I said, look, this is why the court
would do this, because can you imagine the Supreme Court saying, oh,
it would be okay to have racial quotas for promotions in the military to major
or colonel. Court would strike that down right away. So why do you
think they would allow those a military can of say we're going to have quotas
for black and Hispanic officers. And lower ones for Asian and white officers.
So I can't think this court would would agree with that. Okay, so
um, I am jet lagged. So I got up early today and I
read the newspaper and I read the decisions in the affirmative action case and they
are like really good, They're like riveting. That's like a lot of drama
in there. But the one thing I was struck, and I just this
is now cultural, not legal, So I'm asked to ask you a larger
question. I was struck by the difference of opinion between Katangi Brown Jackson and
Clarence Thomas, that the two black members of the court have a very different
view. And so I did a little Wikipedia and I and I mean no
disrespect to Katangie Brown Jackson. I'm what I'm about to say I could be
said about me in spades, but she in the word they kept using in
the in the decisions, adversity that adversity can count. Adversity is something that
all colleges can look at. Two parent family. Katangie Brown Jackson raised in
Florida, born in DC. Father was a prominent lawyer was then in the
Chief Council for the Miami Dade school board. Mother was a school principal,
she went to Harvard. Well, I'm sure, I'm sure she had adversity
in her life. We all do. But when you can compare that to
say that Clarence Thomas story, single parent family, raised by a grandparent in
poor, rural Georgia, a lot of adversity there. If you are the
admissions officer for a Harvard law school, Yale law school, one of those
candidates applicants has adversity in you know, truckloads, and the other doesn't.
Why should both of them get preferential treatment over you know, goody two shoes
a student, John you, because that's really what is at a heart right
of this case. I don't understand why my shoes are goody two, but
I don't even know what that means. So, you know, Rob,
actually it's your student, you know you were, Yeah, what do you
get other than as a their grades below A that's another mom a Asian victory
lap, but you went to Actually, Asian victory lap is kind of funny
because we're supposed to be humble, So an Asian victory lap is just I
don't know what an Asian victory lap would be just book. I'll tell you
this much, whatever the victory lap is, it doesn't clock in at much
of a speed. So this is this point that rob is making is actually
not just cultural, it's legal, and it's actually infused. In the opinion,
the Chief Justice Roberts says, the evidence shows that the primary beneficiaries of
racial preferences are middle and upper middle class minority families. And he says,
why should write an upper middle class kid and a black kid in the suburbs
get a benefit of racial preference over a poor white kid in inner city or
a recent immigruct from Asia. I think that's unanswerable. And so I think
there's, as you see, this cleavage or fight between people who think race
explains everything, which I think is That's why I'm quite seriously I say Justice
Jackson's descent is a sixteen nineteen project descent. She says this is justified because
all of American society is fundamentally racist and produces these long term, permanent he
says, permanent oppression of blacks, and Justice Thomas or I think the six
other Justices and the majority who say there's nothing wrong with having preferences based on
socioeconomic class. That's the other thing. People don't realize. This opinion only
says you can't use race. If you still wanted to have a better society
and do social engineering, you can do it based on geography or poverty,
right, whether your kids went you know, where your parents went to college,
that's all still allowed. In fact, I think this court would uphold
those in a second. So you really so, Rob swyn Is. It
shows that there's this difference between people who believe that government can do things based
on class, but people in the dissent, And I think a lot of
my colleagues and a lot of university professors and teachers in K through twelve who
think race explains everything. Right, But if you were, I mean,
I'm going back to those two people and I'll shut up because it seems to
be That's the crux of the argument is that Clarence Thomas was born in nineteen
forty eight and Catangie Brown Jackson was born in nineteen seventy and when Clarence Thomas
was born, he didn't have indoor plumbing and didn't have a father. He
had a father, father left early. He didn't have any of the things
that you need to get to Yale, except probably a grandmother who's on him
all the time and his own native brilliance. KTAGI Brown Jackson is a little
bit more like you know, Frankly the Rob long story, like she kind
of like you know, she born Okay, she did Okay. She's a
child of the post civil rights era by any definition. So it seems like
one side is clinging to the privilege and the other side is saying no,
no, done over. And I don't see where this ends. I don't
see where if you have the oldest guy saying you don't need these set asides,
