Today, Mar. 6, Townhall published an article by Matt Vespa on Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Supreme Court Judge appointed by Donald Trump early in 2020. Entitled “Do We Have an Amy Coney Barrett Problem,” it suggests that Barrett is somehow a traitor to her values in that she has not supported the Trump/Republican point of view on each and every issue that has come before her. My concern is that such “logic” puts Partisanship before Reason, enshrining a level of Bias that is in fact rampant on the Left, leading many there to mindlessly support some truly ridiculous ideas for fear of being branded with one of that sides many ugly epithets, i.e., a racist, misogynist, transphobe, etc., etc., etc..
On Feb. 25, a court in the District of Columbia ruled that Donald Trump must release the 2 billion dollars in foreign aid that he had previously ordered frozen. Claiming that a district court had no right to make such a decision, Trump put the issue before the Supreme Court which, on Mar. 5, ruled against him in a 5 to 4 vote, Barrett siding with the majority. This, Vespa declared, was a brazen act of betrayal, though he casually revealed in his piece that the services for which the 2 billion dollars were destined had in fact already been rendered! Perhaps this is what determined Barrett’s vote. Perhaps it was not, as Vespa suggests, a slap in the face of the man who had put her in the Supreme Court, but a rational endorsement of Justice. Perhaps Barrett, far from being a traitor, is the sort of conservative whose primary allegiance to her Conscience as opposed to her political affiliations, makes her the very sort of person we should all be eager to endorse!