Photo illustrations by Priscilla Gacria
Justice Delayed
T
I
hate the Supreme Court of the United States of America. If the purpose of this essay is to vociferously complain about something this essay has no hope of changing in the slightest measure, I can think of nothing more hopeless than the highest court of this land. You see, first you have to love something to truly hate it. I first became politically aware during the Watergate hearings, not just because my fifth and sixth grade teacher was too lazy to teach, and we watched three hours of Senate hearings almost every afternoon, but because simultaneously I was reading the Hunter S. Thompson classic, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72. The president and Congress were plainly beneath contempt, as illustrated in long, droning tones during that sweltering spring of 1973. And above all that—when our teacher saw fit to explain how these “hearings” glorified our democracy, and how the checks and balances of our system of government were our very salvation from the sins of our fathers because it made our government better than its parts—stood the Supreme Court. Mrs. Gilbert could stand there, in her lay teacher but true Catholic sincerity and express her whole-hearted foundational belief that, if asked to, the Court would see through the deceptions of men. The Court was above politics, the manifestation of objectivity and fairness—of God—upon this planet.
raffic obstacles. 100-degreeplus temperatures. Elections. Extraneous apostrophe’s. If you thought you had something to complain about, you should hang around our office for a minute. For a lark, we decided to let our hair down, pull out the stops and let loose with our most vitriolic hate. Believe us, it’s good to vent sometimes.
OPINION
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NEWS
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GREEN
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FEATURE STORY
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ARTS&CULTURE
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ART OF THE STATE
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FOODFINDS
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FILM
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MUSICBEAT
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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS
And while I didn’t believe anything my teachers told me, I believed that. I had to. Can you imagine what the alternative was in the mind of an 11-year-old boy? Add to the fear of anarchy and the possibility that I did not live in the greatest country on the planet, there were so many examples of proof for my misplaced faith: Brown vs. the Board of Education, New York Times v. Sullivan, Loving v. Virginia. Of course, in the indoctrinative and propagandistic atmosphere of junior high, things like Dred Scott were never mentioned.
I hate that the Court chooses money over human dignity, discrimination over equality, expediency over truth. But now, almost since that dulcet spring, I’ve watched the Court stand as a beacon of cowardice and ideology. The “truth” that meant so much to that boy has been devoured and defecated
“ BRING ON THE H8” continued on page 14 |
THIS WEEK
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MISCELLANY
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JULY 3, 2014
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RN&R
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