Soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can't define what a woman is.
Wow.
Let's put aside the fact that she was overtly chosen precisely because she is a woman - specifically, a black woman. Let's also put aside that President Biden restricted himself to a pool of less than 3% of America's lawyers when he unilaterally put himself in that box, which was a disservice to the American people - and to Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Let's focus instead on what it means to have a Supreme Court nominee who can't define basic words.
Words are kinda what lawyers and judges and, especially, Supreme Court justices do.
They read them and write them and analyze them and parse them and argue with and about them. And then they go home for the day. And do it again the next day. Then, the rest of us humans deal with the real-life consequences of their word games.
One of the fears we common-folk have about these nine isolated oligarchs is that they wrap themselves up so much in their dissection of language in legislation and case law that they lose their grip on real life. And the real-life consequences of their decisions.
But, we never imagined one of them didn't know what a simple single word - that the vast majority of us could easily define - meant.
I know what you're thinking: "she actually does know what a woman is. Or, at least, she did know what it was. It's just that we are currently redefining what a woman is." The cool kids in the elite institutions have put up the "under construction" sign on that dictionary entry.
Side Trip
Let's be honest here. Hearings for Supreme Court nominees are weird attempts at playing "gotcha." One side tries to protect the nominee with all kinds of praise and softball questions and references to their exceptional "qualifications." The other side tries to impugn the nominee by trolling for missteps in their history (interestingly, Republicans attack nominees' judicial history; Democrats attack nominees' personal history). Meanwhile, the nominee dodges everything - hiding behind the premise that they don't want to bias themselves for potential future cases.
And it all comes to nothing.
Assuming the same party controls the nominating White House and the confirming Senate, the curtain quickly closes on the kabuki theatre and the nominee takes their seat on the highest court in the land. And becomes one of the imperial oligarchs who decides how our society works.
Seems like it should be possible for the nominee to at least be honest. Have a fricking judicial philosophy and own it. And defend it. You're supposedly a good lawyer, for crying out loud.
"As a non-lawyer, you don't understand. This could prejudice him/her if a case with a similar fact pattern ever came before the court. They might have to recuse themselves." Well, first of all, unless an actual case is discussed in the hearings, I am not sure why that's true. We need to get over this weird idea that having a viewpoint disqualifies you from making a judgment. The opposite is closer to the truth - if you have no viewpoint, you can't make a judgment.
Back to Words
But, let's go back to the basic issue here. We have elites that are overtly trying to undefine things. Basic things. Their air cover is that they are trying to be kind. They are sticking up for oppressed minorities; in this case, transgender people.
But, that is all it is - air cover. What they are really trying to do is deconstruct our society. At every level. And this is as fundamental a level as it gets.
What is a woman?
It's an question a preschooler can answer. In fact, that's the issue. Pre-school. In the new world order, the more schooling you have, the less clue you have. And goodness help you if you, like Judge Jackson, have multiple degrees from Harvard.
How can that be?
Well, basically, it's because education - at all levels - has become the stomping grounds of those who want to completely deconstruct (that means destroy) our society. By undefining basic, fundamental things, they send us spiraling into the abyss of cognitive dissonance - no longer sure of what is real and what is true, much less what to stand for.
They believe the result will be that we will abandon what we have built, handing them the keys. They will then remake the world as a better place.
The problem, of course, is that the world will be a much worse place - assuming we even survive the transition.