Time now for America’s favorite National Quiz Show, “What’s the Question?”
Roger and Larry
“Larry, I just can’t stand them liberals!”
“What? Care to be a bit more specific, Roger?”
“Lookit all this flap about overturning the Roe vee Wade decision.”
“And what’s this to do with the liberals?”
“Got’m all worked-up. Condemning the Supreme Court.”
“Eminently condemnable, really. But you figure it’s the liberals got their shorts in a wringer?”
“What I see in the news.”
“You should broaden your reading list, Rodge. Lot of Conservatives out there concerned.”
“Anyway, they’re all up in arms now over violation of women’s rights.”
“Maybe they should be. Maybe everyone should be.”
“Whatsat?”
“I mean if it’s the question of a woman’s rights.”
“It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“What? Are you nuts, Larry?”
“Way I see it, what’s at play here is the Federal government sticking its nose into every aspect of American life. They just backed-off on this issue. But, and this is no small matter, the whole of the fourteenth amendment on life, liberty, and due process is in question. Affects more than women and their right to an abortion.”
“What?”
“Looks to me like the court says each state can make its own determination. Doesn’t say women can’t get an abortion. Two, three, or more different prevalent opinions on that issue in particular depending on what part of the country you’re in.”
“Be a lot of new laws.”
“No different than any other time. If states are on their game, they’ll do it by referendum. Referendums on specific issues every election as a matter of staying current with the will of people under their jurisdiction. Yes or no: handgun, semi-automatic weapons, butcher knives, and slingshot ownership, abortion, sweetened iced-tea, tobacco, alcohol, reality television, death penalty, welfare, peanuts on airplanes, crooked politicos, miniskirts, twenty-ounce colas.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Maybe. Call it, oh, I dunno, ‘democracy.’ Only we’re keeping the population in one part of the country from controlling the lives of people in another part of the country. Lot of philosophic difference when geography comes into play. States make the determination, be fewer folk thinking themselves oppressed minorities.”
“Huh?”
“Majority of people in Massachusetts want to completely ban firearms, period, vote it into law in Massachusetts. Majority of people in Texas on the other hand want to require everyone to carry six-shooters, up to Texans, not Massachusetts folks.”
“What about Texans who don’t want handguns?”
“And folk in Massachusetts who do?”
“Well, yuh, I guess.”
“Get their asses on Greyhound busses.”
“Move? Don’t seem fair.”
“Been a lot of arguing about ‘fair’ for one localized majority controlling the cans and can’ts of a minority in the same locality. Seems you can’t stand the heat of Texas summers or the cold of New York winters, you’re in the wrong place.”
“That’s weather. This is different.”
“Tell that to a Texan freezing his ass off in Boston in February.”
“Or a Minnesotan burning-up in Odessa in August?”
“There you go.”
“Some things though, gonna be tough.”
“For instance?”
“Immigration.”
“Right. Tough nut there, and a good point. Same with standing armies, foreign aid, corporate misconduct, voting rights. Some things best addressed nationally.”
“Yeah. Can’t expect Texas and Arizona to control immigration.”
“Mebbee wouldn’t have to if Texans were all armed, manning entry points. No papers, no crossing, and armed citizenry instead of instant welfare.”
“Rude. Drastic.”
“And maybe uncivilized. But then southern illegals will prefer motoring into California and flying to Minnesota. Concentrations there reach a point, stress state budgets, Minnesotans and Californians might view immigration in a different light.”
“Gonna end up with a bunch of patchwork laws.”
“Works okay in Europe.”
“Lemme see. The issue is not abortion?”
“Issue is states’ rights and states’ laws not violating individual freedoms guaranteed by federal law.”
“Woman’s freedom to have an abortion?”
“Not singularly a freedom guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment.”
“Seems it is.”
“Ask a fetus.”
“Oh. That argument! When are unborn ‘individuals’?”
“Depends”.
“On what?”
“On where we’re standing. Alabama and California and Minnesota and Texas citizens may all have different ideas on that.”
“Hell, me and the neighbor across the street might disagree on that.”
“Yup. At least individual states might offer options otherwise not possible.”
“So. What’s the result of this overturning?”
That, Rodge, is a damned good question. Best be figuring it out. And while we’re at it, asking where we want legal dictates to come from.”
“Geeze. Never a simple matter, huh?”
“So, Rodge, who’s moving to Massachusetts? You or your neighbor across the street?”
© spwilcenwrites 2022
spwilcenwrites “Roger and Larry – June 26, 2022”
Ramblings 