Saturday, May 15, 2004

AN ANNIVERSARY TO BE MOURNED

When government of the people, by the people perished in the USA

"May 17 is the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that used federal force to integrate public schools in the US... Many on the liberal-left and in black civil rights circles have soured on Brown and regard the decision as contributing little to the "black freedom struggle" and even as a disservice to blacks.... Derrick Bell, a former NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney, has written that Brown was based on unwarranted faith in integrationist ideals and has harmed black education....

Brown still matters to the left, Garrow writes, because the power the Court seized in its Brown ruling can be used to mandate homosexual marriage. The Massachusetts court has taken the lead, and on May 17 homosexuals will be able to obtain state marriage licenses. This, Garrow writes, is a fitting tribute to Brown's constitutional vision on its 50th anniversary. Whether one looks with favor or disfavor on homosexual marriage, Garrow is correct. Brown gave the judiciary the power to impose its morality on society, regardless of legislation or societal values....

Brown did something else. It ushered in kritarchy - government by judges - as Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed recognized. Kritarchy is fundamentally at odds with the separation of powers and the character of the American political system. Now that judges rule, the fight over Court appointments has become a life and death matter for the two political parties.

Even worse, in place of good will and persuasion Brown substituted coercion as the basis for reform. May 17, 1954, is a day of infamy, because it is the day Marxism triumphed over liberalism in America.

Americans have forgotten that Brown was based in sociology, not in law. This was widely recognized at the time. "A sociological Decision: Court Founded Its Segregation Ruling On Hearts and Minds Rather Than Laws," read a New York Times headline on May 18, 1954. James Reston commented that "the Court's opinion reads more like an expert paper on sociology." Columbia Law professor Herbert Wechsler, a consultant to the NAACP in the case, said that Brown would have to be "accepted on faith" as there was no constitutional principle that justifies the ruling.

That's because the Brown decision was based on Swedish socialist Gunnar Myrdal's argument that all Americans (even Northeast Liberals) are so racist that democracy would forever uphold segregation. To get rid of the great evil, an elite would have to seize power and rescue America from immorality."

More of the above article here

It is also amusing to read the rather desperate piece of propaganda here which starts out trumpeting the success of school integration in mainly white Topeka, Kansas but which ends up admitting that the supposed aim -- better black educational achievement -- has not been attained and that there have been disadvantages as well as advantages in integration.

***********************************

No comments: