GREETINGS FROM THE FEDERAL CHANCELLOR FOR LIVING/DEAD RELATIONS

THE DEPARTMENT OF LIVING/DEAD RELATIONS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

By : Mr. Franklin F. Tottenham, Chancellor of the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations; J.D., Yale Law School (1989); Consulting Expert in Health Policy, The Brookline Association, Boston, Massachusetts (1991-2004); Deceased 2005; Vice President of the American Walking Corpse Federation for Fair Employment Opportunities in the Private Sector (2005-2008); Corpse (Living).

When President Barack Obama won the White House last autumn, he promised America “change we can believe in.” Unlike his predecessor, President Obama grounded his political philosophy in a society of inclusion, not exclusion. In short, President Obama ushered in a new day in American political life. Under President Obama, everyone has a chance to succeed in America. Everyone counts. The President’s own life story proves that anyone make it in this country. Minorities and historically-marginalized groups all over America wept for joy to celebrate Obama’s victory. For the first time in their lives, they felt real hope that America would finally make a place for them: African-Americans no longer felt that they were doomed to repression and “dead ends” in society; gay men dared hope that they, too, could marry; and immigrants proudly stood up to say that they had a place.

This is a new America. This is an America that believes in itself. This is change we can believe in. President Obama, you said: “Yes we can.” We say: “Yes we did.” We salute your commitment to the American dream for all Americans. You understand that everyone in America—even those without economic power or education—can contribute to our Nation’s success.

This is a significant achievement. All Americans means all Americans; that means both living and dead Americans. For too long, America has failed to consider the needs of the dead in political life. For too long, America simply buried its dead and moved on. It not only maliciously discriminated against dead people; it literally forgot about them. But President Obama understands injustice when he sees it. Freedom does not exist unless all people enjoy it. It does not matter whether a person’s cells have perished. It does not matter whether a person’s heart has stopped or his flesh has rotted away. It does not even matter whether a person died in 1694. Americans are still Americans—and Americans deserve freedom. That is why President Obama commanded Congress to pass the Dead Matter Too Act (DMTA). This act represents a gigantic step toward justice in the United States. For the first time in history, America told its dead: “You have a voice, too.”

Mr. President, as Chancellor of the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations, and as a dead man, I salute you for your commitment to American ideals. I speak for every dead body in America when I say: “We will help you realize the dream.”

But despite all the recent gains, our road has not been easy. We cannot guarantee immediate progress. For centuries, America has stamped the dead with a badge of inferiority. The living lived as if they were the only ones here. For centuries, the law permitted them to bury us, burn us, toss us into ditches and even sink us to the ocean bottom without so much as asking our opinion on the matter. The living branded us with epithets that cut deeply into our collective self-esteem: stiffs, stinkers, stenches, funeral parlor bait, coffin crud… the list goes on. Laws not only authorized this unequal and demeaning treatment; laws did not even mention us. From a legal perspective, we were not even second-class citizens; we were nothing at all. Although the living spent money on headstones and even set aside land for us, they simply ignored us afterward, leaving us to slowly decompose six feet underground. To add insult to injury, they took away all our property and distributed it to grandchildren, estranged wives and even creditors. In sum, dead Americans face a legacy of State-sponsored discrimination. We have been purposely suppressed, marginalized, demeaned and forgotten. In some cases, we are completely gone. We ask the President to remember our dead brethren who faced cremation, obliteration, vaporization or worse.

But those dark days are over. We are turning a new page in American history. Now, the Federal government has finally recognized that we deserve a chance, too. Despite all the historical prejudice against us, President Obama recognized that we deserve a chance to influence policy in the United States. Through the DMTA, the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations has two goals: (1) To help eradicate the practical handicaps created by historical discrimination against dead Americans; and (2) To make policy suggestions to living lawmakers concerning national legislative initiatives.

Today, I want to educate the public about our mission. Concerning our first goal, I want to remind all living Americans that dead people are people, too. We ask you to remember that President Obama promised a bright future for all Americans, whether black, white, Native American, Asian, immigrant, disabled, homosexual or dead. We recognize that it used to be “OK” to discriminate against the dead. In days past, polite people rarely invited dead neighbors over for dinner. Top-rate universities never accepted dead applicants. Living Americans assumed that all dead people smelled, were ugly, acted irresponsibly and looked like they were sleeping all the time. But that was pure bigotry. In 2009, we no longer make assumptions about people simply because they are dead. We evaluate people based upon their character and their achievements, not their cellular status or pulmonary/respiratory function. We do not stereotype about dead people, just as we do not stereotype about Hispanics or Asians. Today, every American deserves a chance.

We want to set the record straight about dead Americans. We are not sleeping. We do not smell. We are not ugly, even if we may have decomposed in whole or in part. Despite our appearance, we have achieved great things. Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and he is dead. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and he is dead. Dwight Eisenhower defeated the Nazis in Europe and he is dead. Henry Ford introduced mass production and revolutionized industrial society; he is dead, too. Thus, there is no substance to the claim that “all dead people” are irresponsible or lazy. To the contrary, many dead people have achieved tremendous things. Babe Ruth, for instance, is one of the greatest baseball players in American history. And he is dead. We believe America should open its mind to the reality that dead people have done—and will do—great things. We must move beyond superficial generalizations. We believe the Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations will help living Americans cast aside their historical prejudices against the dead. After all, you likely have dead relatives. You wouldn’t treat them with disrespect, would you?

