Thank God for the Supreme Court! Without them, and their omniscient wisdom, we'd all still think that racism was a problem here in the good old U S of A.
But no, it's most definitely not. We're past that. We're better than that. That was, after all, a long time ago. Now we're a post racial society.
Chief Justice John Roberts knows this. Just like he knew Citizens United was the right call. He's a very smart man.
Those of us who aren't as smart might think that the factors that made the Voting Rights Act necessary in the first place are still present and active in a large part of the United States.
We might think that the laws enacted by far wiser and better men than those who struck them down are still needed.
We might consider it a classic case of circular reasoning to say that the laws that made some progress possible are no longer needed because they made some progress possible. A simple person might argue that there would have been no progress at all without the laws and that to weaken them will unchain powerful, regressive forces.
For proof we would simply offer the fact that the election of President Obama unleashed a torrent of race based hatred. Hatred that is stoked on a daily basis by Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News creeps.
And that the day--the same day--the decision to strike down part of the law was announced--Texas moved ahead with a restrictive voter ID law that would not have been possible were the law intact.
But that's why we're not on the Supreme Court. We simply don't recognize all of the progress we've made.
We do not live in the same world as John Roberts.
PS If I woke up tomorrow to find Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito hanging from a tree with carrion birds pecking at their livers I would not shed a single tear. Except, perhaps, for the poor birds, which might die from ingesting something so vile.
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