从大法官卡瓦诺的故事想到的

最近的这期六月<大西洋>月刊上有篇文章<大法官卡瓦诺到底是哪边的?>,对这位大法官为何时而扼守保守派观点,时而又持自由派的立场进行了追根溯源。剪摘几段如下,括号内斜体字是用网上翻译器生成的粗略译文,供不喜看英文而只读中文的网友快速参考。

The suburban gentry of Chevy Chase, Maryland, had some dif?culty making sense of Brett Kavanaugh’s descent into villainy that fall. He had always seemed so nice and nonthreatening to his neighbors, so normal—the khaki-clad carpool dad who coached the girls’ basketball team and yammered endlessly about the Nats. It was true that his politics were unusual for the neighborhood,

(马里兰州切维蔡斯郊区的绅士们遇到了一些困难理解布雷特·卡瓦诺的堕落。那个秋天,他总是显得那么和善,对他的朋友们毫无威胁。邻居,太正常了——一个穿着卡其布衣服的拼车爸爸女孩的篮球队,没完没了地抱怨国家队。他的政治立场在这一带的确不同寻常)

the same time, Kavanaugh has disappointed many of the right-wing activists who expected the Hulk-like ?gure from his con?rmation hearings to reemerge on the bench. The grumbling began last year, when he voted to allow the Manhattan district attorney access to Donald Trump’s tax records. But frustration really boiled over in February, when his swing vote prevented the Supreme Court from hearing a slate of lawsuits challenging the election results brought by Trump and his allies. Across the Trumpist media, Kavanaugh was derided as a coward and a traitor.

(与此同时,卡瓦诺让许多右翼活动人士期望从他的作品中看到胡尔克式的人物。确认听证会重新出现在法官席上。从去年开始,他投票允许曼哈顿区律师可以查看唐纳德·特朗普的税务记录。在二月份他的摇摆票阻止了最高法院从审理一系列质疑特朗普和他的盟友带来的选举结果。特朗普主义的媒体,卡瓦诺被嘲笑为懦夫和叛徒。)

He really cares how he’s perceived across the ideological spectrum,”David Lat, the founding editor of the in?uential legal commentary site Above the Law, told me. “I would say Justice Kavanaugh is trying to be the conservative that people don’t hate.” So far, Kavanaugh has had limited success in that mission. As he nears the end of his third term on the bench, his judicial record has proved peskily di?cult to caricature—solidly conservative but not radically so, prone to incrementalism, disinclined toward culture war. And yet, he remains a magnet for criticism and controversy. Whatever your view of Kavanaugh, you can ?nd evidence that he’s not on your side. When he cast the deciding vote in a ruling that allowed states to continue practicing partisan gerrymandering, Twitter exploded with calls from the left for his impeachment. Similar outrage met his vote to allow the Trump administration to include a citizenship question on the census, which many regarded as an intimidation tactic designed to undercount immigrants. A number of liberal Court watchers believe that the worst may be yet to come. As a lower-court judge, Kavanaugh showed open antagonism toward what is known as the Chevron doctrine, the legal principle that courts should give great weight to the interpretations adopted by federal agencies as they administer complicated regulations. It may be the one area in which his views are the most hardened. If Kavanaugh leads his conservative colleagues in overturning Chevron, Democrats warn, legal challenges will tie regulators’ hands and hobble the implementation of progressive policies—a?ecting everything from health care to the environment to corporate oversight. For some people, of course, the nuances of Kavanaugh’s voting record will always matter less than the fact that he was con?rmed after facing a credible accusation of sexual assault. A year after Kavanaugh was sworn in, Christine Blasey Ford was still receiving death threats. The veteran judicial reporter Dahlia Lithwick wrote that she’d been unable to return to the Supreme Court because she was still so angry. Irin Carmon, a feminist journalist who covered the Kavanaugh hearings closely, told me the episode was especially painful

(他真正关心的是他在意识形态领域的看法。“大卫·拉特,“在?的法律评论”的创始编辑网站上方的法律,告诉我。“我会说正义卡瓦诺试图成为人们不讨厌的保守派。“到目前为止,卡瓦诺在这项任务中取得的成功有限。当他的第三个任期即将结束时,他的法官过去的记录已经被证明是对讽刺性保守的?崇拜的一种令人讨厌的行为。但不是从根本上说是这样,倾向于渐进主义,不倾向于向文化战争。然而,他仍然是一块磁铁吸引批评还有争议。不管你对卡瓦诺的看法是什么,你都可以?和证据表明他不是站在你这边的。当他在一项允许各州的裁决中投下决定性的一票时为了继续进行党派划分,Twitter爆发了左派要求弹劾他。类似的愤怒他投票允许特朗普政府关于人口普查的公民身份问题,许多人认为这是一种旨在低估移民数量的恐吓策略。一个自由派法院观察人士认为最糟糕的可能是还没来得及。作为一名下级法院的法官,卡瓦诺显示公开对抗所谓的雪佛龙学说,法院应高度重视的法律原则由联邦机构执行的解释复杂的规定。这可能是他风景是最坚硬的。如果卡瓦诺领导他的保守派民主党人警告推翻雪佛龙的同事,法律挑战会束缚监管机构的手脚,阻碍实施进步政策的?--从医疗保健到企业监督的环境。当然,对一些人来说,卡瓦诺投票的细微差别记录总是比他被骗?的事实更重要。在面临性侵犯指控之后。一年后卡瓦诺宣誓就职,克里斯汀·布莱西·福特仍在接受死亡威胁。资深司法记者Dahlia Lithwick写着她无法回到最高法院因为她还是那么生气。IRIN Carmon,女权主义记者谁仔细报道了卡瓦诺的听证会,告诉了我这件事尤其痛苦)