When Americans learn that the dead are people just like you, we are confident that dead Americans will overcome the practical roadblocks that have held them back for so long. When Americans learn that dead people do not just “sleep” or “smell,” we are confident that private employers will proudly offer them jobs. We are confident that dead Americans will prove their worth by their own merit and intelligence. For that reason, we do not advocate mandatory quotas to forcibly assimilate dead Americans into the workforce. We do not believe this because we fear that the United States Supreme Court will rule against us. Rather, we do not need quotas because dead Americans have the ability to succeed without additional assistance. Many dead people achieved success during life. There is no reason to think that minor impediments such as death should bar them from resuming their winning ways. All Americans face adversity. All Americans can overcome adversity. Death is no exception. A determined American dead person can get any job he or she wants, as long as she has the talent, drive and ambition to get it. In short, we are confident that dead Americans will soon be respected, productive members of American society, just as they were when they were alive.

Dead people want to work. They want to be responsible. They want to send their children to college. They want to pay taxes. We believe they should have the chance to prove themselves on a level playing field. Although we acknowledge the concern that living people may lose their jobs to the dead, we point out that death affects us all. Living people, too, will one day be dead. While a living person may feel stung to lose a job or university seat to a dead person, we merely note that for centuries the dead had no opportunity whatsoever either to work or study. In that light, we believe that living people can bear some incidental burdens to compensate dead people for centuries of unrestricted social exclusion. Colloquially, we also note that “what goes around comes around.” When a living person sacrifices for a dead one, he or she should do it cheerfully, for one day she, too, will be dead. Once she is dead, she will want all the same opportunities she had when she was alive. In this sense, it is only fair that both living and dead Americans enjoy equal access to every advantage in American society. And fairness is important in America.

Dead Americans also have a right to participate in the democratic process. The Federal Department for Living/Dead Relations gives substance to this right. Under the DMTA, the Department has authority to advise Congress concerning all legislative initiatives. This does not mean that the dead will dominate the national debate; it merely means that the dead have a right to be heard in legislative decisionmaking. This is not revolutionary. To the contrary, the dead have special insights into practical problems. Taken as a whole, dead people possess boundless wisdom. We have seen everything under the sun. This collective experience will translate well into prudent legislation.

Yet we cannot effectively consult on legislative matters until Congress recognizes that dead people have needs, too. We agree with Congress that health care must be reformed. But we will not solve the health care mess by ignoring the dead. We must take steps to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care, including American corpses in various states of decay. How is it just that only wealthy living people have access to top-notch treatments? How is it just that lower-income living people and every dead person cannot even visit a doctor when they need to? Both the economy and the government depend upon people. Without a healthy population, people cannot effectively serve either the economy or the government. We must find a solution to the health care mess that delivers compassionate, high-quality care no matter whether the patient is a wealthy living banker or a bankrupt dead day laborer. And we must do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

We believe that dead people can help end the health care impasse in many ways. For one, dead doctors can volunteer their time to treat living patients. Contrary to longstanding social prejudice, dead doctors can perform examinations, administer medications, write prescriptions and oversee surgery just as well as—if not better than—living doctors. In fact, many living doctors learned what they know from doctors who are now dead. Additionally, dead doctors have simpler salary requirements, do not require lunch breaks and do not suffer as much fatigue as living doctors. Second, dead financial advisers can help iron out solutions to funding national health care programs. Many well-respected dead financial advisers have key experience needed to balance the unique fiscal risks inherent in any national health program. We should harness that experience. Third, dead office personnel can handle the tremendous administrative burden that surely will accompany any national health plan. Millions of dead Americans lived their lives managing charts, organizing files, pulling patient records and stapling medical documents for hours on end. We should put their experience back to work to guarantee well-administered national health care for all. In a word, dead people have varied talents. And they all can help write America a clean bill of health.

As dead people, we just want to be heard. We acknowledge that there are certain questions in the national debate we may not be fully qualified to handle. For example, the death penalty perplexes us. After all, what good does the death penalty do for offenders who are already dead? In our view, the death penalty is no penalty at all for a dead American. Yet we acknowledge that we are not qualified to debate this issue. We are fully prepared to defer to our living colleagues to handle it.

All in all, we are happy to live in an enlightened era. For the first time in American history, we have achieved equal opportunity. We finally matter. We are not just forgotten relics. We are confident that we can contribute to American society. We salute President Obama for his commitment to freedom for everyone, including the dead. No longer are we condemned to a bleak future in caskets and urns. No, for the first time in American history, we have a chance to speak. We have achieved so much. And so has America. We truly now live in an era of freedom.

It is 2009. Discrimination is dead, not us.

STOP SOTOMAYOR : SHE DOES THINGS THAT YOU CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE

A MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE

By : Mr. John Cornyn III (R-TX), United States Senator; Member, Judiciary Committee; Former Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court; Member, Texans’ Alliance for Strong Borders and Marksmanship; Chairman, Lone Star Lethal Injection Fan Club, Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter; 1998 Champion Rifleman, “El Adios” Wetback Target Practice Gun Club; Believer in Christian Forgiveness (with qualifications).

