Desegregation
 

If the Supreme Court had never intervened in the issue of desegregation and other basic racial equality issues, what's the over/under on when Southern state legislatures would have eventually gotten around to giving blacks essentially the same rights as whites? 1960? 1970? 1980? 1990? Not yet?

Re: Desegregation
 

I would say not yet, even when desegregation was passed, it wasn't untill the Kennedy and Nixon years that the govt wactaully enforced the laws

Re: Desegregation
 

My guess is not yet.

Re: Desegregation
 

Before you give the Supreme Court too much credit, read the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson. A great deal of the problem was created when the Court refused to allow the Reconstruction Congress to outlaw some of the abuses that became ingrained in the South.

Re: Desegregation
 

1970s

Re: Desegregation
 

Wasn't the Plessy vs. Ferguson a case responding to the Jim Crow Laws, which the supreme court also let stand.

To be fair, Brown vs. Board of education did overturn plessy vs. Ferguson. Allthough I'm not a big advocate of the courts, should be said that plessy vs ferguson was soon overturned by that case.

Re: Desegregation
 

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...what's the over/under on when Southern state legislatures would have eventually gotten around to ...

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There's no date certain when or if it happened, although I believe it has.

I don't think there would have been any change at all. courts and laws don't change people -- they change as their interests change, and they do it on their own timeline.

BTW - I'm still trying to figure out how long people would have continued to abuse drugs had the legislators and courts not taken such a hard stance. My guess is the abuse would have gone on for as long as 20 more years ... possibly even into the 1960's.

The people\'s republic
 

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Courts and laws don't change people.

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They change what people do, though.

But the important point is this: If the courts are elected democratically and the laws are created through a truly democratic, representative manner, then what the courts and the laws say and what the people say become one and the same thing.

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I'm still trying to figure out how long people would have continued to abuse drugs had the legislators and courts not taken such a hard stance. My guess is the abuse would have gone on for as long as 20 more years ... possibly even into the 1960's.

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Cute.

Re: The people\'s republic
 

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But the important point is this: If the courts are elected democratically and the laws are created through a truly democratic, representative manner, then what the courts and the laws say and what the people say become one and the same thing.

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We have met the enemy, and he is us. It was democracy that had blacks riding in the back of the bus. It was the Constitutional Republic that stopped the tyranny of democracy. I believe in the Constitution (just not the way it's selectively observed).

I don't believe courts and laws change people -- other than the way they behave outwardly and structure their affairs.

The Boom Boom Room
 

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It was democracy that had blacks riding in the back of the bus.

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Which clearly reflected that status of that society. But you conveniently chose to ignore that it was also democracy too that put a stop to blacks riding the back of the bus!

Which reflected that status of another society. A change which came about not through dictats from higher-up, but from popular action.

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It was the Constitutional Republic that stopped the tyranny of democracy.

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Another of those sleights od hand that the Libertarian Right is so good at. I generously ascribe that to little knowledge and selective reading of History. Others would call it a fanatical distortion of tems.

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I believe in the Constitution (just not the way it's selectively observed).

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You meant to say "interpreted", rather "observed", right? We can all interpret the Koran so many ways! Thing is, do we call it a Holy Text For The Ages - do we call anything a Holy Text? Or do we progress?

A rhetorical question, really.

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We have met the enemy, and he is us.

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It's always us, and nobody else. We are both our "enemy" and our "friend". Only us.

It's not a very crowded room.