BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 23, 2020) — THE PLANET, while quick to acknowledge the late Ruth Ginsberg’s achievement in the field of law, can’t help but wonder about the overreaction to her death. The adulation of the young and woke masses reflects one simple phenomenon,that has, despite its advantages, set back virtually every aspect of rational public life, especially our ability to resolve through debate and discussion issues upon which we as Americans disagree.

THE PLANET refers to the internet, particularly, social media, the destroyer of public institutions by giving people a powerful technology beyond their ability to maturely handle. Ginsberg’s hagiography and elevation to sainthood occurred solely because of her rise as an internet and pop culture sensation.

The Boomers, millennials, Gen-Xers, and younger — to the extent that they are paying attention at all — conveniently ignore the fullness of Ginsberg’s time on the bench.

• The justice didn’t hire a black law clerk until 2016.
• When San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick took a knee, Ginsberg called him “dumb” and “disrespectful.”
• This minted icon for women’s rights and inclusion had a lifetime sinecure on the Supreme Court, the world’s most exclusive and elite institution, largely older and white. She had no problem practicing  what THE PLANET sees as Ginsbergian democracy, the kind favored by white, upper-class women and soccer moms.

So stop already with the goo. Ginsberg served, she served well, but she also brilliantly self-served, the fate of most office holders who enjoy lifetime security by virtue of law or lack of term limits.

Her death, of course, has taken the already-bizarre presidential race and thrown it into the Vita-Mix blender set on “high.” President Trump said he will name the proposed successor to Ginsberg’s seat on Saturday. Democrats are in an uproar, the same temperamentalists who had no problem launching impeachment proceedings during an election year. True, both parties have been hypocritical in their stances on filling empty court seats. The political party du jour wants to fill the seat ASAP or not depending on whose sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.

One of the most interesting aspects of Trump’s nominee and her effect on Nov. 3 (and she WILL be a woman, a hot commodity in today’s politics, regardless of how accomplished or inept) will be how the Catholic voting bloc reacts. Catholics, the largest religious institution in the U.S., could provide the pivotal swing vote for or against. Virtually all Catholic couples practice birth control against Rome’s official policy, but the voting bloc is split over abortion. Progressive Catholics favor a women’s right to choose. More traditional Catholics hold the baby’s life as sacred.

Joe Biden, trying to become only the second Catholic to win the presidency, makes much of his faith. In June 2019, when Biden had yet to win anything, he was the only Democratic presidential candidate to back the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funding of abortion. Less than 48 hours, however, Uncle Joe flipped. Now, he favors its repeal. In plain English, he thinks Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski should pay for a woman’s abortion.

That’s flat wrong and will be deal breaker for the majority of Catholics.

The division on this issue couldn’t be starker: The left wants abortion on demand, no parental notification, with taxpayers footing the bill. The right wants more help for pregnant women. The left solves the problem of preggers by killing the baby, using abortion as a form of retroactive birth control. No baby, no problem. The right places the baby’s life above all else.

With so many options and such ease of availability for birth control, unwanted pregnancies do not have to occur. Ignorance, however, rules this day, and the unwanted will happen.

The right is right. The creation of human life cannot continue as trivial.

How this plays out among Catholics could decide the swing states.

It’s that big.

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“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply: by the lives they lead” — James Baldwin.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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