The opinion was read, and with it, freedom died. Dred Scott was to remain a slave and it took some legal gymnastics on the part of a highly partisan Supreme Court to accomplish it. The case, Scott v. Sandford (1857), would forever go down as one of the worst decisions in U.S. history.
Even if you attended the worst institutions the public school system has to offer, you’ve probably heard about the Dred Scott decision. Why does it matter today? Because we need a reminder that the American judicial system has been at best a nominal bulwark against injustice from the beginning. True justice is not meted out on the whims of man, and free people must recognize that. A few short years ago many people didn’t, and you’ll recall the results: worldwide tyranny.
The courts are not our friends, they never have been and they weren’t designed to be. The courts are supposed to be a cold arbiter of the law, not a chummy club where influence and graft curries favor from the bench. But courts became that way, because human nature is corruptible like that.
Judges immemorial have only occasionally concerned themselves with the law. In the pocket of cartels (more common through history than most realize), courts disregard our Constitutional rights as if those rights were akin to “Be Kind, Please Rewind” stickers on the rented VHS tapes of a bygone era. Protections like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly have been treated more like suggestions scribbled on a white board — easily erased to suit the circumstances.
There are law anthologies several inches thick documenting terrible rulings over the centuries; the past few years have added another volume.
Some look to the courts to right the ills of society. Some rely on the courts to protect our livelihoods, secure our elections, or defend our religious freedoms. Beware, because even as judges sometimes grant temporary victories, the courts are more often the Bad Guys in the story. As we examine American legal history to reconcile our current predicaments, we’ll need to face that reality.
But maybe we should begin by stating what ought to be, and move forward as a nation from there.
“It makes me wonder if everything I learned about the evils of reconstruction was true.”
President John F. Kennedy
I recall the first question of the first day of Justice 101. The professor wrote in chalk on the board (yes, I’m that old) the following question:
Describe the U.S. justice system.
One student blurted out, “It sucks.” We chuckled, the professor smirked, and then launched into a rehearsed monologue about the requisite tone of professional arguments in academic settings, undoubtedly intended to embarrass the student; legal scholars delight in crafting highfalutin language to clothe otherwise simple instructions.
We learned that the law was serious business, and we should treat it with reverence. And yet, nearly thirty years later I can’t describe the totality of the American justice system more succinctly than that kid in class did: It sucks. As much as the lawyerly professors would like to besmirch such indictments from simple folk, ordinary speech still produces the most accurate definitions.
But it shouldn’t suck.
The U.S. justice system as designed is a rather good one; it sucks in practice, however, and there are a lot of reasons for that. To lay the groundwork, let’s take a quick look at Scott v. Sanford (aka the Dred Scott decision) for those who aren’t familiar.
The Supreme Court: Screwing Up Since 1837 (or longer)
Dred Scott was a slave. His master relocated several times due to his vocation as an Army surgeon, eventually settling in Missouri. Some time after his master’s death, Dred Scott sued for his freedom citing established precedent (Rachael v. Walker, 1837) arguing that under Missouri law, since he resided in a free state he must be emancipated — Missouri’s “once free, always free” doctrine.
A couple of trials in Missouri and another in Federal court bumped the issue into the ballpark of the Supreme Court. Initially Justice Samuel Nelson, citing Strader v. Graham, 1851, was prepared to exercise judicial restraint and declare that Missouri had the right to define its own laws.
However, the U.S. was on the brink of Civil War, largely over the slavery issues. The seven pro-slavery SOTUS justices on the nine-member court — with Justice James M. Wayne and Rodger B. Taney leading the way — saw this case as a golden opportunity to declare slavery legal in every state and also deny citizenship to any slave by unconstitutionally declaring them nothing more than property.
