One Member Of The Supreme Court Wishes You A Shitty Day

The news that Anthony Kennedy is resigning as a Supreme Court Justice is obviously very disheartening news.  Of course, yesterday's decisions suggest that he wasn't really saving us much, except perhaps from a repeal of Roe v Wade.  There is an argument - made by people it doubtless doesn't effect - that perhaps Roe should be repealed so it can be settled politically rather than judicially.  I suppose.  Trumpistan has laid bare all the basest impulses of the "conservative" movement, why not this one.  For years, Republicans have used repeal of Roe to fire up the evangelicals.  Of course, as with the tax cut, be careful what you wish for.

Evangelicals and forced-birthers like to compare Roe to another Supreme Court decision: Dred Scott.  However, a repeal of Roe would likely be even more unpopular.  Let's hear what Frederick Douglass said after Taney issued his ruling in Dred Scott:

You will readily ask me how I am affected by this devilish decision — this judicial incarnation of wolfishness? My answer is… my hopes were never brighter than now. I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies as that decision is, and has been, over and over, shown to be….

Your fathers have said that man’s right to liberty is self-evident. There is no need of argument to make it clear. The voices of nature, of conscience, of reason, and of revelation, proclaim it as the right of all rights, the foundation of all trust, and of all responsibility. Man was born with it. It was his before he comprehended it... To decide against this right in the person of Dred Scott, or the humblest and most whip-scarred bondman in the land, is to decide against God….

If it were at all likely that the people of these free States would tamely submit to this demoniacal judgment, I might feel gloomy and sad over it, and possibly it might be necessary for my people to look for a home in some other country. But as the case stands, we have nothing to fear.

In one point of view, we, the abolitionists and colored people, should meet this decision, unlooked for and monstrous as it appears, in a cheerful spirit. This very attempt to blot out forever the hopes of an enslaved people may be one necessary link in the chain of events preparatory to the downfall and complete overthrow of the whole slave system.

History moves slowly.  And then it doesn't.  I have noticed that truly revolutionary movement create their own counter-revolutions.  Humans don't really like a great deal of change.  If Republicans finally get their dream of repealing Roe, I don't think they will be greeted as liberators with flowers and candy.