the one guy who Rob really could have used them, frankly, and
then the other person who didn't really need them claiming them. I mean,
how can most Americans, certainly most Asian Americans look at this and think that
the system is rigged against them? Yeah? I agree. In fact,
Thomas says it's worse than that. Even he says that having this view that
the younger minorities have. Look, there are plenty of Asians who support racial
preferences, which I find mind blowing. But Justice Thomas says, it's not
just that you're trying to get benefits for yourself. You are adopting an ideology
that is destructive to young people, he says, because he says this in
his opinion in response to Justice Jackson, you are trying, you are trying
to convince all young black children that you are permanent victims, and that nothing
you do is a result of your hard work and as you said, Rob
your natural talents, that everything you suffers because of racism, and therefore everything
any benefits you get is because of race. He says that, as though
that's supposed to stings, as though he's unmasked at their argument. That's exactly
what they specifically explicitly say, that you are in this position simply because of
you. I mean, I mean intersectionality and identity politics requires the reduction of
everybody down to this. They'll admit it first. So, I mean,
you're right, and he's right, but it's you know, I don't think
there's a mortal blow to their self image. It's like, yeah, of
course, that's exactly what we believe, and it's baked into the bones of
the American system. Now. The one thing I think is different between say,
last year and Dobbs and this year is that in this case, but
I think for these reasons. I think the great majority of American people agree
with Justice Thomas. I think the polls show something around two thirds of the
American people, including a majority of the minority groups, think that the government
shouldn't use racial preferences. So I think Katanji Brown, Jackson's descent, and
this whole sixteen nineteen project, maybe this is the turning point. I hope,
you know, maybe this is you know, this crazy ideology invented at
the universities has been let loose on society, and maybe this court is now
not ending it, but it's the beginning of the end. So John,
did you did you find it striking at all that on all three of these
big decisions that have come down in the last couple of days, Affirmative action,
the student loan forgiveness case, and then the cake case, the wedding
cake case, wed wedding planner case, thank you, the three liberals all
voted in the minority, meaning I guess, well, no, I'm putting
this as a question my own thing. Just you know more about this than
I do. But it struck me that they're becoming that was almost transparently political.
We just can't permit that we just can't do this. The arguments are
very weak kotential. Jackson Brown is arguing politics from the New York Times,
and I guess I was surprised and disappointed that now a correct, straightforward understanding
of the Constitution. And as far as I can tell, on the student
loan matter, nobody including Joe Biden, actually thought what he was doing there
was legal. And yet you still have three justices of the Supreme Court saying
no, no, no, no. If the president does it, we're
not quite sure how that's legal. But somehow or other, there's a deli
man, somehow it's legal and just straightforward constitutional interpretation is not politicized. The
left has somehow or other pledged itself to sheer power identity politics in a way
that it had not before. Am I wrong? Which I may very well
be? Well, I'm not sure you're wrong. When it comes to these
sort of core issues like abortion affirmative action. I think their views on this
are really hardwired into liberalism. I mean, what are you wanna call it?
Progressive is not liberalism, small elm. But I think progressive just can't
because they have whole structures of thought and policy built around abortion, built around
right, affirmative action, social engineering based on race. So I actually this
is my hope. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm too optimistic, but my
hope is once the court gets over these central fights that have been going on
for fifty years. Right back, which created racial preferences is from the seventies.
Ro versus Wade is from the seventies. Right, These are fights that
have been going on for fifty years. Now, maybe if they're settled,
you know, the cork can get down to regular business. So I'll,
you know, while everyone's talking about as they should, affirmative action, talking
about the student loan program. The Court's been unanimous on things that I think
have a lot of common sense. They decided a case yesterday about the religious
postal worker. You know, um, what's his name from Cheers, not
Norm, the other guy Cliff. It's like it's a Cliff were a religious
Catholic, right, So Cliff didn't want to deliver mail on Sundays, and
so the post office started basically punished him, and the court unanimously said the
post office should just give him some other kind of work at the post office
on the other days to make up for not working on suns The other case,
I point out to get who delivers mail on who gets mail on Sundays?
