One of the first posts I made on this blog had to do with the Supreme Court and the judges who are there. At the time, the article linked in the post foretold exactly what we have seen happening with the Roberts court:
Untempered by precedent, originalism would require reversing Brown v. Board of Education, the principle of one person-one vote and landmark cases guaranteeing the right to free speech.
In an article reprinted today in The Virginian Pilot, longtime columnist Helen Thomas reviews the recent decisions of the court:
The court under Chief Justice John Roberts seems intent on rolling back advances in race and gender relations that have helped America achieve a more equal and humane society.
Go over and read the whole thing. And then tell me why these decisions are good for America. Perhaps there is a silver lining that I’m missing. At this point, I have to agree with Thomas:
With the Roberts court in command apparently for a long time, all I can say is: “Cry the beloved country.”
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Oh come on Vivian,
If it is anyone other than a democratic appointee, Helen Thomas is going to have a problem with them. I say Thank God we have someone like Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. Just because liberals are not getting there way with Supreme Court rulings, it is bad for the country? Please, that kind of talk is getting old!
So tell us how one ought to approach Constitutional questions, RLewis.
The only hope I have with this court is that if indeed it adheres to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as conservative proponents claim, then it should have some real problems with this administration’s elimination of habeas corpus and assertion of the right to search without warrants. If it’s a by the books court then let’s see it go by the book.
MB,
You can approach it anyway you want. I just disagree with Helen Thomas and the rest of the liberals stating that Roberts decisions are bad for the country. There are more than enough people to defend his decisions with regards to the race issue and plenty of them are African American, Juan Williams a noted Dem is an example of one.
I, too, think that Bush’s elimination of Habeas Corpus exceeded the authority of the Executive. That power is clearly in Article I, which concern the structure and authority of the legislature. (Article II covers the Executive.) Lincoln also assumed that power, which he conveniently did when the Congress was not in session, as I recall, and the S.C. backed him up on it.
Shorter RLewis: I don’t really care about any principled reading of the Constitution, but I’m sure that whatever the liberals say is wrong.
~
Long after we’re rid of this fool in office, we’ll be suffering the consequences of his presidency. This term is just the beginning of it. I sure am glad the Dems “kept the powder dry” . . .
I thought the dems were for banning guns.
Juan Williams is not a noted Dem. He was more liberal in the past, but has been a voice on Fox News for a number of years. And I think you are misreading his column after the decision. He was pointing out that Marshall had been less concerned with integration per se than in getting equal resources for the education of black children.
teacherken,
so because Juan Williams is on Fox News he is no longer a Dem.
The fact that Juan Williams pointed this out is an indication that he was not upset by the decision. It is the Dems who making this a race issue. As Roberts stated “the way stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race”
The only Dems of any consequence who are for banning guns are the ones that people make up. And speaking of making things, where’s my sweater?
I wasn’t all that upset about the SC decision, frankly, mostly because I think the assumptions upon which such treatment is based are no longer valid, assuming they were valid to begin with. For one thing, race based solutions were hammered out in a time when the problem was mostly between black and white. Now our society is far more diverse and multi-cultural. Moreover, the assumption always appears to be that the African American kid is necessarily at more of a disadvantage than the white kid. Maybe this had more truth in the sixties, but nowadays I look at my area’s African American legal colleagues, judges, doctors, nurses, probation officers, police officers, business owners, and assorted professionals and wonder how their kids could be deemed more needful of help than some white indigent kid. And what are we supposed to do when there are numerous different minorities in a school system? Do we still adhere to the “minority kid disadvantaged, white kid advantaged” assumption? Do we do as my own son’s minority dominated school did and have all sorts of outreach programs for at-risk minority youths and exclude the at-risk white youths? My kid was definitely at-risk, but he was never invited into any programs or groups at his school because they were all aimed at minority at-risk kids. There was a clear disparity in the way he was treated as opposed to other kids who had problems at that school. It was assumed that he was automatically much more advantaged than other kids in his position simply because he was white. I never saw this assumption being made about the children of educated and sometimes very successful African American or other minority parents. If their kids had problems they were invited into the groups. Just saying that the playing field should be even for all or else we’re never going to solve the problem of discrimination in this country.
Clinton, Shumer, Kennedy, and Bloomberg (yes, he’s a Democrat) are made up? That IS good news!
Anything’s possible in your world, dear.
Indeed. With God, all things are possible.
No, I said *your* world.