June 28, 2012
politicalprof: By now, many of you will have seen this ridiculous tweet from Ben Shapiro, an editor for Breitbart.com and a prominent conservative noise maker. What many of you may not know, is who Dred Scott was and why this comment is so vile. Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him to the free (anti-slavery) state of Illinois. There, Scott sued claiming that he could no longer be a slave since Illinois outlawed slavery. In other words, he claimed his civil rights were being violated, and demanded that the federal courts declare him free. In one of the worst — if not the worst — decisions in American history, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott (in 1857) because — and I am not making this up — that all persons of African descent brought into the United States for the purposes of slavery were by definition not US citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in US courts for violation of their civil rights. In other words, whatever the laws of the state in question, even free blacks were not US citizens with rights if they or their ancestors were brought to the US for the purpose of slavery. So excuse me, Mr. Shapiro, if I can’t quite equate the requirement to buy health insurance or face a fine with the denial of one’s status as a human being and a citizen on grounds of one’s race. It’s one thing to not like Obamacare and the individial mandate. It’s another to imagine that your problems look anything like Dred Scott’s.

politicalprof:

By now, many of you will have seen this ridiculous tweet from Ben Shapiro, an editor for Breitbart.com and a prominent conservative noise maker.

What many of you may not know, is who Dred Scott was and why this comment is so vile.

Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him to the free (anti-slavery) state of Illinois. There, Scott sued claiming that he could no longer be a slave since Illinois outlawed slavery. In other words, he claimed his civil rights were being violated, and demanded that the federal courts declare him free. In one of the worst — if not the worst — decisions in American history, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott (in 1857) because — and I am not making this up — that all persons of African descent brought into the United States for the purposes of slavery were by definition not US citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in US courts for violation of their civil rights. In other words, whatever the laws of the state in question, even free blacks were not US citizens with rights if they or their ancestors were brought to the US for the purpose of slavery.

So excuse me, Mr. Shapiro, if I can’t quite equate the requirement to buy health insurance or face a fine with the denial of one’s status as a human being and a citizen on grounds of one’s race.

It’s one thing to not like Obamacare and the individial mandate. It’s another to imagine that your problems look anything like Dred Scott’s.

8:40pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZBXRbyOK7kBy
(Notes: 539)
  
Filed under: ignorance Dred Scott Breitbart Ben Shapiro America Supreme Court civil rights history slavery 
May 16, 2012
The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his death

A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, “a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”

Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit, and his name – Carlos DeLuna – is being shouted from the rooftops of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The book sets out in precise and shocking detail how an innocent man was sent to his death on 8 December 1989, courtesy of the state ofTexas. 

(Source: abbyjean)

11:06am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZBXRbyLargS7
(Notes: 37)
  
Filed under: death penalty wrongful conviction Texas Supreme Court Antonin Scalia US injustice execution death book