Fist Shaking And The Post Unseen

I wrote a long post this morning about the New York Times “news analysis” of Deborah Ramirez’s accusations against Brett Kavanaugh. I wrote it, but you won’t read it because after I was done, I decided not to publish it. I’ll explain.

The post was comprised of two parts, the first of which was about what’s wrong with trying decades-old accusations against the now-confirmed Kavanaugh, particularly using the weaselly language and guilt by innuendo reflected in the Times’ article, the worst sort of play to confirmation bias around.

But the more important part was where the young lawyers, the ones who inform me regularly that they’re far smarter and more aware than old lawyers who just don’t get it, would rather put their effort into rationalizing their woke outcomes than defending the core principles of criminal defense, public defense, against the conflation of “credible” allegations and guilt.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that they don’t want to hear this from an “old” like me. There is no virtue in experience, as if baby lawyers are brilliant but turn stupid when they hit 50 years of age. Indeed, public defenders are badasses, the best around because they do quantity, which is close enough to quality to prove their point, but suddenly become incompetent when they go private. I might explain these things, but to what end? They don’t want to hear it, and they’re not going to buy it anyway.

Get off my lawn, says the old curmudgeon.

Shakes fist at sky about the young whippersnappers.

They would rather argue why principles are “garbage takes” than waste a moment of their time critically thinking about why their last twit was simplistic, bordering on the moronic. And they can prove it by the 27 likes from their peers validating the correctness of their view.

I could explain it to them, but I can’t understand it for them. More importantly, the last thing they want to hear is what some old lawyer has to say. They know better, and they prove it to themselves like flies swarming around a steaming pile of shit, validating their simplistic idiocy.

I’m tired of it. And to be frank, spare me your appreciation in emails and direct messages on twitter for doing the work that so many of you could do as well, but you’re cowards and won’t put your ass on the line. “You tell ’em,” Greenfield. “You take on the mob of passionate little idiots and smack them for me!”

Don’t think I don’t notice that you hide from the outrage mob, while asking me to do your dirty work. Don’t think that I don’t notice that you can’t even hit the tip jar to support this joint’s existence. Oh, you appreciate it so very much, but don’t do a thing to contribute to it.

So today, I decided not to post another explanation of why principle matters, even if it’s contrary to the passionate ideology of the very woke little geniuses. I decided not to explain, yet again, how you can’t forfeit principle when it helps someone you hate and expect it to be there when it helps someone you adore.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be back to arguing why the ends don’t justify the means, why every woke law student isn’t inherently more brilliant than lawyers doing this for decades, why a position isn’t “correct” because it got a million “likes” from the idiocracy. But not today.

And it doesn’t appear that I’m making much headway, anyway. The kids keep telling me I’m wrong, stupid and my “takes” are garbage. The kids know better than me, maybe better than you too, but that’s not clear because you don’t have the guts to tell them they’re stupid little shits.

So no post today. You got your money’s worth. Post some music videos and have a party. Today, I really don’t give a damn. If it’s okay with you that the insipid will inherit the law, then you get what you deserve. For today, anyway, they get a free ride, and you can take a look at what the future will be when your shit-for-brains defenders become your passionate inquisitors. You’re on your own.

Have a nice day.

39 thoughts on “Fist Shaking And The Post Unseen

    1. SHG Post author

      Every donation is big enough, and yours is most generous. But this isn’t me selling something. I could make a lot of money putting ads on SJ, or currying favor with some group for their financial largesse. I don’t. I’ve even been put to the test of some friendly voices trying to sneak through some of their propaganda because we’re friends, you know, and I call bullshit because it’s bullshit.

      When people don’t donate despite this, it tells me they’re only here for the agreeable outcomes, not the effort of principle and intellectual honesty. They want me to know when they agree with my outcome, as if their validation is the point of SJ. If that’s the best they’ve got, fuck ’em.

      1. L. Phillips

        Ah, so you are human after all. Welcome to the ranks of the “shit I am tired of beating my head against a brick wall” brigade.

