Idiots on parade

People doing or saying dumb things is hardly a new phenomenon, but there seems to be a lot more of it going around these days, suggesting that either we are getting dumber or our 24/7 media simply picks up on dumb more efficiently (and perhaps encourages it).

Among the recent culprits:

■ California Rep. Maxine Waters (a regular in columns like these) demanding a guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial or else; and thereby potentially providing grounds for appeal of his conviction.

The integrity of our courts of law requires that they be insulated from such efforts at political intimidation so that the rule of law prevails rather than the violence of the mob

If guilty was the only acceptable verdict, why bother to hold a trial in the first place? Why not just grab a rope, find the nearest tree, and … ?

■ Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for the expulsion of Waters from Congress for inciting violence and rioting.

The problem here isn’t the call for Waters’ expulsion (which probably should have happened long ago, for any of a number of offenses) or that she didn’t engage in such incitement, but that a kook is demanding the expulsion of a kook, thereby effectively reducing the credibility of the demand by tarring it with kookiness.

No one wants to be on the same side of a political kerfuffle as Marjorie Taylor Greene, even when she might be right, so Waters is now forever safe no matter what she does.

Thus do the kooks on each side aid and abet and absolve each other.

■ Joe Biden saying he was “praying” for “the right verdict” in the Chauvin trial because the evidence against him was “overwhelming,” handing the defense even more powerful grounds for appeal.

We have violation of the principles of separation of powers, due process and innocent until proven guilty just for starters here.

The “right verdict?” Isn’t that, by definition, whatever verdict the jury rendered, because justice is a process, not a particular outcome?

And shouldn’t the pride of Syracuse Law School (class rank 76 out of 85), who also happens to be president of the United States, know that?

■ CNN reporter Devan Cole claiming that “It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.”

Actually, as I believe most readers of this column are well aware, we’ve long had a fairly easy way of deciding whether it’s a boy or a girl (and in the case of my three sons and daughter, there was never any doubt, but I guess most of us are also hopelessly “transphobic” for believing what we see).

Just because I “identify” as a 6’10” Black center in the Women’s National Basketball Association doesn’t mean back in reality that I’m anything but a short old white guy who can’t dunk.

■ Dr. Anthony Fauci, who never seems to find a television camera that he can’t find a way to insert himself in front of, claiming in response to the pause in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that “We are ruled by the science and not any other consideration.” Let’s hope not.

If we were “ruled by the science” we could dispense with our elected officials and broader system of liberal democracy and simply put people like Fauci in charge of everything.

Science provides us with the latest data and facts, but it doesn’t tell us what to do with them because judgment comes into play, and judgment (properly applied) involves perceived levels of risk, costs and benefits, and efforts to balance competing values (those “other considerations”).

In the words of Charles C.W. Cooke, “The ‘science’ tells us that, as far as we know, six people out of the seven million who have taken the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have developed blood clots. It does not tell us what to do about this. There is no ‘scientific’ answer to that question. … One might as well say that one has come to the correct scientific conclusion as to what the speed limit should be. There is no such thing.”

■ Fauci (in what is becoming something of a pattern) claiming on CNN that the campaign against covid-19 “has nothing to do with liberty … . We’re talking about the fact that 560,000 people in our country have died. We’re talking about [60,000] to 70,000 new infections per day. That’s the issue. This is a public health issue. It’s not a civil liberties issue.”

Within the logic of that statement is found both staggering obtuseness and a sturdy rationale throughout history for dictatorship of all kinds.

Because it isn’t, as Fauci and others apparently believe, just about the science. It’s about striking the proper balance between protecting public health on the one hand and preserving cherished principles and rights on the other. And in a land dedicated to liberty, liberty must always figure prominently into the mix lest we lose it.

The Constitution doesn’t contain any fine print that says it disappears during public health emergencies, and it would remain operative even if we had lost not 500,000 but 50 million of our fellow citizens.