Under our Constitution, the United States Senate has the power to confirm “Judges of the supreme court” following our “advice and consent.” See. U.S. Const. Art II, § 2, cl. 2. That means we have the power to interview the President’s nominees to the Supreme Court in order to determine whether they will protect our Constitution and the American people. Today, the United States Senate must decide whether Sonia Sotomayor has the requisite character and intellect to serve on the world’s most influential court. We must provide “advice and consent.” We face a serious task.

For two days now, Judge Sotomayor has given testimony concerning her abilities as a jurist. So far, she has entertained friendly questions from Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee. She has carefully refused to answer questions concerning her personal views about the Constitution, liberty, freedom and justice in America. She says she “respects the rule of law” and does not allow her “personal feelings” to interfere with her “legal judgment.” On the record, she puts on a good show. From her public testimony, it appears that she is thoughtful, circumspect, judicious and calm. If we had only her public testimony to evaluate, there would be no reason to say that she is not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.

But this “performance” is sheer theater. Judge Sotomayor is no detached legal technician like Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Thomas. She is a maniacal lesbian Puerto Rican communist determined to sabotage the United States with Latin perversion. Although several of my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have reminded the world that Judge Sotomayor belonged to the “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund,” no one really seems to notice how dangerous this is. The “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund” does not just pay lawyers to argue cases involving Puerto Ricans. It practiced—and continues to practice—voodoo. Its members, including Judge Sotomayor, take part in pagan Caribbean rituals to the grass goddess La Mama del Verde Eternal, during which they burn pungent incense, curse “gringos” and chant prayers to make “Boricuan” the official language of the United States. In short, Judge Sotomayor is deceiving the American people. She is no judge; she is a Puerto Rican radical communist witch doctor with plans to wage war on every white English speaker in America.

I am determined to set the record straight on Judge Sotomayor. I refuse to listen to her song and dance any longer. I know a Puerto Rican woman when I see one, and there is a Puerto Rican woman sitting before me in the halls of the United States Senate, not a federal judge. I am duty-bound to tell the American people that there is much more to Judge Sotomayor than meets the eye. Put simply, she does things that you can scarcely imagine. If I do not tell the world about this Latina viper, she will slither into the Supreme Court to permanently taint our constitutional order. Unless I speak, every American will soon be forced to sing salsa songs and drink mango juice every morning. As an American and a Texan, I refuse to condemn this country to lesbian Puerto Rican terror.

We should have known from the outset that Judge Sotomayor was not what she said she was. Although we could not locate many public statements revealing just how dangerous she could be, we did find a speech in which she called herself a “wise Latina” who could answer some questions better than a comparable “white male.” That should have immediately raised red flags. If George W. Bush were still leading this failing Republic, Judge Sotomayor would have faced impeachment, not elevation to the Supreme Court. But we live in perplexing times. How can we possibly revere a judge who claims that Hispanic women are “wiser” than white men? This is a proposition too outrageous to entertain. To be fair, perhaps Judge Sotomayor meant that “wise Latinas” could be wiser only on certain matters, such as the best place to watch the Puerto Rican Day Parade or how best to translate Spanish phrases, such as: “Ay papi!” After all, there is no way Latinas can be wise when it comes to deciding a securities fraud suit. They don’t even know what a security is. And how can I elevate someone to the Supreme Court if they don’t know that?

But this is not just about legal knowledge. This is about character. I am informed that Judge Sotomayor does unimaginable things. She is not the hard-working, careful jurist she leads us to believe. No, she is a monstrous racist devil-worshipper who dresses as a banana in her private chambers. She castigates white men in Spanish, calling them “pedejos,” “maricons,” “cabezas de vaca,” “coños” or worse. She carries on lesbian affairs with married women in nursing homes. She eats mice, broils frogs and casts Puerto Rican voodoo spells on white litigants before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She has lived at over 56 addresses throughout New York City since 2001. She has robbed banks while dressed in a Puerto Rican flag shawl. She drives a small Toyota automobile and blasts obnoxious Caribbean music through an expensive, bass-heavy stereo purchased with money filched from the Federal Judicial Fund. This is not the conduct of a prudent jurist. This is not even the conduct of a “wise Latina.” To the contrary, this is the conduct of a hateful racist criminal communist lesbian gypsy vagabond who is determined to undermine American society as we know it. We must stop her from wiping her culo with the Constitution before it is too late.

Judge Sotomayor’s jurisprudence is just as radical as her lifestyle. Although she would have us believe that she takes an “incremental” approach to deciding cases, I know better. So far in her confirmation hearings, she has refused to disclose her beliefs on abortion, choosing instead to say that Roe v. Wade is “settled law” before praising the importance of stare decisis to “careful judging.” But I know the truth. I know that Sotomayor hates children and belongs to the International Latin Fetal Roasting Society (ILFRS). That organization promotes the public disembowelment of pregnant white women, then the ritual boiling of unborn children in a skull-shaped cauldron—all conducted in the Spanish language. She not only supports abortion, but she verifiably boils children—then eats them. How can we defend children in America with an avowed child-eater on the Supreme Court? If we confirm Sonia Sotomayor, we risk enshrining child-eating as a constitutionally-protected right. Put simply, Judge Sotomayor doesn’t fool me when she says she will “carefully consider” abortion regulations. I know she secretly yearns to throw screaming white children into a boiling cauldron, then greedily devour them like scalloped potatoes. This should give us all pause before confirming her as our next Supreme Court justice. Liberal constitutional interpretation is one thing. Eating children is quite another.

