Justice Alito - You are no John Lennon
So, from time to time, I amuse myself by reading the decisions of the US Supreme Court. Those wacky Supremes! It’s either due to my extremely brief flirt with becoming a law student, my unseemly crush on Nina Totenberg, or the fact that these 9 unelected individuals control, in large part, the direction of Western civilization that fascinates me.
Plus it makes me feel smart. And it is a good way to avoid work, because having legal opinions up is something that, while not common, can at least look somewhat like it’s in the realm of work-related activity. And sometimes it helps me sleep at night.
Today I’m reading Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, mainly because I heard somewhere that Justice Alito was trying to be all hip and down with the youth culture and whatnot. Also because I’ve heard of these Summum wackos before, and I always like to see how members of one arbitrary cult try to ban the activities of an arbitrary cult with which they disagree.
The decision is, in itself, not particularly interesting. Due mainly to the fact that respondent Summum framed things as a Free Speech issue and not a religious speech issue, it was mostly just argued that, in fact, the city can say whatever they damn well please, and just because they don’t want to put your ridiculous cult’s monument in their park doesn’t mean they’re squelching your freedom of speech.
Which is true as far as it goes, but a far bigger issue to me is that, by accepting a Ten Commandments monument, but not the Seven Affirmations of the Summum people, the City is in essence declaring that one religious point of view is somehow more “correct” than another. This is where Justice Alito attempts to get all clever and pop-culture relevant by invoking John Lennon.
He essentially opines that putting up a Ten Commandments monument doesn’t necessarily impart a message of judeo-christian morality because, you see, people can ascribe many different meanings to any piece of art. Which again, is true as far as it goes, but I think he picks some egregiously stupid examples. First of all, there are very few interpretations of the Ten Commandments that aren’t roughly in line with “we love christianity (or at least judaism)”. And his second example, the Imagine mosaic in Central Park, is just stupid, and is what brings us here to today’s little rant.
From the decision:
Some observers may “imagine” the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed. Others may think of the lyrics of the Lennon song that obviously inspired the mosaic and may “imagine” a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed, or hunger.
See, first of all, I think nobody is imagining that first one. I think it’s a baseline cultural opinion that, when you think of John Lennon you either think of his vast and incalculable contributions to the culture of the human race, or you think of the whole “no religion, no countries, no possessions, no greed, no hunger” thing. Cause that’s, y’know, pretty much what he had to say and what he wanted us to think about.
And now Justice Alito wants us to think that, well, maybe some people might not think about that. I mean maybe some people see “imagine” in Central Park and think of how great Halliburton is! It could happen! And maybe some people see the Ten Commandments and think about how they really want to convert to Hinduism! Yeah, that’s the ticket. So really, Pleasant Grove City is advancing Hindus by accepting that monument, and you damn hippie kids don’t have a problem with that, do you???
But really, I just want Mr. Justice Alito to stop quoting John Lennon. John Lennon was awesome. John Lennon is one of those people I always put on my lists of “famous dead people I want to have lunch with”. I wouldn’t cross the street to take a piss on Mr. Justice Alito if he were on fire. And further, this is the same guy who dissented in Wyeth v. Levine, in which a musician was crippled and lost her livelihood due to the negligent labeling of a drug. You don’t get to side with Big Pharmacy by defending their right to not reimburse a musician for destroying her ability to produce further creative work on the one hand, and go around acting like you have any understanding of John Lennon on the other. If I may be so bold, were he alive today, I don’t think Lennon would cross the street to extinguish Mr. Justice Alito either.
It’d be a waste of good urine.
