Teen Vogue uses incomplete information to sway young readers
June 27, 2023
In a new article, Teen Vogue tells its young, impressionable readers that the Supreme Court should be expanded.
The current one isn’t giving the answers that progressives desire; therefore, the Court should be packed with four more justices who would provide those desired woke answers. The specific cause today is abortion:
“With a horrifying post-Roe v. Wade reality playing out across the country and scandal after scandal plaguing the Court itself, it’s clear that these justices cannot be trusted to protect the freedom and well-being of the American people. Something must change to protect our rights and restore faith in our democracy — and that something is the Court itself.
“It’s time to expand the U.S. Supreme Court and young people have the power to help pave the way to a judicial system that reflects the values of the majority of Americans.”
There are several problems with this. One is simply that usual progressive and woke demand that if the system isn’t giving the desired answers, the system must be changed. There’s never any consideration given to the idea that the system is a process by which we reach solutions – preserving the system to do that has value to itself.
The second is that the insistence is that this expansion must happen while a Democrat is in the White House. Otherwise, court expansion isn’t likely to give justices who accord with this desire. And that in itself causes a further problem. An expanded court would – as all do – end up as a mixture of those appointed under different Presidents, and in some years to decades, we could end up with one that again frustrated progressive desires – what then? Another expansion?
But the big one here is the specific subject under discussion – abortion. The Supreme Court said that abortion isn’t a right embedded in the Constitution. And that’s all they did say. This makes it a point for the legislatures and the states.
Yes, democracy is imperfect. But it is how we end up with a system of law that “reflects the values of a majority of Americans.” The Supreme Court insisted that abortion is something to be decided according to the values of a majority of Americans, as expressed by how they vote in elections. Because that’s how we do it, that’s how we work out what those values and desires of the majority are by people voting on it.
The Supreme Court, as the defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, is a bulwark against democracy. Here’s the list of things we can’t vote for to happen – that’s what those documents are, and the SC is the guardian. The Dobbs decision said that this whole subject, abortion, is now returned to democracy.
Teen Vogue have, as their tagline, that they are “Educating the influencers of tomorrow .”A bit of basic civics would be a valuable piece of education, no? If it’s not a Constitutional right, then it’s subject to democracy. So arguing that the Court has been undemocratic here is ludicrous to the point of being misinformation.
But as we’ve said, there is nothing like a progressive for demanding their preferred answer rather than understanding or valuing the system itself.