What nineteen twenty seven where you got too you know you got it twice
a day and then once on Sundays. I have there's never never known Sunday
to live. Could be we just we just don't include Minneapolis. Oh that
explains it? Could it possibly be? Actually no, actually no, it's
actually Amazon. That's the post Office. That's what I was going to say.
It's one of those things that they're doing their subcontracting for Amazon. And
so that dad's another little eye opener. Did these things anyway? Do go
ahead? And then here's actually the other one is a Minnesota case self throw
it out there too, where they were unanimous, everyone agreed them common sense
where Minneapolis took the condo of a ninety two year old grandma because she had
had paid her taxes, sold it, kept the tax money, but then
took kept the rest of the money too. Again nine zero. That's a
taking of property. So my hope is right you three Trump justices added to
Mary Roberts, Thomas and Alito has produced now the supermajority that can finally resolve
these cases that really have bedeviled our system for fifty years. Now we can
get onto new business and maybe you'll see right the tensions received rather than get
worse. That's my guy. Let me ask you about the student loan thing.
We all know that we had an amnesty when it came to immigration.
That it didn't settle the issue forever. It just meant that people said,
whatever, can have one of those, I'd like to get into the next
one, and so they'd come here and stick around and hope for a law.
If they had passed the they've said that the Biden loan forgiveness was Okay,
that's great, that's a good idea. We're going to say it's constitutional
because it's a good idea and people like it, and ergo, it's constitutional.
If they had done that, there would have been absolutely no effect whatsoever
on people taking ridiculous amounts of money to get ridiculous degrees because they figured another
one was down the road. So now that they have, now that there's
no forgiveness, could this possibly be the beginning of the pointless, expensive,
miserable cultural addiction this country has to believing that a college degree is a somehow
certification of one's ability to do anything in the world, and it's the basic,
most minimal thing that you have to do to participate. Is this the
beginning of the end of the whole college mystique and the return to something perhaps
that's more useful and grounded. In other words, I mean, you can
wrap up everything we're talking about and saying that, actually, if you want
to help these poor kids who grew up in adverse circumstances and have lived experiences
to tell about it, don't send them to Harvard. Then to electrician school
or the plumbing school where they can actually make a difference and make some money.
Anyway, just the end of college as we know it, Well,
you're seeing the changes already and what people are majoring in. So I think
you're seeing now the lowest number of majors and the humanities, you know,
like English professors are wondering why no one's showing up in their classes. I'll
tell you. Here at Berkeley, we just created the first new college in
fifty years, and it basically is data science, and I think it already
has the most majors in the whole in the whole university, and people are
not majoring in history English. Maybe this is good for humanity. I don't
know, but you know, yeah, yeah, it doesn't sound bad.
I wouldn't mind. People a fewer people are majoring in English in history if
history and English were part of the basics, we're getting a college degree.
In other words, in order to get that degree, even if it's in
STEM, we've got to see that you've sat in the class and and gotten
a basic rutiment specific education and history in English and the rest of it.
So he's come out of you're a well rounded individual. But no, it
doesn't you know. Yeah, my points just like the marketers are spawning,
and students themselves are choosing to go for more practical subjects. Now, even
when they go to college, they're you know, they're going for things like
data science for STEM fields, not for the liberal arts, which I'm sure
the four of us all majored in. Can I just change the subject for
one thing? Yeah, I hear that, sorry, which we haven't talked
about, which the Jerrymanderine case was from two weeks ago, Alan versus Milligan.
Is that again, yeah, um, the one from Alabama. One
from Alabama. So the court again, the conservatives on the board said you're
the Alabama the redistricting or redraw. The redrawn map that the Alabama state legislature
did is is not object to state judicial review. Do I have that right?
Uh? Not quite, but it just Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
base said we're not going to overturn that map, even though when you drew
the map you can take race, and you took race into account. So
some people think, oh, that's a contradiction with yesterday's decision saying you can't
use race. So this is where so there's a I could give a political
explanation for this or constitutional explanation. The political explanation is I think after last
term with Daubs and the Second Amendment cases, I think that I think Chief
Justice Roberts and the Conservatives say, there's only so much we can do any
one year. There's only so many Apple carts we're going to turn over.