Judicial activism on a grand scale was born, and with it a realization that justice and legal precedent can be just as easily set aside in America as anywhere else on Earth. Not only that, the Constitutional safeguards that protect such bombastic disregard for the law are merely words on paper, subject to the whims of men with guns who may or may not be willing to enforce them. Instead of a co-equal branch of government, the courts usurped power and crowned themselves king, self-exalted authorities daring anyone to stand against them.
And that legacy hasn’t been challenged much over the years.
Decades later, it took five years of war and three Constitutional amendments to undo what the courts had done with the stroke of a pen in Scott V. Sanford. Lives lost, fortunes destroyed, reputations obliterated, and a nation scarred all because a few men in black robes capitulated to societal forces.
Dred Scott, Alex Jones, et al
It’s no different today. Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Steve Bannon, Stefanie Lambert, President Donald J. Trump, and even Alex Jones can attest to the fact that the application of law and legal processes are hardly universal. Selective application maneuvers political outcomes that drive larger (some would say nefarious) agendas.
Some of those names I listed above might sound familiar, others not so much. One name you ought to know about is Alex Jones, who — in the wake left by the departure of the late, great Rush Limbaugh — has become media boogieman #1 in the eyes of the Deep State.
Alex Jones was just a guy with a voice. As the owner of the website InfoWars, Jones was a professional bear poker, discussing a range of topics with the simple goal of uncovering truths about the world we live in. This used to be called freedom of speech, and like it or not, it’s enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What this means is that everyone is allowed to walk down the street denouncing Starbucks, or Israel, or President Trump. Everyone is allowed to question an election, and declare fraud to whichever audience they choose, whenever they perceive it. We are allowed to walk on a beach anytime we desire, or gather for worship or pickup basketball regardless of bird-flu, curfew, global “pandemic” or whatever.
It means nobody, nobody can ever force a church to close. Never. Pastors, take note!
The First Amendment also ensures that if thousands of people want to peaceably march on the U.S. Capitol, or the White House, or a State Legislature, or any other public building (including publicly funded universities), they have the absolute, God-given, Founding Fathers’ stamp of approval to do so.
That includes if those people are chanting things you don’t like.
It means that if you want to question a foreign war, city policy, or government contract, you get to dig into it. If you want to investigate the details of a terrorist event, FBI raid, or mass shooting, perhaps seeking evidence and pointing out inconsistencies, you again have a concrete right to do so.
But wait. Not so, according to little state courts and a dictatorial judges. Alex Jones was sued for speaking his mind about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, questioning the official narrative and seeking answers. For that, he has racked up over a billion dollars in court-awarded damages.
Not content with legal culpability, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the District Court in Travis County decided to arbitrarily ignore Texas’ cap on punitive damages awarded in civil cases, merely because she wanted to. She decided to make freedom of speech a crime, and an expensive one at that.
But judge Gamble, like so many other judges past and present, are wrong. Speaking your mind about issues — from gender transition therapy to mass shootings — isn’t illegal, it’s a right, and it’s something journalists used to be good at.
If, like Alex Jones, you think the physics are a little fishy regarding how a 120-pound “developmentally disabled computer nerd” like Adam Lanza, while wearing 100 pounds of body armor, rifles, and magazines, managed to carry and fire enough .223 rounds and break through a 200-pound wire-reinforced door, then fire 182 additional rounds into victims from six magazines, all within 7 minutes you’re perfectly able to do so. You, and I, and Alex Jones are allowed to ask those questions.
If, like Jones and others, you wonder why Sandy Hook Elementary’s surveillance footage proving the official version of the narrative has been suppressed and exhaustively redacted, or why the crime scene was demolished without the least degree of forensic investigation, or why numerous questionable media and local police accounts are inconsistent with their own facts as stated, you are, again, Constitutionally protected in doing so.
In another day and age, you might have even expected that it was the media’s job to ask those questions.
If you’re interested in speaking out about other hot topics — like election fraud, genital mutilation, World Trade Center Building Seven, or anything against Israel — the American judicial system is supposed to protect your right to do it. Nobody has a right to tell you what you can or cannot say. That’s America’s Rule #1.
