Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and sent a wave of hysteria through the American political left.

Kennedy was considered the “swing vote” or the tiebreaker. He sometimes would vote with the conservative justices and sometimes he would vote with the liberal side. With his departure, Pres. Trump gets another pick, and most assume this will swing the high court decidedly to the right.

The left immediately went into full freakout mode. One progressive put it this way.

“I’ve tried and tried but I can’t find a way to respond to Justice Kennedy’s retirement with anything other than abject terror.”

Another lamented, that Trump’s pick will “determine a lot about the nature of American life for a generation or more.”

The real lesson here is that elections matter, or so my left-wing friends tell me.

Over the last 100 years, America’s political system has devolved into government by judiciary. Nine unaccountable lawyers do everything from define marriage to write tax law. At various times in history, progressives and conservatives both enthusiastically drove the evolutions of this system because it gave them power. Through the courts, both political parties implemented policies it had no chance of pushing through the legislative process.

Of course, the right enthusiastically embraces this system as well. Conservatives learned to play the game and they play it every bit as passionately as their progressive comrades. Pretty much everybody in America loves government by judicial decree — as long as the decree goes their way.

Yes. You’ll learn a lesson here. But it has nothing to do with voting. The lesson is what government giveth, government taketh away.

The American left is freaking because it realizes a government body that gave it so much over the last century may be on the verge of flipping to the “other side.” It’s a political doomsday. Progressives depended on the Court to impose their vision of the world and their conception of morality on society for years. That could be about to end and perhaps even reverse. Now the political right will get its chance to use the power of government to impose its vision for society and its conception of morality on the country for a while. From the progressive perspective, I can certainly understand the “abject horror.”

But consider this: Perhaps a system in which one politically connected lawyer has the power to “determine a lot about the nature of American life for a generation or more” is not the best way to organize a society. Maybe one member of the political class shouldn’t effectively rule over some 350 million people. Perchance the problem isn’t who’s on the Supreme Court, but its very existence.

Of course, people who agree with the worldview of those in power will always be happy. It means their preferred judicial temple monkeys will be there to impose their will on the rest of the country.

The sad thing is that the vast majority of Americans freaking out right now aren’t upset by the absurdity of this system. They’re just angry that they won’t have “their guy” on the Court to impose their vision of society on the rest of us.

All of a sudden, the fist might start swinging at them.

Which leads me to the most telling comment I’ve seen since Kennedy announced his retirement. It was in the form of a tweet.

Just a thought.

Dear Mr. president @BarackObama – When they went low, maybe we should have gone a little more LBJ bare knuckles.

This reveals the true nature of politics – violence, force and coercion.

I’m sure the man who sent out this tweet would say he only meant it figuratively. He would probably tell you he rejects violence. He talks constantly about love and tolerance. He would never hit somebody.

Or maybe he would.

But regardless, he wants government to hit people on his behalf. He wants to get his way. He wants society to look like he wants it to look. He wants to impose his moral principles on everybody else. And he wants government to do it. If it requires throwing a few punches, so be it.

The existence of government lets people get away with hiding their thirst for violence and their willingness to use force against other people in order to mold society into their image. They can send out armed government agents to do their dirty work while they stand back and talk about compassion and morality.

The Supreme Court brouhaha once again reveals the nature of government. The right is giddy because it anticipates an opportunity to wield the hammer. The left is terrified because the blows may well fall on them.