And so if we're going to strike down affirmative action, if we're going to
strike down Biden's student loan program, right, we're and again I think this
is just Roberts and Kevanaugh, but primarily Roberts. He's basically, we're going
to leave a law of the rest of the law alone. And so the
Court has for many years to allow the considerations of race and drawing racial drawing
congressional districts, and so conservatives are upset with Roberts because they're saying, how
could you do that? This is inconsistent. You shouldn't allow the use of
race here either. But I think Roberts just said, we're just going to
leave the way we've been doing business here untouched. I think a lot of
conservatives think it's wrong and unconstitutional to use race even when you draw congressional districts.
And then the question is, even how do you do it right?
I mean, how do you you know you're making the worst stereotypical judgments of
people based on their race when you pack them into different districts, assuming they're
all going to think and vote the same way. But my view is the
court just didn't have enough, you know, political and intellectual capital to do
it. It doesn't it doesn't consist with the earlier decision or the later decision.
Now, I mean, now that was earlier this month, and so
later this month. Maybe I get that's wrong. Um limiting the state Court's
ability to review election maps drawn by state legislators. So in a sense,
it's consistent in a sense that they're sort of allowing the state elected state representatives
a lot of seems to me, a lot of leeway properly, it seems
to me in deciding how elections are organized run conducted in their states. Is
that so it is consistent in that way or am I? Oh yeah,
yeah, Again, I think there's a short term and a long term.
This is more versus Harper you're talking about, which is whether state legislatures alone
have the right to draw districts or whether other parts of the government can change
them, like governor or in that case, the state Supreme Court. So
I think the short term again is I think Roberts, you know who,
in both of these cases joined with liberals on the court to you know,
basically reach a liberal outcome. I think he just didn't want to fight on
that many fronts at once at once, and particularly that case, because we
may know that a lot of crow Trump people who think the election was stolen
wanted the outcome to be different in that case. Because the parallel provision also
says state legislatures decide how you choose presidential electors. And so if you remember
back to January December, January twenty twenty twenty, Trump's legal advisors were telling
him that the state legislatures could ignore the popular votes in places like Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin and Georgia and just choose the actors themselves for Trump, So I think
the politician and Roberts thinks, Look, the more important issue in the long
run is striking down affirmative as racial preferences. Is stopping this seizure of the
power of the purse by the president. The longer term picture is exactly as
you say, Robin. I, Rob I, I welcome you. I
encourage you to join the ranks of legal scholars because this would be a great
law large journal article. Actually that I think has been missed, which is
now these two cases, plus there's an earlier cases says the Court's not going
to get in the business of trying to draw districts. And then there's an
earlier case called Citizens United, where the court said we're not going to try
to right or decide how much you can contribute to campaigns. I think that
the court is getting out of the business of trying to oversee elections and politics.
You can see in the opinions there's this view politics a dirty messy business.
Judges have no place trying to get involved and clean up democracy. So
we're just going to pull out of the field. Again. This was a
great progressive project. If you think about the Progressives are the one who wanted
to have they have they have teach courses called the law of Democracy the law
of politics, and they were they were trying to push the courts into basically
being the supervisors of elections and politics and political parties. And I think Roberts
and the Conservatives are gradually leaving the field. So not bad good. I
mean, look, if if you don't like if you don't like the way
your districts are drawn, you don't like the way your state elections are held,
you don't like any of that stuff. But the bums out that's America.
You don't go to the Supreme Yeah, they're saying, don't come here
to the Supreme Court anymore. Rob will soon be submitting an article to the
Harvard Law Review. But check it. I think he's going to have chet
GPT have Chap John. We have to let you go, not because we
have to actually, but we're just kind of talking, you know, we're
done with you, so as we could do this gentlemen, always a pleasure
to provide legal advice for free. We will see you at our favorite kind
when it comes to you. Had another victory lab for John. You right
there right, Thanks John, see you guys, Thanks John, Happy fourth
John, Yes, yeah, fourth, Rob. We got about three minutes
here before you have to take off, and I believe that you right at
this very moment back from France. Jet Legged are eager to tell America that
they too can meet Rob Long in person if they come to New York for
a one on one. Right, yeah, sure of, I mean if
I'm here, absolutely, but you can meet each other other than one on
one, because, um, if you really want to take back America,
people are gonna have to get together grassroots level, and that reminds me of
Ricochet meetups. So why not start by getting together with some smart, like
minded people for drinks or several drinks and join Ricochet and we have meetups.
