Tilting with the wind? Is the SCOTUS driving America back to Jim Crow?

As I’ve said before, some folks often say they want to “take America back.”

Problem is, they never tell you how far back they wanna’ go.

Before Civil Rights?

Before Suffrage?

While you may not be a religious person, there is a lesson in the Scripture that addresses “going back” – and we all know we CAN’T go back, it’s impossible.

The book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verse 10 says, “Don’t ask, “Why were things better in the old days than they are now?” It isn’t wisdom that leads you to ask this!” (GWT)

We can’t go back in our childhood, we cant’ go back to yesterday, yesteryear or back in time in any way. We all move forward. We are meant for FORWARD travel. It should seem obvious from even natural observation.

That’s why we have eyes in the FRONT of our face, rather than in the rear.

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Retired federal judge blasts direction of U.S. Supreme Court

Published: Sunday, May 20, 2012, 5:45 PM
Updated: Monday, May 21, 2012, 7:05 AM
By Thomas Spencer — The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Once a guardian of civil rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has been rolling back those protections, said retired U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon this evening, delivering the keynote address at the 2012 Law Enforcement and Civil Rights Conference presented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Clemon, who in 1980 became the first black federal judge in Alabama, said since the 1986 appointment of William Rehnquist as chief justice, Supreme Court rulings have gutted the core of landmark decisions such as Brown v. the Board of Education, the landmark ruling that declared school segregation to be illegal. The Voting Rights Act, Clemon said, “has almost been interpreted out of existence.

“With the rise of the Rehnquist court, our wall against the flood became the flood itself. We have seen, in the past quarter century, civil rights on the scaffold.”

The conference, now in its sixth year, brings state, local and federal law enforcement officials together with civil rights activists and citizens for both historical perspective and discussions of contemporary issues, such as hate crimes, housing, immigration and the treatment of homosexuals.

Patrick J. Maley, the Special Agent in Charge of the Birmingham division of the FBI, said the conference is intended to keep lines of communication open between civil rights groups and law enforcement.

Speaking to the audience, Maley noted that while there is not the level of conflict over civil rights as there was in the 1960s, there is rising tension in society.

“I don’t think there has been a time since then that the social and economic tension has been as high as it is now,” Maley said.

Clemon also criticized the “racist laws” passed by Arizona and Alabama that target illegal immigration and the “rank and unprotected discrimination” that homosexuals are subject to.

After his remarks, Clemon, who stepped down in 2009 to pursue a private law practice with the firm White Arnold & Dowd, joked that he was happy to have his First Amendment Freedom of Speech back.

The ideological direction of the court contributed to his decision to step down, and the liberation that has come with it, to speak publicly and advocate for change, has made him feel joyful “like a newly-freed slave,” he said.

“I was increasingly conflicted by having to abide by Supreme Court decisions with which I profoundly disagreed,” Clemon said.
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http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/05/retired_federal_judge_blasts_t.html