But all these personal and intellectual flaws pale in comparison to Judge Sotomayor’s intention to interpret the Constitution in a “ compassionate, humanitarian manner.” In speech after speech and opinion after opinion, she has said that the Constitution should protect the weak and powerless. She has issued opinions granting asylum to Africans and faulting city governments for “not hiring more minorities.” She has freed criminals because the police searched them without warrants and she has said that public school students have a “free speech right” to mock their principals. She is prepared to open our borders to every foreign ruffian who shows up for welfare benefits, and she believes that major corporations should be subject to strict governmental review. In a word, these are dangerous sentiments. If we confirm Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, she will rule for freedom, not precedent. She will rule for justice, not procedure. She will rule for the individual, not the bank. And she will rule for compassion, not commerce.

This is simply unacceptable. Our Constitution does not stand for justice, compassion, freedom or sympathy. Rather, it stands for commerce, procedure, private property and banks. There are ways to interpret the Bill of Rights to protect commerce and banks; Chief Justice Roberts has already shown a marvelous ability to reconcile individual rights with the rights of banks and police investigators. In fact, in my view, a Supreme Court justice proves his worth by skillfully deconstructing dangerous individual rights in order to protect banks and police forces in America. If we protected individual rights too zealously, both government and industry would grind to a halt; every black fellow on the street could bring the police force to its knees simply by saying: “That cop beat me.”

This will not do. Our Constitution is not about sympathy, compassion, humanitarianism or justice. Rather, it is about order, procedure and commerce. Yet Judge Sotomayor threatens to bring sympathy, compassion and justice to the Supreme Court. That would betray the very ideals for which America stands. We must stop this revolutionary lesbian from destroying our country.

We still have time to stop this madness. If America knows the truth about Sonia Sotomayor, they will urge their Senators to vote “no” on her confirmation. At the moment, she is dangerously close to success. Unless we act now, we will promote an inveterate Puerto Rican child-eating communist to our high court. Unless we act now, the police will no longer be able to search people without warrants. Unless we act now, we will be forced to hold dinner parties at state expense for convicted Muslim terrorists. These are Sotomayor’s plans. We cannot allow her to bring her witchcraft to the heart of American government. We cannot allow her to hoodwink us with her calm, collected public demeanor. This is no detached jurist. This is an activist Puerto Rican voodoo dyke from hell who would rather castrate a white male this afternoon than have lunch with her immigrant mother.

For the sake of our Republic and our Constitution, we cannot allow Sonia Sotomayor to bring justice, fairness or “humanity” to the Supreme Court.

THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT "COLOR-BLIND"

AN ESSAY

Yesterday I used satire to illustrate the foolishness in typical conservative reasoning about race in American life. I especially targeted the conservative exasperation with “affirmative action programs” that allegedly “keep old questions alive” by focusing on “past discrimination” against disadvantaged groups in American society. According to conservative reasoning, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution bars governmental distinctions based on race, no matter whether those distinctions aim to help or hinder minorities. My satire attacked this reasoning on a simple premise: When discrimination affects whites, they have nothing to complain about. While it may hurt a white person’s feelings to lose a job or university seat to a black man, the fact remains that African-Americans do not have the same practical opportunities in American society as whites. History shows that “real racial equality” in American life is at best a farce, no matter what the law says. History caused the problems; and it will perpetuate them. Contrary to conservative rhetoric about race, racial problems did not disappear when the Civil War ended, nor did they disappear when the Supreme Court abolished state-sponsored segregation in 1954. Legal fiat does not produce practical reality. Yet this is precisely what conservatives believe: They think that legal equality translates immediately into practical equality. And when they see blacks arguing that life is still unfair for them, they say: “Haven’t we given you enough? Get over it, will you?”

Telling black Americans to “get over the race problem” in America is like telling an incurable cancer victim to “get over” cancer. Racism and race-based prejudice are alive and well in America. This country was born in racism and has lived its life in racism. Racism sustained our economy before the Civil War and mutual recriminations about racism have dominated our outlook ever since. Contrary to every conservative assertion, history has everything to do with continued racial problems in America. Until 1865, African-Americans were not legally “people” under the Constitution. Killing a slave resulted in a property damage suit, not a murder prosecution. After Emancipation, blacks in the South achieved illusory “legal equality” but still faced summary lynchings and mob justice. And as a practical matter, they faced every imaginable disadvantage in society. They could not live where they wanted. They had no skills and no education to win favorable employment. In short, they "advanced" from slavery into a permanent economic and racial underclass. Although Congress and the States made determined efforts to equalize the playing field for African-Americans, it does not take a genius to see that an average black man’s life circumstances barely resemble an average white man’s life circumstances in America. Blacks occupy prisons in far greater proportions than whites. They live in generally much worse housing. They generally earn far less income. And they are generally homeless in greater proportions than whites, too. These problems are endemic; they are not going away, no matter what Congress does. Our law has apologized for “official” racism. But its legacy—and its evil, practical cousin, actual racism—lives on. Just walk into a “black neighborhood” in an American city. Why are the “black neighborhoods” so poor? Why do they breed so much more poverty, hopelessness, joblessness and crime? Why is virtually every homeless person in New York City and Chicago black? Why is virtually every violent crime suspect on television black? The eye does not lie. Legal equality has not solved the race problem in America. There is something much more pernicious going on here.

