February 6, 2025
In Bostock, the Supreme Court has taken the fateful step to assert that a common word, vital to social relations, can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean.
In roughly two decades, America’s political system has burned through the legitimacy accumulated during the previous two centuries. There is precious little left.
In roughly two decades, America’s political system has burned through the legitimacy accumulated during the previous two centuries. There is precious little left.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Bostock imposes on Americans a rule of greater import than any ever asserted by any government. Its adoption into law of a meaning of the word “sex” that is at war with that of the dictionary, of biology, and of common use, and enlists the U.S. legal system against the way of life of most Americans. As a matter of law, the Bostock decision, like so many others since Dred Scott—e.g. Plessy, Lochner, Brown, Roe, Kelo, Obergefell—rewrites the Constitution and statutes to reflect the opinions of elites currently in power.

But even in Dred Scott, in which the court very broadly hinted that the Declaration of Independence’s word “men” did not apply to negroes and hence that they have no rights under the Constitution, it did not actually redefine that word.

Only in Bostock has the court taken the fateful step to assert that a common word, vital to social relations, can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. And, having done that, the court takes the side of those who assert the primacy of will over nature. 

Thus has the court removed the protection of the law from the way most Americans think and speak, making us liable to civil and possibly even criminal penalties. No totalitarian regime has ever explicitly mandated the meaning of words.

But the court’s decision changes the meaning of “sex” only to the extent that the rest of the country takes it as more than a particular case’s resolution. 

Respect for the court is the only reason to treat its rulings as valid generally. But respect must be earned and can be squandered. That was the point of Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 78 and of Alexander Bickel’s The Least Dangerous Branch six decades ago. The Supreme Court has done a lot of squandering. The proper response to a court decision that does not deserve to be followed comes from none other than Abraham Lincoln regarding Dred Scott: respect its holding in the case at hand, but reject root and branch the reasoning that would apply it beyond the case.

[Interesting Read]

See Also:

(1) A New Dred Scott Decision Immortalizing Bureaucracy

(2) Supreme Court becomes supreme power, overruling president and Congress

(3) 7 Times John Roberts Was A Leftist Hack

(4) Hair splitting Roberts needs to open a barber shop

(5) Supreme Court’s Illegal Immigration Ruling Applies Different Legal Standards To Different Presidents

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