几天前npr上也有篇有关卡瓦的文章,连接如下,主要介绍Jackie Calmes的书<<Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court>>,按书名给卡瓦贴上异议者甚至反叛者的标签皆无不可,这些文章和书中都是以一个复杂性格和真实的人来刻画卡瓦的,有兴趣的网友可参阅。

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007079892/supreme-court-justice-brett-kavanaughs-rise-continues-to-fascinate-in-dissent

卡瓦诺是上任总统川普任内荐举的三位大法官之一,记得大选后选票点算的那段混沌焦躁时期,很多预测尤其是华文论坛上多有讨论如果大选结果最后要由最高法院来裁决的话,川普肯定就躺赢了,因为他荐举的三位大法官都是'自己人',关键时刻当不会胳膊肘朝外拐。但从上面这几段谈论卡瓦诺的投票记录来看,似乎并不是这么回事:大法官并不会效忠把自己举荐上高位的总统伯乐,而是遵从自己内心的信仰准则和依据事实投票。

读了这篇文章后,联想起了华夏的情形,现在处于定于一尊,仿佛又退回到了朕即国家的时代,不管是那些名义上立法的还是判决法案的,大概除了选择忠于一个人之外,没有多种象卡瓦诺大法官这样无须固定立场,每次只需根据自己内心的判断而自主投票吧!看看下面这份网上看到的中国人大常委几年前选举的投票记录,对国内的选举自由和投票机器们还能说什么呢?国内要的就是无限忠诚而无需拥有自己思想和观念的奴才啊!选举投票中的亮点已高光在红色圈圈内。

也想到了千千万万个海外学子现在经常会面临的一个问题:是否海归。大约七十年前的那些海归们当时大概不会象现在这么纠结,因为刚成立的新国家是以美国似的民主制度为榜样的,看看'英明领袖'那时的深情表白:

所以那时美国回去的海归们多半以为回到的祖国会是一个实行类似美国般民主制度的国家才选择回去吧,可后来二、三十年的历史进程不知那些海归们有几位人士事前就能预料?那些在历次政治运动中冤死没活到八十年代曾经有段稍为开明时期的知识分子,想象下面这样表达后悔的心情都没有机会吧!

好在现在的海归们不用再进行这样错误的历史预判了,因为天朝的领导人已言之凿凿地说清楚了:我们绝不会搞西方的民主制度那一套!就象打牌时你的上峰已摆出了一道明牌一样,所以选择海归的话实际上就象周愉打黄盖,一个愿打,一个愿挨!就是选择效忠一人,而且还必须是绝对的,否则忠诚不绝对就是绝对不忠诚!本人对两类海归还好理解,一类是那些本就属于体制内赵家人的,他们的地位就象印度种姓中的婆罗门一样,属于专制体制的受益人和拥护者;另一类就是那些在国内有至亲父母,必须选择作出个人的牺牲而回国追求至爱亲情。而很多可回可不回的普通欲海归的人可能就得仔细惦量了,因为在当局的心里你是难于信赖依靠的制度异己分子!据说有种动物很残酷,它生下的崽如果被人类接触抚摸过又被它嗅出人味的话,它就会把这样已不纯的后代遗弃。所以当局喜欢的还是那些一直被关在墙内而没有受到外面世界'精神污染'的韭菜们,这样割起来更得心应手,否则和海归的韭菜们肯定会有各自内心的小九九:

海归:我知道西方的民主制度 !

当局:我知道你知道西方的民主制度 !

海归:我知道你知道我知道西方的民主制度 !

这样,沾上了海外民主思想这异类气息的海归们还会得到当局的信任和重用吗? 从另一网页转贴一小段图文如下:

最近复旦大学姜博士的故事应该又给一些想海归却又非赵家人的留学生们上了生动的一课,已习惯了海外自由思想和独立人格的海归们真的想好了回去后能和赵家自己人的那些各级党委和书记们和睦相处吗?但愿大家都三思而后行:海归有风险,回国需谨慎!

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