Yet conservatives think that legal apology is enough to right the historical wrongs of slavery and State-sponsored segregation. They think that problems experienced in past generations do not spill over into modern generations. This is fatally mistaken. Slavery and Jim Crow made indelible impressions on their subjects. Black people in the United States have come to expect bad treatment in life, as well as unfairness, poor opportunity and likely failure. The law used to “officially” brand them inferior. Now they are inferior “in effect” because they do not have the social capital to fully assimilate into a culture that rejects their values. White American society is profoundly judgmental. It expects certain values from its members; if they do not have these values, they can expect ostracism and condemnation. It expects deference, some education, politeness and a remotely “decent upbringing.” But these values represent generations of work and comfortable heritage; if an “outsider” does not meet the criteria, he can expect no sympathy from “mainstream” American culture. In essence, white American society institutionalizes racism on a subconscious level. Even if most white people consider themselves “progressive,” “liberal,” “open-minded” and even “solicitous about black problems,” they typically live in all-white circles and practice all-white values. They do not see black people in familiar settings, nor do they really understand what it is like to grow up in a society with no practical opportunity. If anything, they see black people as “foreign curiosities,” not social equals. They might even admire black Americans for some special talent. But they still live in a radically different culture. Most white Americans will never grasp just how much historical weight an average black American carries on his shoulders every day. After all, most white Americans grow up with a sense that “anything is possible” in life. Black Americans, on the other hand, generally grow up thinking that they are playing a rigged game. “Legal equality” sounds great. But when you grow up destitute, surrounded by crime, without an education or a stable home, achieving “proper success” according to dominant white bourgeois values is sheer fantasy.

Reminding black Americans that they are “legally equal” is something akin to opening a magic door suspended 1000 feet above the ground, then saying: “OK, now it’s up to you to get in there.” It just doesn’t happen absent a miracle.

But conservatives can’t escape their own perspectives. They think that as long as the law treats everyone the same, it doesn’t matter what historical burden you carry. They think everyone born in America is an “American” with exactly the same advantages and opportunities as everyone else. They think that our Constitution is “color-blind” and that “race does not matter anymore.” That is easy to think when you are born with all the real, practical social advantages that make success possible under the unforgiving white American bourgeois value regime, such as maintaining a stable family, getting an education and enjoying affluent living quarters. Against this background, they cannot evaluate the issues from an average black man’s social perspective. This is why they fundamentally misinterpret continuing racial ills in the United States. They do not think black people need help because they “law has already made them equal,” so there is “nothing more to discuss.”

Interestingly, this conservative myopia is not new. Since the Civil War, our Supreme Court has defined itself by grappling with the race problem in the United States. Most people know about Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), the case in which the Supreme Court held that State-sponsored segregation was permissible despite the Fourteenth Amendment’s “equal protection” guarantee because the Constitution did not guarantee “social, as distinguished from political, equality…[nor was it intended] to abolish distinctions based upon color.” Id. at 543-544. In conclusion, the Court reasoned that States could lawfully segregate the races as long as the facilities were “legally equal.” Id. at 551-552. Further, such distinctions did not imply that blacks were “inferior” to whites. Id. Justice John Marshall Harlan famously dissented from the Court’s reasoning. He wrote: “In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.” Id. at 559. Segregating the races, according to Harlan, stamped black Americans with a “badge of inferiority,” which in turn violated the “equal protection guarantee” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Many scholars applaud Justice Harlan’s resistance to the majority in Plessy. In law school, our professors always voiced their support for his refusal to certify the “separate but equal doctrine.” Years ago, I agreed with them. But now, I see flaws even in Justice Harlan’s position. His arguments about a “color-blind Constitution” and “equality before the law” have been misappropriated and misunderstood in the century since Plessy. In recent Supreme Court cases, conservative justices have used Justice Harlan’s rhetoric to actually invalidate State efforts to help black people win employment in public contracting. See, e.g, Richmond v. J.A. Croson, 488 U.S. 469 (1989); Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995). In short, conservatives on the Supreme Court have used Justice Harlan’s language—which in Plessy expressed sympathy for blacks in America—in order to strike down legislation for discriminating against whites. For these conservative justices, a “color-blind” Constitution is a two-edged sword: It means that government cannot discriminate against anyone, even if it is trying to help the very groups that have traditionally suffered discrimination in American history.

This infuriates me. No one likes discrimination, but when discrimination falls upon whites—in order to remedy the gross historical wrongs inflicted on blacks—I see no problem. And I disagree wholeheartedly with the contention that the Constitution is “color-blind.” If the Constitution were color-blind, the Fourteenth Amendment would have been unnecessary. This country fought a Civil War over slavery because the racial problems it created stood in hypocritical contrast to the bold “equality principle” that supposedly defines us. By 1861, America could no longer argue in good faith that “all men were created equal” when it made some men property. The Civil War acknowledged that slavery represented an injustice in a country committed to justice—at least on paper. The Fourteenth Amendment represented an attempt to remedy past wrongs by helping black Americans find their way into American society. In essence, it was a discriminatory amendment; it assumed that Congress and the States would pass laws intended to help black Americans escape their historical disadvantages and make progress toward true equality. In that sense, Justice Harlan was wrong to suggest that the Constitution is “color-blind.” The Fourteenth Amendment implicitly required government to consider race to erase the entrenched legacy of racism in the United States. It implied that race was relevant in America. And it implied that government could not solve the problem without making some distinctions based upon race. The Fourteenth Amendment, then, is essentially remedial; it aims to remedy the legacy of slavery. More to the point, it even empowers Congress to enforce “the provisions of this Article…by appropriate legislation.” See U.S. Const. Amd. XIV, § 5. Such “appropriate legislation” includes favorable discrimination intended to carry out the Amendment’s remedial purpose.