“The red line for me is: This is my country, my birthright is free speech. God gave me that right, you cannot take it away, and if you’re telling me what I’m allowed to say in my country, you’re my enemy. Like it’s kinda that simple, you can’t tell me what to say or think. Period.”
Tucker Carlson, The Tucker Carlson Show
But those pesky judges in activist courts have different thoughts on the matter.
“…talk show host Alex Jones should pay eight families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages, a Connecticut jury decided Wednesday, capping a wrenching weeks-long trial…With its punishing award, the decision could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire…
Oliver Darcy, CNN Business
“’Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for,’ the Sandy Hook family attorneys argued to the jury during their opening statements and closing arguments.”
And that’s the tactic du jour for modern authoritarians who’ve lost all credibility: lawfare and financial ruin to silence opposing points of view. The actual laws, U.S. Constitution, and centuries of legal precedent are soundly on the side of being allowed to say — as Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwood, Naomi Wolf, Candice Owens, etcetera, assert — whatever the heck you want.
Unless you’re questioning official government narratives, that is. Or as it turns out, if you’re saying things that people just don’t like. There was a time when the populace was outraged by seeing fire hoses knock college kids off their feet as they marched for a cause they believed in. Nowadays people post such videos on social media, get 10K likes, and nobody checks their humanity. How many of your friends, relatives, maybe even pastors, became vocal authoritarians in 2024, clamoring to lock up, expel, or otherwise silence anyone protesting Israel?
Law was designed to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; it was not created as a bludgeon against unpopular beliefs. Tell that to the courts, if the judge will even allow your testimony.
Truck Tires and Burning Flags
In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court held 5-4 that burning of the Star Spangled Banner was protected expression under the First Amendment. Federal bills initiated in Congress to sidestep that ruling were proposed but failed. Additional rulings on the issue of “symbolic desecration” as it pertains to flags reaffirmed Texas v. Johnson repeatedly, including United States v. Eichman (1990), and multiple attempts to enact a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag also failed.
You could say that, like it or not, burning a flag is your long-held, court-affirmed, Constitutional right under U.S. law. If that’s the case, then it must be legal to burn an LGBTQ flag, right? Or how about a BLM flag, or a Gadsden Flag, or a Israeli or Palestinian flag?
Let’s look:
“…the Attorney General shall designate an officer or employee of the Department of Justice whose responsibility during the applicable period shall be to facilitate the expedited review of hate crimes (as described in section 249 of title 18, United States Code) and reports of any such crime to Federal, State, local, or Tribal law enforcement agencies…The [U.S.] Attorney General shall issue guidance for State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies, pursuant to this Act and other applicable law…”
COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act 34 U.S. Code § 30501
What that means is that anything which might be considered a “hate crime” — peeing on a “pride” flag, spilling your caramel mocha on a rainbow painted crosswalk, truck tires marks on a trans-flag painted roadway, taking down a Satanic shrine in a State Capitol building, chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” will now be put on the FBI fast-track for a prosecutorial full-court press.
You probably don’t recall the Covid19 Hate Crimes Act. It was passed with near universal bi-partisan support while most of us were distracted with the fallout from the stolen election, J6 lies, and vaccine battles. The bill — ostensibly crafted to protect Asian-Americans from all of the imaginary “China-virus” racism — was just another poison pill, much like the Covid jabs themselves, created to harm you while purporting to solve fake problems.
Instead, this sneaky legislation became a vehicle for the FBI to prosecute Americans for getting uppity, and the Feds have been relishing it ever since.
This and many other measures have turned the rule of law on its head. And by the way, unless you’re from Missouri, your Senator voted for this legal monstrosity. Only one Senator thought free speech was a good idea and fought for it, Josh Hawley; five Senators (including Rand Paul) were too chicken to stand up and be counted; they skipped the vote.
