Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Sep 19, 2020 16 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You will be missed so much. But you knew that.
Say hello to Justice Cotton.
Only Republican senators can save this country now.
Sleep is going to be hard to come by tonight. #NotoriousRBG
Feeling more despondent tonight than the night Trump won. A republican majority in the supreme court for at least a decade. Republicans are gonna go to town overturning progress on everything since the Civil War. Roe, Obergefell are dead. Civil Rights Act too possibly.
Trump's next pick is going to make Kavanaugh look like a liberal.
Getting a few "hey can you explain why this is such a big deal" messages from desi friends about Justice Ginsburg passing. Sorry, no emotional bandwidth left. Especially when it's pointless. The tweets upthread pretty much cover it.
The first major moment when I started running away from American libertarianism was around 2008 when a lot of "first principle" libertarians argued that the civil rights act was "state tyranny". Like "oh of course racism is wrong but state punishing racism is tyranny".
Now these Confederates, Nazis, Sanghis who pretend to be all about "liberty" will get a supreme court that will take a hatchet to societal progress over the last century or so. Forget Roe v Wade. These Republicans/Libertarians will mostly overturn Loving v Virginia.
Yup, I know overturning Loving v Virginia would make McConnell's own marriage illegal. As if he cares.
That of all the possible justices in the history of this country, Justice Ginsburg's seat is the one being filled by Donald Trump, that too after he stole a seat from Obama using elections as an excuse... That really hurts. Like the world is run by reality show producers.
Wife and I are exchanging sighs and rants and head shakes and of course, hugs, to cope with the loss of Justice Ginsburg.
Very realistic possibility.
Biden wins the election, but Trump refuses to concede (as he's said he will since 2015), takes it to the Supreme Court under some pretext, and his pick to replace RBG casts the deciding vote to bring him back.
Very realistic.
Reminder that historically, the Bill of Rights wasn't so much "here is what govt can't do to you" as it was "here is what Congress or the Federal Govt can't do to you". So DC couldn't restrict your free speech or religious freedom, but your state govt could, if they wanted.
It was supreme courts over generations and centuries who took the constitution beyond what some dudes 240 years ago thought. Interpreted it as a broader proscription against government overreach. That is the power of SCOTUS. To shape history and society.
Until Reagan came along, the general arch of SCOTUS tilted towards progressivism and individual liberty. Went from Dred Scott to Brown v BoE in less than a century. Since Reagan, we've had GOP appointees with a decidedly antebellum agenda. State sanctioned bigotry as the goal.

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More from @gauravsabnis

Feb 21
Very interesting conversation with a gujarati bodega owner nearby.

"I support Modi but something is wrong in gujarat. There are more gujaratis taking the risky border routes in the last 2 years than the 20 years before, from my observation. And they all say, no jobs in gujarat"
"Until recent years, gujaratis wanting to move either came through family visa or arranged marriage or student visa or at the most, overstay tourist visa. But risking life and limb like this in such big numbers? Modi needs to pay attention to gujarat. It's in trouble."
"the family that froze to death on the Canadian border. They didn't have a bad life in gujarat by any means. So why risk your entire existence? Something is wrong, brother, something is very wrong."
Read 6 tweets
Dec 20, 2023
"Wherever you go in this world, you will find a t̶e̶a̶ s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶ great school founded by a Malayalee."

K.T. Behanan was a brilliant Yale educated social scientist & Indian bureaucrat who landed in NYC with his doctor wife & 5 year old son.

Ran straight into systemic racism./1
The year was 1947 & Behanan, a Syrian Christian from Kerala's influential Kovoor clan was a 45 year old superstar in the Babu circles of the brand new India.

He accepted a position for India at the brand new UN, working on education policy with the Trustee Council.

Ironic.
He landed in a New York that was very different from now. "Separate but equal" was still the law.

Schools were openly & emphatically segregated. Brown v BoE was some years away.

By putting idealistic UN in Manhattan, America's mouth had written a check its ass couldn't cash.
Read 10 tweets
Nov 29, 2023
I'm at that age where a lot of my friends are starting to send their kids to college. So getting a lot of queries on US college as an option.

So I'm going to do this reference 🧵 with the basics to avoid repetition. And send it to them before further more specific questions. Image
I'll start off by saying that if you have ₹3 crore that you can spare, it is a nice lifelong gift for your child.

An undergrad education in the US is an amazing enriching experience beyond just the academics & the jobs after. I envy my students a little they get to live it.
I start off mentioning the cost cos I want to be absolutely clear that as awesome as such a college education will be for your kid, it is not going to be cheap.

Unless you have a Sheldon Cooper type kid, there is no free ride for international students in undergrad. That's Grad.
Read 9 tweets
Nov 18, 2023
India & China are almost half of humanity, 2 of the oldest cultures, sharing one of the longest and most iconic borders on the planet.

But how little we really know each other!

Recently, a Chinese grad student shared her love story with me. I repeat it here with her permission.
She grew up the only child of two people who were only children of parents who were also only children, in the South of China.

He grew up in a similar configuration, in the northeast of China.

They both followed the well set academic excellence route to US grad school.
They met in grad school in the NYC area. In a larger Chinese grad student universe, they found each other. And fell in love. And started planning a life together.

And both realized how they had to think about parents and grandparents in China just by themselves!
Read 13 tweets
Nov 7, 2023
My hypothesis about why hindus are uniquely frequent in false flagging by pretending to be minorities in numbers not seen from other ethnofascists, is that Sanghism is unique in not being based on any reality at all. Other fascists at least exploit *some* reality.
Hitler rode to power by exploiting the very real discontent against the treaty of Versailles & economic ennui.

Trump rode to power by pointing to millions of migrants. I think they are a net positive, his view is wrong. But it is a reality, at least, that he's misdiagnosing.
Right wingers in Europe & Israel are also exploiting what is, very much, a structural struggle between two groups.

Sanghism is unique cos quite simply, Indian Muslims are not "a problem" in any realistic way. Never have been. They are one of us. For centuries. And will be too.
Read 15 tweets
Oct 18, 2023
In the state of J&K where you can barely finish singing yeh haseen vaadiyaan before running into 3 check points, a dude managed to ram an explosive filled vehicle a long distance away from the LoC.

We never heard how those logistics worked tho we know all details of 26/11.
Oct 7 raises similar questions that Netanyahu seems to be trying his hardest to distract from. Of course the attack was horrific. But how did the attackers manage to do all this, given the extremely overwhelming Israeli security apparatus? Sourcing paragliders in blockaded gaza?
Also why Western media seems to have "do you condemn Hamas" tourettes. Seen them force guests to condemn Hamas 3-4 times in 5 mins. But stepping any questions or nuance outside that narrow purview.

"How could Hamas kill 1400 civilians?" is both a moral AND logistical question!
Read 6 tweets

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