It's not often that I get to respond directly to another blogger's post. But I just wanted to bitch slap some sense into the Smallholder (since the Maximum Leader seems to have so much restraint these days). His post reminds me of the old Maxim. No, not an old maxim, an old issue of Maxim which I am reminded of every time I make it over to his site. Now where was I? Oh, the notion that it was the courts that desegregated our nation. I can't blame the Smallholder for holding this clearly erroneous view of history. No, wait, sure I can. I blame the Smallholder for holding this clearly erroneous view of history. But I also blame our educational elite for promoting the myth of the court. As the Smallholder points out in his post, it was Truman that desegregated the military. That is correct, but he erroneously ascribes the rest of the desegregation of America to court action. Explain to me how come ten years after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) almost every Southern school remained segregated if the courts were so able to forward the cause of equality?

That question, as you might have guessed, was rhetorical since I already have the handy-dandy answer on my cuff sleeve for you. The fact is that it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that led to widespread desegregation in the South. Of course, much of that Act relied on judicial enforcement, but such was the intent of Congress.

I would recommend to the Smallholder and any one else interested in the subject to consult Gerald Rosenberg's The Hollow Hope which debunks the myth.

Perhaps the best argument for an activist court is that it mobilizes interest groups to take political action. On the other hand, court decisions such as Roe v. Wade may result in serious counter-mobilization efforts with less Americans supporting abortion today than they did in 1973. Such is the way of the politics of the Court. I'm sure Steve the Llama butcher might chime in a little more on the subject since (other than porn) this seems to be his field of expertise.

As for the rest of his post, let's just say it sucks ass to claim that if the Maximum Leader had his way there would still be segregation. Such a claim is simultaneously ad hominum, a red herring, and a slippery slope. It was not activist judges that desegregated America, it was Congress and the American people. To claim otherwise is to promote a myth that is both untrue and denegrates the memory of the thousands of followers of Martin Luther King, that despite many Supreme Court rulings, found it necessary to march on Washington in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Posted by: Rusty at 03:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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