Schedule meetups in Winston, Santalem July fourteen through six. Scene in Portland,
Oregon, July eighteen, So a lot of them are coming up next a
couple of weeks. German Fest meet up in Milwaukee July twenty eighth of July
thirtieth and Cookeville, Tennessee Labor Day weekend September one through fourth. Look,
we have members all over the country. If these dates or times or places
don't work for you, just joined Ricochet. Throw up a post say how
about a meet up here at this time and people will show up because Ricochet
members like to come to a party. And you may say, join Ricochet.
Why what exactly is in it from me? Why I just go to
the site and read it. Well, that's because in the member feed you
have things the likes of which you have never seen before in the Internet.
Okay, maybe you have, but they're not as good, and they're not
as varied, they're not as well. Darry McVey just had a thread the
other day. He has these great threads about Hollywood and Hollywood history and television
and the rest. He had a threat about Destination Moon, the movie that
brought into a George pal and Fritz Lang and buzzalled Run and it was great.
I mean, I just I loved reading that had nothing to do with
politic Well maybe just a little now, but that's Ricoche. When you go
to the member's site, you will find all manner of conversations, and you
know what, it's It's my favorite place. And I write a lot of
stuff there that I don't post to the main feed because I just like to
keep it amongst ourselves and it's fun. So go there, join, It's
cheap and your life will be changed. Peter, what are your plans for
this fourth of July? Expanse Uh, I'm going to say something that's hopelessly
old fashioned, and I will be accused of sexism. My plans are as
usual. I wait for missus Robinson to tell me what we're doing that's Sexual's
tactically tactically wise, tactically very wise. Yes, indeed, um, rob
are you getting out the grill and putting on your kids to cook? Bib?
And oh are you cooking? The family will be gathering, father be
gathering at the beach, and um what we usually do. And I just
Nantucket Long Island, Um nan talk it nan talking. And I have to
be very careful what I what I broke. I don't know if I broke
federalized other Brook state law. Um. I drove quickly out of the New
York state and out of New Jersey state into like the first hundred yards of
Pennsylvania where you can purchase fireworks, and I bought a bunch of those two
shows to let off in an undisclosed location which I will not tell anyone because
it's illegal, and my mom hates it and everyone hates that I do it,
but I do it every year and it's it's part of the thrill,
as of course, is not getting arrested. But I plan to show up.
I plan to blame my nephew, who's you know, strapping a seventeen
year old football player but couldn't very international waters. Yeah, I don't know.
What's that buckley thing with a red exactly. I wrote one of my
columns this week for the newspaper I had. I gave it over my dog
to explain why fireworks are bad and why we should stop doing them. And
I thought, just for fun, I'm going to use a photoshop Beta's new
Generative AI to create a bug a photo illustration of my dog to replace mine
in the newspaper in the style of the newspaper. And I did a really
good job of it too, So my dog is taking over to explain why
Rob and his fireworks loving people are the worst. I love them. I
love them my neighbor actually does what Rob does, but gets industrial grade stuff.
So we have displays pretty good stuff that are just extraordinary. But when
it comes to the rest of it, I'm just going to throw some broads
on the girls. And that's a problem because I'm out of gas. So
I'm looking at trichinosis here down the line. Fourth of July. So soon,
as my mother always said, after this, it just seems like the
summer's over runs through your fingers like water. But she's wrong. Of course,
We've got two big, stern, brawny months standing in front of us
before the fall. July is great, hot August, as we know,
is this big bulwark against the fall, against the winter. Right, So
I always think until the cicadas stopped droning and I realized that it's getting cooler
in the days are getting shorter. But why why I think about that when
we can luxuriate in three great victories of the Supreme Court, a renewed sense
of American optimism. The fourth of July, as ever on, we mun
muddle on, we go on west, ride on, we march, and
we'll see everybody in the comments. And Ricochet, I say, four point
zero four now but five point is right around the corner. You'll want to
join now so you can get in and the fun. Gentlemen, Happy fourth,
Happy fourth Next week, boys, Happy fourth of July. Ricochet join
the conversation.