The nature of this page:

The excerpts in the right column from the Memorandum Opinion of John E. Jones III, United States District Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, reflect on the character of the Right's performativity in a well-defined setting.  That is, these are not the remarks of a candidate on the campaign trail or of a political pundit on cable television or of the proverbial man in the street.  These are the considered statements of the most authoritative source on such questions, and must be given the greatest weight of all possible statements that can be made on the question of the politics surrounding the teaching of modern science (in this case evolutionary biology) in the United States today.  These remarks are a summary statement on the behavior of the defendants while under oath in the Judge's courtroom.  The defendants, while technically only the School Board of Dover, Pennsylvania, included among their advisors and collaborators key rightwing institutions.

key words and phrases:

lies
mendacity
the blatantly religious purpose behind the ID Policy
striking ignorance
sham
ludicrous
untruthful testimony
flagrant and insulting falsehoods
breathtaking inanity
It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy


The Political Morality of Ressentiment:
An Assessment of the Character of the Right
excerpts from
United States District Judge John E. Jones III
Memorandum Opinion, December 20, 2005

below: eighty years earlier
scopes
Tennessee Judge John T. Raulston holds a copy of the decision in the 1925
case of"The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes," in which Scopes
was tried for teachingevolution to high school pupils.
I propose that these statements be taken as paradigmatic of rightwing performativity in the public sphere.  For example, consider this story (and video link to a John Steward episode) from The Huffington Post ( 04/12/11, Updated: 06/12/11):

Jon Stewart Rips Sen. Jon Kyl For Lying About Planned Parenthood (VIDEO)

Rick Santorum on federal law and english requirement re. Puerto Rican statehood, Dutch euthenasia  (truth is what's inhis heart--see developmental divergence)
Colbert Report march-15--2012---pt--3
What percentage of rightwing performances in the  public sphere can be subsumed under the model provided by the Memorandum Opinion of Judge John E. Jones III?

I suggest that this Opinion is the definitive statement on the characteristic modus operandi of the right.  Keystone Pipeline, Global Warming, Obama's birth certificate, the rationale for the war in Iraq . . .  
An Assessment of the Character of the Right

John E. Jones III, United States District Judge, IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA 
TAMMY KITZMILLER, et al. : Case No. 04cv2688:Plaintiffs
v. 
DOVER AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al.: Defendants
MEMORANDUM OPINION, December 20, 2005 (139 pages)

see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (Wikipedia)
Biography of John E. Jones III, United States District Judge

from Wikipedia



John Edward Jones III (born June 13, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A Republican, Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush as federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in February 2002 and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2002. He is best known for his presiding role in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, in which the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classes was ruled to be unconstitutional.

In 1992, Jones unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for the U.S. House of Representatives for the Sixth Congressional District seat and then was co-chair of the transition team for Governor-elect Tom Ridge.

Jones was the chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board from 1995 to 2002, a period marked by some controversy. He was part of a failed attempt to privatize state stores, and he banned Bad Frog Beer after determining that its label (a frog giving the finger) was in bad taste. He briefly considered running for Governor in 2001.

Jones was appointed to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania by President George W. Bush in February 2002. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 30 and was commissioned on August 2.

Jones was assigned to the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District bench trial, the first direct challenge brought in the federal courts against a school district that mandated the teaching of intelligent design. He was praised by Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania Governor and former head of the Department of Homeland Security, who said that "I can't imagine a better judge presiding over such an emotionally charged issue... he has an inquisitive mind, a penetrating intellect and an incredible sense of humor."[1]
On December 20, 2005, Jones ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional in a 139-page decision.[2]

After the ruling was handed down, some pundits immediately attacked it, notably Bill O'Reilly on Fox News accusing Jones of being a fascist and an activist judge. Casey Luskin and Jonathan Witt of the Discovery Institute, and activist Phyllis Schlafly, have leveled similar charges.[3] Jones also received death threats as a result of which he and his family were given around-the-clock federal protection.[4]

In a speech to the Anti-Defamation League on February 10, 2006 he responded to critics who claimed that he had "stabbed the evangelicals who got him onto the federal bench right in the back"[3] by noting that his duty was to the Constitution and not to special interest groups.[5]

In a November 2006 talk given at Bennington College, Jones again rejected the "activist judge" criticisms and explained the judiciary role and how judges decide cases:

If you look at public polls in the United States, at any given time a significant percentage of Americans believe that it is acceptable to teach creationism in public high schools. And that gives rise to an assumption on the part of the public that judges should 'get with the program' and make decisions according to the popular will.

There's a problem with that....The framers of the Constitution, in their almost infinite wisdom, designed the legislative and executive branches under Articles I and II to be directly responsive to the public will. They designed the judiciary, under Article III, to be responsive not to the public will--in effect to be a bulwark against public will at any given time--but to be responsible to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

That distinction, just like the role of precedent, tends to be lost in the analysis of judges' decisions, including my decision.