        Funny thing. After a bit of R&R the urge to beat that bastard wall at its own game comes back. It’s what some of us are made to do.

  1. Jay

    Your principles would be a lot more convincing if they didn’t give way to your need to bash liberals and stick up for anyone who has ever done anything wrong. I assume this is good advertising, but you sound insipid and uninformed more often than not these days.

    1. David

      In a weird way, you’re my thought leader, Jay. Whatever you say, I think the opposite. Thanks for your guidance.

    2. Lawrence Kaplan

      Jay: I believe you are confusing SHG’s adherence to the the principle of legal presumption of innocence with sticking for anyone who has ever done something wrong.

  2. B. McLeod

    Yay! Phil Ochs holiday!

    Ironically, in promoting its sleaze piece on Twitter, the NYT itself stumbled into the minefield of SJW “outrage” when it inadvertently referred to face-penising as “harmless fun.” First it tried to cover by deleting the twit as “poorly phrased,” but eventually, was forced to apologize.” Of course, such cavalier references risk the peril of reminding the public that the media and entertainment industry, who are the greatest acolytes of The Terror, have had their own, numerous problems with wandering penises.

  3. B. McLeod

    I say we let the kids on the lawn. I want to be able to see their faces when their time has passed, and they finally realize that their generation, too, has failed to achieve the Utopian grandeur which they so passionately pursue. Still younger kids will no doubt show up to remind them that they proved just as stupid as the passionate zealots of centuries left astern. Crap. Not the Chosen Ones after all.

    1. SHG Post author

      I would be more sanguine about it is there weren’t so many poor schmucks destroyed in the process. If they only burned their own, and left the rest of us out of it, maybe then it wouldn’t be of such concern.

  4. Hunting Guy

    Matthew 7:6.

    “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

    1. Rojas

      Judith Vinson

      “It was about civilization, not the burned-out and decayed world of Mad Max where all claims become outrageous. It was about building, not burning, and faith, not fear. Things needed for the requisite time and space, and peace that enables men to save their souls.”

  5. John Barleycorn

    Hum… Drop a GG Allin and The Murder Junkies set in the back pages or make another unsolicited bid for the SJ URL?

    P.S. I wonder how many of the Kids who made it into feeder program at Yale Law School back in the day made the drive down to The Anthrax in Stamford every weekend? And what the heck they are doing these days?

    Speaking of The Anthrax, if you happen to have any photos of yourself beating on your drums at the CBGB or the City Gardens you should post them up unaccompanied next time you drop a “rage post” in the trash bin. Someone is gonna get Ruth’s gig you know… and it might as well be someone who has been in the trenches….Don’t worry about the kids…they will love it!!!

  6. Howl

    From “Isaiah’s Job” by Albert Jay Nock:

    “In the year of Uzziah’s death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. “Tell them what a worthless lot they are.” He said, “Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don’t mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you,” He added, “that it won’t do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”

    Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job — in fact, he had asked for it — but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so — if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start — was there any sense in starting it? “Ah,” the Lord said, “you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqAHv5kO-Q

    Text version can be easily found.

  7. Sacho

    I kind of hope you don’t post this reply, I would send an email but it feels way too personal.

    I normally delete most of the replies I write up to your blog, especially the tummy rubs, because I don’t find I have anything really meaningful to say. Today is a bit special because I finally didn’t get an error when clicking your donate button, so you get to suffer through some sop.

    I’m amazed at your fortitude in repeating the same lessons and points over and over. I’ve tried reading other lawblogs but they are either abandoned, post once for every ten of yours, or they’re way more personal and not that focused on principles, concepts, worldviews.

    I do get a rising feeling of apathy in the comments. Maybe we’re all just adapting to this new, clowny world. As I’m not a lawyer, the only way I see I can fight it is to internalize the principles you champion, which I agree with, and pass them on to my friends and children. I hope there are many more like me, reading the blog silently and absorbing the ideas. But even if there aren’t, I think you’ll keep writing. because it’s the principled thing to do. Thank you for your persistence.