For some reason, the conservatives do not understand this. Instead, they pry Justice Harlan’s mistaken “color-blind” language from its contextual moorings to argue that government can never consider race, even when it is attempting to fulfill the Fourteenth Amendment’s avowedly remedial purpose to help blacks. Justice Scalia often cites Justice Harlan’s “color-blind” shibboleth to support his position that “State and local governments” may never “discriminate on the basis of race in order (in a broad sense) ‘to ameliorate the effects of past discrimination.’” Richmond v. Croson, 488 U.S. 469, 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). He thinks that any racial discrimination—even to advance the “benign purpose of compensating for social disadvantages,” and no matter whether it falls upon blacks or whites—is categorically impermissible. Id. Thus, if government believes that blacks need assistance in a social area in which they have suffered historical discrimination, government cannot adopt legislation intended to improve the situation, because that would “discriminate against whites.” And according to Justice Scalia, the Fourteenth Amendment does not tolerate discrimination against whites in just the same way it does not tolerate discrimination against blacks.

I think this reasoning fails to comprehend the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress and the States ratified the Amendment because they recognized that America had a one-way race problem: Whites dominated blacks and subjected them to every imaginable disadvantage. To correct that imbalance, the Amendment authorized government to adopt legislation intended to help blacks, even if that meant discriminating (in a literal sense) against whites. Despite all huffing and puffing to the contrary, whites have never lost their dominant position in American society. They never will. The fact that they must suffer some “abstract” discrimination once in a while will not change their dominant position. Yet Justice Scalia seems to think that any discrimination—even if it is abstract and has no bearing on white people’s unassailable dominance in American society—violates an Amendment that impliedly authorized “abstract” discrimination against whites so that blacks could stand at least a chance to achieve some practical equality in America. Considering the issue in this light, it may seem fantastic that Justice Scalia believes this. But he is not alone: At least three other Justices have expressly signed on to his deeply flawed belief that the Fourteenth Amendment is “color-blind.”

Neither our Constitution nor our society is “color-blind.” And contrary to Justice Harlan’s assertion, the United States does “tolerate classes between citizens.” Although the law does not make black Americans “property” anymore, it is evident that black Americans still do not enjoy the same average advantages as white Americans. Legal equality does not translate into practical equality. Worse, I believe that the United States has no interest in securing equality for all. This is why I believe that Justice Harlan’s rhetoric about “a classless, color-blind society” is totally unfounded. No one wants to be equal in America. Americans want to outdo one another. They want to be unequal in wealth, power and status. They want to be “better” and “more privileged” than their neighbor, not “the same.” Whether or not black people achieve equal advantages means absolutely nothing to an average white man who just wants to make money and go home at night. For most white Americans, the fact that blacks have “technical, legal equality” is more than enough. They can “sort through the rest” on their way to success. This, of course, completely overlooks the monumental social handicaps blacks still face in our country. White Americans might empathize with these handicaps, but they really don’t care all that much about them. After all, whether a black man suffers does not affect whether a white man keeps working at his career. White Americans simply say: “They do not live like us, and it makes no difference to me. I need to get to work.” That indifference allows them to turn a blind eye to continuing racial inequality in America. It just really does not matter to an average white American.

If equality were really a concern, black Americans and white Americans would all go to prison in the same proportion. Black Americans and white Americans would live in relatively comparable housing and there would be just as many “bad white neighborhoods” as “bad black neighborhoods.” Black Americans and white Americans would all score about the same on standardized tests, and both races would earn roughly comparable incomes. Yet blacks and whites are not equal in these practical realms. Legal equality has not translated into practical equality. Classes do break down along racial lines. America does tolerate “classes” and “castes.” Sadly, those “classes” and “castes” reflect a fundamental racial divide more than 140 years after a Civil War intended to mend it. No matter what Justice Scalia says, racism is alive and well in America. And it affects blacks in a way that no white American can ever imagine.

LIMBAUGH : I'M NOT A RACIST; SOTOMAYOR IS

By : Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, Media Commentator and Spokesman for the Republican Party and the true United States of America; Barack Obama Opponent; College Dropout; Proponent of Traditional American values; Equal Opportunity Employer; Divorcé; Anti-Drug Crusader; Proponent of Harsh Penalties for Drug Offenders; Drug-Free since 2006.

Several weeks ago, I said I hope Barack Hussein Obama fails in everything he does. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I hope he slips on a banana peel in front of the White House. I hope a terrorist flies a plane right into his bedroom window. I hope his black kids get cancer and die. I hope his black wife cheats on him with some hulking NBA star and he lies about it to the press. I hope the Senate impeaches him for lying. I hope Middle Eastern governments declare war on the United States so we have an excuse to get this Magic Negro out of our lives for good. In short, I hope Barack Hussein Obama never tastes success ever again. And I hope he dies a painful death bitter, forgotten and alone.