Now, before you go sending Hawley an atta-boy, know that he was a lot less interested in fighting for freedom when it mattered most, at 11pm on Jan 6th, but that’s a story for another day.
Take all of the encroachments against our civil liberties for the last thirty years into account, and you might say that Congress has joined the courts in dismantling free speech in America — especially in 2020, but exponentially thereafter.
That’s the U.S. Congress, mind you, but what about those fiercely independent states like Texas and Alaska, those bastions of individual liberty?
Nope.
The States v. Freedom (2024)
You’re allowed to do a lot of things in Texas, but criticizing Israel isn’t one of them. On March 27th, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued Executive Order No. GA-44. Simply stated, it means that as a student in the University of Texas system, you’re not allowed to say anything negative about the secular state of Israel. You can say whatever you want about America, Sudan, England, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, and the rest, but if you say one bad word about Israel, you might get expelled, or maybe even criminally charged.
God bless Texas…with better leadership…and soon.
In Alaska, the enemies of freedom were smarter. They decided to call their new anti-liberty, anti-Christian law simply HB 238 “An Act relating to criminal mischief in the third degree; and providing for an effective date.”
It was crafted in the wake of Michael Cassidy tearing down the Satanic shrine that was erected in the Iowa State Capitol. Apparently the Alaska state legislature thinks that it should be illegal to remove shrines to Asherah, Baal, and Molech. Not only that, you could get up to five years in jail, pay $50,000 in fines, and lose the right to own a firearm merely for “desecrating” a trans-glorifying poster mounted in your child’s schoolroom bulletin board, for example. How will this be applied by the courts? It’s too early to tell. Anyone want to challenge it and find out?
And these are supposedly the gun-loving, leave-me-alone “red” states where freedom is supposed to ring loudest. Freedom is being assaulted everywhere, from Florida to Maine, Alaska to Hawaii, in small county courtrooms in Nebraska on up to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
And it always has been, as Dred Scott, Steve Bannon, President Trump, Alex Jones, and Vivek H. Murthy can attest.
What may or may not have changed (and the jury is still out on this, no pun intended) is what We The People intend to do about this.
Unjust laws, unrestricted censorship, and political or economic persecution are, unfortunately, as American as apple pie, but so is the compunction among ordinary Americans to fight them. Civil disobedience, rabble rousing, protests, boycotts, marches, and citizen journalism are also part of the American genetic code.
A willingness to tell authoritarians to [beep] off is a hallmark of free people pushed over the edge, and many an American was beaten by police officers and tossed in a jail cell for fighting laws that should never exist. That part of our history has been forgotten or largely ignored by soft Americans who’re perfectly fine with evaporating freedoms, so long as it’s just those pesky anti-Semites or Russian businesses being persecuted.
There was a time when Americans would rise up against unjust laws and challenge the courts who perpetuated them. In my next article I intend to explore that history a little more, since the Boomers who used to march for freedom have been largely absent in these current struggles.
Perhaps our lives are so comfortable that we’re no longer interested in that kind of thing. Ronald Reagan famously stated that freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. Maybe we’re there, but maybe not. Is anyone willing in 2024 to sit in a jail cell in defense of freedom, protesting laws and courts that are contra-American to their rotten cores? Too many of us merely comfort ourselves with an eyeroll emoji before scrolling past the latest egregious Supreme Court decision, muttering, “Oh well, the court has spoken.”
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This is part of an ongoing series titled, The Bad Guys. Previous articles:
The Bad Guys: Part I, History.
The Bad Guys: Part II, Abortion…and Cobra Kai.
The Bad Guys: Part III, The Feds
The Bad Guys: Part IV, The GOP
The Bad Guys: Part V, Inteligence Agenies
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Article Photo Credit:
First Floor at the Statute of John Marshall, quotation from Marbury v. Madison (written by Marshall) engraved into the wall. United States Supreme Court Building
swatjester, 7 April 2010 (UTC) – Flickr
Used with permission.