    1. SHG Post author

      I could use some tummy rub today, so I’m posting your comment anyway. Thanks, Sacho. Sometimes, it help for me to remember that this isn’t just mental masturbation.

      An interesting thing about the comments. Much as I enjoy the music and vids, I could use some thought-food too sometimes. Every once in a while, someone says something that really illuminates a point or adds something that makes me smarter. It’s very much appreciated.

      1. Ross

        This place makes all of us smarter. I trash 80+ percent of the comments I start here, because they suck or don’t add anything, which has made me a better writer overall. I also decided to just deal with the wrath of my wife, who wouldn’t see the point in sending money to some guy in NY who writes on the internet, and donated today.

      2. Chris Ryan

        I would like to think that there are indeed a healthy number of us non-lawyers who read this blog, and owing at least in part to not being lawyers, stay silent most of the time. I know that for every one comment i make, i write and delete at least a half dozen, as the final check is always would this make anyone smarter. if it doesnt, to the trash bin it goes.

        I am an engineer by training, and i am always in search of knowledge and perspectives that will improve my thinking. Beyond just the thoughts written, you have provided an introduction to people, places, and ideas that I had never encountered. But for you, i would never have heard of Maggie McNeill, Mark Bennett, all the Fault Lines authors, Judge Kopf, and others who my faulty memory is passing by at this moment.

        It saddens me to see the people I see at my kids’ school failing to think beyond the confines of their safe spaces, but i always know that once i get the kids to school, i can grab my cup of joe and start the day off right with a quick trip here. I dont always agree with whats written, but i am almost never made stupider for having been here.

        as for those fools who seem to always have their fingers in their ears screaming la-la-la, as my father would say, fuck’m and the horse they rode in on.

        I for one hope you keep on writing.

        1. SHG Post author

          It’s been the same for me, getting to meet, to know a great many people who have contributed enormously to my world, from the lawyers and judges to GuitarDave’s brilliant music and Fubar’s poetry.

  8. Skink

    “And it doesn’t appear that I’m making much headway, anyway. The kids keep telling me I’m wrong, stupid and my “takes” are garbage. The kids know better than me, maybe better than you too, but that’s not clear because you don’t have the guts to tell them they’re stupid little shits.”

    After more than a decade, you’ve come to the realization that you don’t hear from those that understand how principle matters. What do you expect? You never observe one of them have the “AHA” moment. You hear from the knee-jerkers. It takes the others time and thought to get it. Do you expect them to return to some old post or twit to tell you they’re beginning to understand? Whether you feel it, those people exist.

    And it matters that you and this here Hotel exist. You sometimes forget. It might have something to do with changing seasons for you. But you know, really know, that if anyone was made for something it’s you and this Hotel, even if it sometimes devolves into MTV.

    1. SHG Post author

      From what I hear from the loud and very bold kids and their fearful nannies, we’re losing the battle, Skink. We save one, we lose one hundred.

      I really should write a post about a pitch I got recently from a public defense supervisor, via a lawprof so the super could remain anonymous, because the person was too afraid of the consequences if the kids learned it came from this person, but that the kids all thought they were legal genuises but sucked as lawyers, couldn’t grasp their duty to the client and refused to learn anything from their more experienced supervisors.

  9. Christopher Best

    Huh, I’m a day late.

    Don’t know how you do it, SHG. I’ll admit that things got me so depressed I even took a break from reading Simple Justice for most of a week recently, but eventually I had to come back. And through it all you kept posting. God bless you.

    Often lately I go to write a comment here but trash it because I realize I’m not adding anything–just agreeing with you. Unfortunately you’ve done your job too damn well and taught me I don’t know shit about the law, and can’t be trusted not to let my emotions do my thinking for me, so all I seem to have left is vapid praise from the mouth of an idiot. Then again, the Oracle said Socrates was the wisest man because he knew enough to know he knows nothing…

    Anyway, here’s your tummy rub from this idiot. Thanks for being the adult in the room, even if the kids don’t appreciate it. Especially if they don’t.

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