The College of Cardinals of the U.S. Supreme Court chose one of their number to write up an opinion that they have been working on since 1973. Politeness requires that we call Justice Alito’s work a draft opinion, however it is not a judicial opinion, but a political manifesto. It is awash in contempt, contempt for modernity, contempt for women, contempt for democracy, and contempt for common sense. 

Inter alia: 1) He offers the fascist-friendly view that so-called rights not mentioned in the Constitution are not really rights. 2) He cackles that a “tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” 3) He argues that freedom of choice is not rooted in the Nation’s History and Tradition.

As to #1, Alito’s understanding of the Constitution means that America is “married to a corpse,” to something dead, that cannot grow, but only decay.

As to #2, Those heroes of jurisprudence whom he cites with such approval lived at a time when petty theft was a hanging offense. Sir Edward Coke even wrote a vigorous defense of hanging, drawing, and quartering, the traditional penalty for treason. 

As to #3, Alito invokes “tradition” as if he were a member of the papal curia. Much that is traditional is now forbidden. The United States has an unbroken tradition of black slavery until 1865. We had an unbroken tradition of school segregation until 1954. We have an unbroken, still flourishing tradition of marginalizing non-whites. Our application of law to women continues an ages-old tradition of restriction and exclusion. So, universal suffrage is not rooted in the nation’s history and tradition, but slavery, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and male supremacy most surely are.