We celebrated freedom on July the Fourth, the freedom to tell women what to do with their bodies, the freedom to further endanger lives with deadly weapons, the freedom to continue on the path toward ecocide — the freedom, in short, to fetter others and even ourselves. Let’s hear it for freedom.
“We’re in the Dark Ages again,” my brother-in-law said as we lay under the sun at Indian Wells. “Soon, we’ll be back to Roman days, feeding Christians to the lions. . . . Come to think of it, I’ve only met two real Christians in my life. . . .”
“Soon the Supreme Court will be banning books, beginning with Milton’s ‘Areopagitica,’ ” I said.
Censorious when it came to a purely personal matter, and dismissive when it came to matters that furthered the public good, the nation’s highest court seems to be as out of whack as the citizenry at large. No, no, correct that! Recent polls show that the citizenry, when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, gun safety, and actions taken to combat climate change, is largely in accord. As one who sometimes doubts the body politic’s collective wisdom, I tip my hat then. Would that the Supreme Court justices were collectively as wise.
When the abortion rights case decision came down, I had been reading about the Dred Scott case and the Fugitive Slave Act (let’s hear it again for freedom!), leading me to wonder if a modern version of the latter might someday be applied to women who flee a state in which the procedure is banned to one that provides it.
It goes without saying that the Dred Scott decision of 1857 remains the highest court’s worst ever, though I’m not sure if there’s any consensus as to the worst term ever. I’ll let those more knowledgeable than I weigh in on this question, but when it comes to zealotry overruling reason, this one could wind up in a high percentile.