I am not a racist. I just think that black people are stupid. I don’t personally hire them to do anything meaningful on my show. I don’t invite them over for dinner parties or to watch Monday Night Football. That doesn’t mean I’m a racist. When it comes to employment, I don’t discriminate. I just hire people who can do the job. And that means no blacks. It hurts me when people say I’m a racist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Racism is bad for America. I am trying to save America from racism. That’s why I oppose Barack Obama and his white-hating racist Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

We solved the race problem in this country a long time ago. In fact, as soon as old Abe Lincoln set the darkies free back in 1865, all our racial problems immediately disappeared. Yet black folk say that America still treats them worse than everyone else. They say that the law and our society make it difficult for them to achieve the same success as white folk. They say they go to prison in a greater proportion than whites; they say they die earlier than whites; and they say they earn less money than whites; they say it’s harder for them to get jobs than whites. Well why not? They are black. You know what blacks are like. They say the police assume all black people are all criminals. Well I have news for them: In most cases, they are. How can you blame a cop for assuming a black guy in a doo rag is a criminal? Numbers don’t lie. Blacks commit crime. Whites go to work and pay taxes. These facts do not prove there is racism in America. This is just the way things are. Blacks act black and whites act white. In fact, it smacks of ingratitude when black folks demand more advantages and “help” in American society. For goodness sakes, we already freed you! And you have a “brother” in the White House! What more do you want? We even call them people now; we used to call them property. That’s a big improvement. But no, that’s not enough for them—now they want equal pay, equal dignity, equal job opportunities and an equal chance at happiness in America. What a bunch of whining ingrates. If you want to be successful, shut up and get in line like everyone else.

Our government has bent over backward to help black people. Congress has wasted lifetimes trying to “level the playing field” between whites and blacks. In so doing, they have given black people entitlement after entitlement. In the process, our federal government has transformed black people into “the favorite of the laws.” So many laws favor black people; a white guy can’t get a word in edgewise anymore. If it ever comes down to a black candidate and a white candidate, the white guy should just quit the contest. Blacks get special bonuses in employment, education, housing…you name it, they get it. Your average white guy doesn’t stand a chance anymore. The sad part is that blacks don’t even need the help. Our Constitution already abolished slavery and guaranteed “equal protection” to everyone under the law. See, e.g., U.S. Const. Amds. XIII and XIV. Doesn’t that clear it up once and for all? I mean, they’re not slaves anymore and they are equal under law. What more do they want? There is no more racism in America. All this talk about “past discrimination” and “historical inferiority” just makes me sick. Black people need to stop living in the past. Basically, they need to stop whining, stop committing crimes, get up off their butts and go to work. If they get less pay it’s just because they are dumber than the white guy who does the same job. This isn’t about racism. It’s about ability and freedom.

But neither Congress nor Barack “the Magic Negro” Obama seems to understand this. They think black people face monumental injustices every day, even though they are not slaves anymore. They selfishly claim that blacks need even more help to overcome the “legacy of state-sponsored racism” and the “ignominy of slavery.” Excuse me, but this is ridiculous. These are historical problems, not modern-day issues. I don’t whine about something my ancestors endured. I just get up and go to work like any other guy. If black people want to help themselves, they should stop worrying about what happened in the 19th Century and get a fucking job in the 21st Century. But then they start complaining that they can’t get jobs because racism kept them from getting an education, and that’s why they turned to crime. You see the cycle? What self-serving bullshit. I am not a racist, but what a bunch of lazy, cowardly losers. No matter what the Magic Negro says about it, black people face no real challenges. They are legally equal to everyone. All their whining about “practical inequality in American society” is just one big excuse for their own laziness. Once you are equal in law, you are equal in fact. If you think otherwise, you are just imagining it. And you’re certainly not going to get anywhere imagining that something that happened in 1840 is still affecting you today.

Racism is over in America because we amended the Constitution. By abolishing slavery, we abolished racism. We live in a “post-racial” society. Everyone has an equal chance to succeed in America, and we are all Americans. Ancestry, race, national origin and language are irrelevant to the question whether we are Americans. Race does not matter anymore. Yet Barack Obama thinks it does. Now he’s trying to appoint Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. This Puerto Rican dragon-lady is a racist. She wants to introduce race back into the national dialogue. She thinks that ancestry, race and national origin actually affect the way people view issues. She thinks a white male might not be able to empathize with problems faced by blacks and Hispanics. She does not understand that race does not matter anymore. If anything, she wants to give special treatment to “minorities” because they are “disadvantaged.” No they aren’t. In our post-racial society, everyone is the same, whether they are black, white, Russian, Chinese or Sioux. Everyone is equal under our Constitution, and to suggest that black people deserve more “empathy” than white people is pure racism.

Racism is a thing of the past. But Sotomayor says she want to “freshen” the “conservative Supreme Court” with her “Latina” perspective. In a word, Sotomayor wants to make her heritage relevant to constitutional issues. This is despicable racism. Sure, lots of Supreme Court cases involve race. In fact, Sotomayor herself recently decided a case in which she refused to allow white firefighters to sue a Connecticut municipality for throwing out results from an officers’ test because no black people passed it. See Ricci v. De Stefano, Docket No. 06-4996 (Ct. App. 2d Cir.). When racism is clear in cases like that, aggrieved people need a remedy. White people can suffer discrimination, too, especially when vengeful blacks assume powerful positions over them. Sotomayor is always going to take sides in these disputes. She is always going to assume that the “bad whites” are sticking it to the “good blacks and Puerto Ricans.” But what about the white people? White people need help, too. We were here first. We used to own you guys. We conquered Puerto Rico and its natives. Now you want to discriminate against us? What the hell is going on here? Is the world upside down? Put simply, racism now only exists among vengeful blacks with a bone to pick with history. If Sotomayor is confirmed to the Supreme Court, she is going to splatter her racist agenda all over the United States.