This page is an element in a larger network of pages.  It is most closely related to

ressentiment and the mechanisms of defense

Semiotic regimes

rightwing elites in the postwar years
Excerpts (emphasis added)

In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members’ testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students.  We disagree.  (note 7,  page 46)

Bonsell repeatedly failed to testify in a truthful manner  97

[Buckingham's] otherwise largely inconsistent and non-credible testimony 102

As we will discuss in more detail below, the inescapable truth is that both Bonsell and Buckingham lied at their January 3, 2005 depositions about their knowledge of the source of the donation for Pandas, which likely contributed to Plaintiffs’ election not to seek a temporary restraining order at that time based upon a conflicting and incomplete factual record.  This mendacity was a clear and deliberate attempt to hide the source of the donations by the Board President and the Chair of the Curriculum Committee to further ensure that Dover students received a creationist alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution.  We are accordingly presented with further compelling evidence that Bonsell and Buckingham sought to conceal the blatantly religious purpose behind the ID Policy. 115

Finally, the Board brazenly chose not to follow the advice of their only science-education resources as the teachers were not included in the process of drafting the language adopted by the Board Curriculum Committee. 118

One unfortunate theme in this case is the striking ignorance concerning the concept of ID amongst Board members.  Conspicuously, Board members who voted for the curriculum change testified at trial that they had utterly no grasp of ID. 121 

The testimony of Joel Leib, whose family has lived in Dover for generations, is representative of the Plaintiffs’ harm caused by the Board’s actions in enacting the ID Policy.
 
Well, it’s driven a wedge where there hasn’t been a
wedge before.  People are afraid to talk to people for fear,
and that’s happened to me.  They’re afraid to talk to me
because I’m on the wrong side of the fence.
17:146-47 (Leib). 

Moreover, Board members and teachers opposing the curriculum change and its implementation have been confronted directly.  First, Casey Brown testified that following her opposition to the curriculum change on October 18, 2004, Buckingham called her an atheist and Bonsell told her that she would go to hell.

(7:94-95; 8:32 ©. Brown)).  Second, Angie Yingling was coerced into voting for the curriculum change by Board members accusing her of being an atheist and un- Christian.  (15:95-97 (Sneath)).  In addition, both Bryan Rehm and Fred Callahan have been confronted in similarly hostile ways, as have teachers in the DASD. (129-130)

Although Defendants attempt to persuade this Court that each Board member who voted for the biology curriculum change did so for the secular purposed of improving science education and to exercise critical thinking skills, their contentions are simply irreconcilable with the record evidence.  Their asserted purposes are a sham, and they are accordingly unavailing, for the reasons that follow. 130

Moreover, Defendants’ asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is.  To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous. 131

Finally, although Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony, such a strategy constitutes additional strong evidence of improper purpose under the first prong of the Lemon test.  As exhaustively detailed herein, the thought leaders on the Board made it their considered purpose to inject some form of creationism into the science classrooms, and by the dint of their personalities and persistence they were able to pull the majority of the Board along in their collective wake. 131

Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective.  McCreary, 125 S. Ct. at 2735; accord, e.g., Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at 308 (“it is . . . the duty of the courts to ‘distinguish a sham secular purpose from a sincere one.’” (citation omitted)); Edwards, 482 U.S. at 586-87 (“While the Court is normally deferential to a State’s articulation of a secular purpose, it is required that the statement of such purpose be sincere and not a sham.”).  Defendants’ previously referenced flagrant and insulting falsehoods to the Court provide sufficient and compelling evidence for us to deduce that any allegedly secular purposes that have been offered in support of the ID Policy are equally insincere.  Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.  132


The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy.  It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.  (137)
 
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge.  If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy.  The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.  The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources. 
  Page 137-8 

see also MEMORANDUM AND ORDER, October 24, 2005

("We will not countenance what is clearly a “back door” attempt to insert expert testimony into the record free of the crucible of trial and cross-examination.") 
This Page Ends Here.  Below are fragments that will be reassigned at some time in the future.  This is a rhizome, where loose ends and new growth can be indistinguishable.
re. Mayberry Machiavellis " . . . the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

from Wikipedia

"Mayberry Machiavelli" is a satirically pejorative phrase coined by John J. DiIulio Jr., Ph.D., a former Bush administration staffer who ran President Bush's Faithbased Initiative. After he quickly resigned from his White House post in late 2001, DiIulio told journalist Ron Suskind, describing the administration of the Bush White House as published in Esquire: "What you've got is everything--and I mean everything--being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

The phrase is meant to invoke infamous Machiavellian style power politics coupled with a sense of incompetent regional backwardness as supposedly exemplified by the fictional rural town of Mayberry, R.F.D., from The Andy Griffith Show, which ran on CBS, an American television network, from 1960 - 1968. 


John E. Jones III, United States District Judge, on defendants' character (noun)
1.    the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.
2.    one such feature or trait; characteristic.
3.    moral or ethical quality: a man of fine, honorable character.



Mayberry Machiavellis, O'Niell book

Red Scare

Odyssey of the American Right

Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)

Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (1920)

Thorstein Veblen, "The Country Town," in The Portable Veblin.

Minutes, Murray Body Committee Local 2 at Executive Board Meeting, April 26, 1939, Toledo Ohio, Addes Collection, Box 14, Reuther Archives Detroit

Separate Tables

W.C. Fields The Bank Dick

Sabateur (1942, Alfred Hitchcock (the progressive ego-ideal)

The Talk of the Town is a 1942 American film released by Columbia Pictures, starring Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Edgar Buchanan, and Glenda Farrell. The performance of Colman's valet/manservant (played by Rex Ingram) is especially significant, since it was rare for an Afro-American actor during this period to be given such a non-stereotypical part. The movie was adapted by Dale Van Every, Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman from the story by Sidney Harmon. It was directed by George Stevens.