"Will We Rise When It All Falls Down?"
My brother and I have been discussing the Chevron Doctrine quite a bit since it was struck down by the Supreme Court earlier last year. Regardless of the intention when it was introduced in 1984, critics who voiced concerns of it getting out of hand were correct, and today, we are the ones paying for it as the doctrine has been cited over 18,000 times since passed.
What the doctrine wound up becoming was a way for unelected agents, otherwise known as ‘the experts’ to write laws based on their knowledge of a particular subject, like health, science, security, etc.
While that sounds great on paper, the reason we have checks and balances within our power structure in the US is because human nature is constituted that, if given power unchecked, will serve itself rather than the people they govern.
The most obvious example of the Chevron doctrine rearing its ugly head is just these past few years. The way we handled COVID, both on a governmental and cultural level was abysmal. Quite scary as well. Our leaders leaned on the CDC as if the only doctors that existed in the world were a part of that agency. But that was not even the worst of it. Other doctors with other opinions were demonized by the government, stifled by social media, and all of it was met with a solemn “amen” by too many of us.
We allowed our elected officials to fear-monger us and tell us we’re “killing grandma” if we gathered in groups and didn’t wear our masks, only to be caught at group gatherings with no masks. We looked the other way when our local leaders issued stay-at-home orders and closed down restaurants, only to be caught out in public getting a haircut, or going to a restaurant. Some of us called out the dog and pony show then, and far, far too many of us not only stayed silent about that, but attacked the ones calling it out.
And now we are here.
Which is great, but not enough.
The whole idea that we need to put our complete trust and faith in a set of experts approved by our government needs to be destroyed. For those few years, many of us actually believed that any… any dissenting opinion, whether by a layperson, or a tenured doctor, was considered disinformation, dangerous, and a threat to our society. That is not, and can never be ok.
But that isn’t the main point of this article. What my brother and I also discussed was just how much compromise out country has undergone, how much of it we were born into and may not even have realized until now, and how much we still don’t realize.
When I think on this, I’m reminded of a story in 39th chapter of the book of Isaiah. Around 710 BC, a king of Babylon named Merodach-baladan sent envoys to the king of Judah at the time, king Hezekiah. Scriptures records Hezekiah welcoming the envoys gladly, and showing them around his palace. It even makes an appoint to highlight that “there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.” The story continues:
Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.” He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
Hezekiah’s response is one that I think best reflects not only our leadership, but us as people:
Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “At least there will be peace and security in my lifetime.”
There may have been nothing Hezekiah could have done to reverse what was coming, but if there was, he certainly was not interested in pursuing it. We learn just a few decades before this, in the book of Jonah, that the Lord is quick to turn his judgment if there is sincere repentance, like in the case of the city of Nineveh in the Assyrian kingdom. Hezekiah did not tear his clothes, get on his face and cry out to G-d, asking Him what should be done in order for this terrible thing to not come to pass. He did not put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn. He did what many of us would do; he moved on. Because the prophecy did not affect him directly, he saw no need to act.
In this sense have been many Hezekiahs in our government; people who made selfish, self-serving decisions that they knew would not work long term, but did not care. The result of that is the dying republic we have before us.
What do we do when we are, as my brother puts it in one of his songs, “born into a compromise?”
The first thing we must do is realize that we in face, are born into a compromise. The cards we’ve been dealt are atrocious. We must also realize that even though that part is not our fault, what we decide to do with it is; for it is our children who inherit our choices.
The brother I’m referring to is also jazz pianist, composer and arranger, Randy Sandoli. Below is a song I quoted in the above article from his first album, Gettin’ Goin’. You can check it out, and his other projects by clicking the link below. I’ll have him on a podcast episode soon. 🙏🏿
Born into a compromise
And we all feel the weight, of our fathers’ lies
Will we find the strength inside
Will we rise when it all falls down?
I often end up in this place with people with whom I agree on a great many things, and I love your blog! That being said: I have a degree in epidemiology and I was a Case Investigator for my state during the worst of the Covid pandemic. I spoke to literally thousands of people who had just been diagnosed, found out how they were exposed (almost always going to a public gathering or seeing family who had flown on airplanes to get there) and I spoke to way too many family members of people who had just died. Covid is and was real. The public health response was not perfect, but there was much we did not know. Countries that had stronger, more restrictive responses suffered less. Americans are stubborn in our individualism and I kinda like that about us. But people can also be really stupid about from whom they take medical advice. I am fortunate that I have the education and experience to evaluate medical studies for myself. I can find the flaws in them and make my own decisions. I feel sorry for people who take their advice from social media quacks. And I feel even worse for those with chronic disease or compromised immune systems to are exposed or have to confine themselves more because others don't take advantage of vaccines.
Understand where you are coming from, and the governmental directives during the uncertainty and panic surely upset many people and made them lose faith in governmental experts (abetted by a lot of bad faith propaganda sowing distrust).
But there’s a lot more to the Chevron doctrine than the CDC and COVID. It’s at the heart of regulating industrial activity vs. public health, safety and the environment. It’s the “reform” that got made in the Gilded Age thru the New Deal agencies and the EPA (originated during the Nixon administration.
IIRC the Chevron case dealt with whether the EPA could re-define “sources” of air pollution to exempt classes of regulated companies and relax regulation. The court correctly decided to let scientists and technocrats guided by politics and law make that call, not courts. That was widely regarded at the time as the correct decision, as we understand the risks of judicial activism and corruption.
So, where are we going with this? Well courts will make decisions about congressional dictates rather than administrative agencies. And if you think that’s a good idea and will end well with Trump 47 and Project 2025, look no further than the mifepristone muddle where a bunch of judge-shopping fascists find a contrarian Trump appointed judge in south Texas and he entertains a case from a party lacking standing (obgyns concerned about non-babies), another shocking and improper (to lawyers) thing and suddenly some doofus appointed for life judge in Texas knows more than the FDA.
Guarantee as much as you sometimes don’t like the decisions of technocrats and scientists trying to figure out what’s in the public interest, you’re going to like it a heck of a lot less if Trump and the plutocratic class make those decisions to benefit themselves and their friends.
A bright spot in this (always a bright spot) from my perspective as (retired) lawyer and history buff: what brought the sclerotic Soviet Union down after decades of drift and unhappiness with the state of life under that dictatorship were the grass roots citizens environmental movements after the government mishandling and lies around the Chernobyl disaster. These organic movements ushered in demands for political change.