US Courts Run By Elitist Law Clerks Who Hate America, And Think Iowa Is The Gulag
02/07/2012
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[See also The Fulford File| “Christophobia”—The Prejudice That Barely Has A Name, by James Fulford]

A year or so ago, I noted on VDARE.com that there may be up to two dozen non-citizens working as federal judicial clerks.

And I noted the problem: law clerks make law. Non-citizen clerks, however, may or may not live under the laws they make. And they sure as heck aren't familiar with local values. It's like a slightly   attenuated version of being ruled by the UN.

But you need not be a non-citizen to feel like a foreigner. You can simply be an elite American law student—coastal, of course—taking up residence in Topeka for a year to clerk for a federal judge.

For a squirming live specimen of the grotesquely hateful attitudes attending this arrangement, read the following article, crossposted on the Above the Law website and written by one Will Meyerhofer:

Yes, there’s a catch [to clerkship] and it’s a whopper: Most clerkships—a whole lot of clerkships—require relocating to the middle of freakin’ nowhere.

If you’re like most educated people, you’ve absentmindedly noticed at some point that the United States occupies a wide tract of land. There’s a lot of that stuff in the middle—the zone with the empty square states they use for missile practice, and those ones in the South where they sprayed black people with fire hoses and sicced dogs on them (as featured in your high school history textbook)(unless you went to high school in the South.)

Yeah, those places.

I am scrupulously non-partisan in these columns—no one can gull me into revealing my sympathies. But I will say this: the frightful wasteland situated between the civilized portions of our nation is dominated by a political party whose platform includes a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw gay marriage.

The Clerkship Archipelago , February 1, 2012

I appreciate some of the things Meyerhofer, a gay lawyer turned psychotherapist who now blogs at The People's Therapist, has to say in his other writings about the mind-shredding experience that is the practice of law (especially at big elite firms—Meyerhofer worked at Sullivan & Cromwell). If my own years at mid-size regional firm are any measure, yeah, it's hell. (Though I don't know how he can counsel other lawyers to stick with it when his own brilliant solution was to jump ship—and then make a living off the remaining suckers. Shouldn't he just sum up his therapy in one word—"quit"?)

I also don't totally reject some of Meyerhofer's generalizations: that in “flyover country", life revolves around football, that good restaurants are hard to find etc.

But the intensity of hate for whites, the blanket smears of entire regions of the country, the casual dehumanization—is jaw-dropping.

Charles Murray points out in his new book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, that elites and elitism are tearing the country  in two. And Will Meyerhofer [Send him mail] is ripping harder than the guy who tears up phone books with his bare hands.

He goes on:

Americans aren’t supposed to admit this—at least white Americans—but despite what Justice Scalia says (with his astonishing legal acumen), it’s possible the issue of race hasn’t entirely melted into insignificance in this great land of ours. You know how black people are kind of mostly poorer than whites and America kind of has the highest incarceration rate in the world and a vastly disproportionate percentage of those people behind bars kind of happen to be black, and white people and black people kind of mostly live in different places and kind of don’t really see each other too much, like, socially? You know? That gets worse in the hinterlands—a lot worse. A client clerking in West Dipstick saw a famous black comedian perform at the local theater. It was something to do—a rare occurrence. The place was packed, the show was great—and he was the only white person in the theater. It was weird, having a tiny bit of fun—his first in months—while experiencing first-hand the secret poison of American apartheid.[Links added by VDARE.com]

Not so fast. Is Meyerhofer implying that New York City isn't segregated? I lived there for seven years, and I can assure you it's no less segregated than anywhere else in the U.S. Racial conflict on the F Train is palpable. I also happen to know plenty of folks in Kansas City who, contrary to Meyerhofer, know perfectly well who Helena Bonham Carter is.

But never mind engaging in the defensiveness that Meyerhofer says is typical of flyover land. When hate burns that hot, you just kind of have to step back and say "wow."

Remembering, of course, that nobody on the Left ever "hates"—that's just for the whites in flyover land. I have clear memories of snotty New Yorkers saying, without a hint of irony, things like "Oh, God, I hate the South. Everyone there is prejudiced."

Ever been to the South? "Oh, God, no way. I would never go there. I don't want to die."

Occasionally, out there in America, you do hear the reverse: "New York City? I would never go there. You'd get mugged."

But the hate-rays just aren't there.

Meyerhofer’s contempt is blood-chilling. How, exactly, are we supposed to have confidence that the federal judicial system has any respect for the people who live under its dictates? Meyerhofer openly disparages the women who attend mega-churches—so naturally, we can expect a fair decision on the next ACLU challenge to a simple prayer before the planning commission meeting. Or an issue involving homosexuality. Or, Lord forbid, a racial issue.

David Brooks, the token "conservative" New York Times columnist, tells us that

“Republicans claim that America is threatened by a decadent cultural elite that corrupts regular Americans, who love God, country and traditional values. That story is false. The cultural elites live more conservative, traditionalist lives than the cultural masses. “[The Great Divorce]

Would this include Will Meyerhofer and his kvetching clerks?

Only if by "conservative, traditionalist lives", Brooks means climbing the ladder and acquiring money and prestige. Yes, there is the distressing phenomenon of unmarried whites, out-of-wedlock white births, white drug abuse, and so on.

But that misses a greater point: there is indeed a deep hatred of America's traditional majority and its values: Christian faith, community undisturbed by forced busing and "fair housing", sexual restraint, a reluctance to embrace "paraded" homosexuality, opposition to abortion, marriage between a man and a woman, lots of children. These values have long been targeted for destruction by the federal judiciary, with rulings like Brown v. Board, Griswold v. Connecticut, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., Roe v. Wade—the catalog is long.

It all looks to me exactly like a "decadent cultural elite that corrupts regular Americans, who love God, country and traditional values." And if you want my own elitist take, I do think that opening wide doors to temptation (liberalized divorce, media messages that discourage children, glamorization of drugs, legalized abortion, etc.) can have a corrupting influence.

The young clerks who crank out the opinions in America's federal courts have great sway over all this. And now, thanks to Will Meyerhofer, we have greater insight into their true feelings.

Anonymous Attorney really wants to be anonymous, but email will be forwarded to him. Put "Anonymous Attorney" in the subject line.

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