Keeping Up--With a Little Help, Part III

An Unintended Advocate 

OK, one final post on Neil Gorsuch, Trump's nomination to take the seat of the late Antonin Scalia on the bench of the US Supreme Court.  This quotation and reflection comes from the radical (establishment) Left.  We are referring, of course, to the New York Times--which, along with the Democratic Party it idolizes, has marched majestically off into the loony zone.

The editorialists at the Times have duly considered Neil Gorsuch and decided that he is entirely unfit for the job Supreme Court justice.  He is a radical.  He is an extremist.  He is dangerous.  You know, the usual eructations, when anyone is put forward who is slightly to the right of that forgettable "what's his name" who ran against Hillary in the Democratic primary.

Rod Dreher at The Federalist quotes from a correspondent on the matter:

A law-professor reader writes:

Did you see today’s NYT editorial on Gorsuch (Neil Gorsuch, the Nominee for a Stolen Seat)? Setting aside the silliness of the claim that the Senate had a constitutional obligation to give Garland an up-or-down vote (the overwhelming consensus of Con Law scholars is that the Senate can exercise the advise and consent power however it chooses, as that’s kind of the point.  You know, separation of powers and all that), but did you catch the Times’ choice of quote?


Not that it should surprise anyone by now, but in yet another example of the utter tone-deaf, morally bankrupt nature of the left (and the NYT editorial board),  the only quote they pull from all of Gorsuch’s writing and judicial opinions — and presumably the most shocking and worrisome quote they could find to make the case that he is dangerous to our “rights” — is the following:

While Judge Gorsuch’s views on abortion are not known, he has written extensively about assisted suicide and euthanasia. In his book on the topic, he wrote that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

Alas—let us all clutch our pearls!  This man rejects “the intentional taking of human life by private persons.” Paging Peter Singer.

In all seriousness, I am still trying to get my head around the fact that, to the NYT Editorial Board, the view that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong” is prima facie evidence of a dangerous moral worldview.  And yes, I get that it would foreclose euthanasia, a pet of the left, but still, is this really the fat, ripe target that the NYT thinks it is?

Seems to me it shows all one needs to know about the utter bankruptcy of the left’s moral vision at this stage in Western politics that this is the quotation they chose to persuade the reader of Gorsuch’s extreme conservatism.

If there were any one Left-wing condemnation of Gorsuch which would persuade the world of his value to us all it would be  that quotation from the Times editorial.  One wonders whether the editors read over what they wrote, or if they did, whether Trump Derangement Syndrome has so taken hold that they could not see the deep irony of their criticism of Judge Gorsuch.  To paint him as a dangerous extremist radical they have had to adopt a position contrary to Judge Gorsuch's.  They must advocate that murder is now morally acceptable in some cases.

Who, pray tell, would you rather have sitting on the bench of the US Supreme Court: a candidate endorsed by the Editors of the NY Times, or Judge Gorsuch?  What has the Left come to when it now demands that, henceforth, the only legitimate justices on the Supreme Court are those who believe murder--the intentional taking of a human life by private persons--to be a moral act?