Something strange happened to racism in America. In the old days, it was OK to treat black people like property because they were property. They were legally different. Since 1865, however, black people have achieved so many legal advantages and protections that they have gotten uppity. Now, all their advantages have rendered white people second-class citizens. Black people took constitutional language intended to equalize them and exploited it to make white people unequal. In short, black people want race to matter because it helps them get unfair advantages. Hey, if I ran a crooked poker game, I wouldn’t want to tilt the table back, either. Just ask a white Harvard applicant whether it’s better to be black or white. To get into Harvard now as a white kid, you need to be Albert Einstein, Lance Armstrong, Shakespeare, Michael Jordan and Mozart all rolled into one. But if you’re black, you just need to be able to form full sentences in pidgin English. Why? Because all these goddamned federal initiatives make race relevant to educational decisionmaking. This is racism, pure and simple. Defenders say these measures “help black people overcome historical prejudice and the injuries of past discrimination.” Oh really? So all the really smart white kids need to suffer to avenge so-called “crimes” allegedly committed by their ancestors? This is no solution. And in fact, there is no need for a solution to past racism because it doesn’t exist anymore. Why come up with a solution to a problem that is gone? It is fucking stupid. It says “past racism.” “Past” means that something is not here anymore. There is no more racism, so why are we trying to remedy a problem that is gone? I get all worked up just thinking about it.

We need to stand fast against Sotomayor and the race-baiters. Black people and “minorities” have absolutely nothing to complain about. We live a post-racial society where every person enjoys “equal protection” under the law. When we treat some citizens differently based on race, we perpetuate racism. Today, the only people who suffer racism are white. I hate racism. When I see proud white people suffering indignities at the hands of overprivileged blacks, my blood boils. I recoil from injustice. Race should never influence government decisionmaking because that leads to racism and unfair advantages in our society. In America, we believe in equality. We do not practice what we preach when we give black people “extra points” for being black. Qualified white people rightly feel outrage when they lose their Yale seats to some silver-spoon drug dealer from a crack-infested Brooklyn housing project. When people obtain advantages based on their skin color, something is wrong. White people do not deserve to suffer discrimination. Racism is wrong. Yet Sonia Sotomayor will perpetuate this dangerous cycle. She will make skin color relevant; and she will afford preferential treatment to people simply because they were lucky enough to be born a negro. Every American who believes in equality should condemn this repugnant racism.

Liberals say I’m a racist because I condescend, generalize, stereotype and patronize black people. They say I’m a racist because I use epithets like “porch money,” “darkie,” “negro,” “boy” and “coon” on my radio show. But I never use the “N-word” on the air. They say I have no sympathy for the institutional difficulties that black people face every day in America. But all my critics miss the point. I believe in equality, law and freedom; that makes it impossible for me to be a racist. Racism means you think a certain race is inferior. But how could I think that if I believe in the law? Our law says everyone is equal. According to the law, no one is inferior. Thus, according to the law, I don’t think anyone is legally inferior. Black people are our legal equals. Among my legal equals, I am free to choose the people with whom I want to associate. Black people are not the same as I am. They smell differently than I do. They drop the “R” sound from words ending in “R,” such as “floor,” “door” or “store.” They have black skin. They have different-looking hair. They call each other “homie,” not “buddy.” They commit crimes. They leech welfare money. They never get married and have 67 children out of wedlock. They initiate frivolous lawsuits. They encourage children to commit crimes with rap music about drive-by shootings. They live differently than I do. They might be my legal equals, but that doesn’t mean I have to invite them over for dinner. And just because I don’t invite someone over for dinner does not make me a racist. I don’t think blacks are inferior; I just think they are different from me in a worse way. I believe in freedom. Freedom means the freedom to think that others are different. Freedom means the freedom to hire whomever you want in private business. Freedom means the freedom to invite whomever you want over to dinner without governmental interference. And last I checked, America stands for freedom.

But Sotomayor is a racist. She wants to wage war on freedom by making race relevant to governmental policy again. It is so not 1865 anymore. Our government does not tolerate distinctions based on race, whether or not those distinctions aid or injure their subjects. Yet Sotomayor thinks the Constitution empowers government to “right the wrongs of history” by awarding special treatment to blacks and Hispanics. No it doesn’t. If anything, our Constitution forbids discriminating against white people. There is no more racism against blacks, Hispanics, Japs or redskins because we are all equal under law. But white people suffer injustice every day. They need help now; and Sotomayor will definitely not give it to them. She thinks all white people are evil conservative slaveowners who deserve to be punished for not being politically correct. Well, I have news for her: That is racism. She thinks white people are inferior because they are tyrannical and evil. Or at least their great-great-grandfathers were tyrannical and evil.

If you believe in freedom, you will tell your Senator to vote down Sotomayor. Make Obama fail. Tell him that racism has no place in American life. And tell him that white people refuse to live in bondage any longer.