From the Victory Girls, a chilling assault on civil rights.
For the Love of God, what will it take for people to rise up?
And, from the same source, a link to Justice Alito's speech on COVID restrictions, given at a virtual meeting of The Federalist Society. I recommend that you read it all.
Think of all the live events that would otherwise be protected by the right to freedom of speech, live speeches, conferences, lectures, meetings. Think of worship services. Churches closed on Easter Sunday, synagogues closed for Passover and Yom Kippur. Think about access to the courts or the constitutional right to a speedy trial. Trials in federal courts have virtually disappeared in many places. Who could have imagined that? The COVID crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test and in doing so, it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck.
If I allow myself to dwell on this too long, I become heartsick. This is not the country I grew up in - and, for those who are convinced that it was, at that time, a racist version of hell, let me say that I watched the marches of the Civil Rights Era, and - like most people I knew, cheered them on.
There were changes during that time - women won rights to work while pregnant, and to keep their job after (Cleveland Teachers Union lawsuit, that ended up in the Supreme Court). They began moving into jobs that had previously been not open to them. They began to flood into colleges, which led to their current position of being in the majority on almost every campus.
Race? Aside from official Civil Rights legislation, minorities moved into the leadership positions in employment, began to advance educationally, started companies at an increasing clip (Motown, for one), and put a halt to the underemployment of Black men and women, which had educated people occupying low-level positions for decades.
By the time I got married (1974), gays were busting out of the closet. Even the rise of AIDS didn't stop that process.
So, what was that country like?
- Government was generally not intrusive into private life, at any level. If you had a beef with a neighbor, you walked over to their house, and settled it peacefully. How you decorated your home, how you raised your children, and how you spent your own money was YOUR business. A common phrase, when confronted with someone trying to limit your freedom, was, "Who died and made YOU a policeman?"
- Schools did their best to teach kids to read, write, and do math. Along the way, they passed along lessons of civility and basic manners (for those with delinquent parents). They taught geography, history, and civics (the OLD kind, that taught levels of government, Constitutional rights and responsponsibilities, and how government functioned). Most kids managed the basics; a relative few went on to finish high school, and even fewer went beyond. The teachers were primarily the Old Maid schoolteachers (who in today's world, would be boardroom material), returned vets, and a very few academically-minded guys.
- Neighbors worked together to improve their lives, starting sports teams, Scouts, raising money for charities, and keeping order in their local areas (chasing away the teens up to no good, watching out for neighbors who were out of town, dealing with bullies). The women worked in informal ways to help others out, by looking after kids on an ad hoc basis, passing along clothes to pregnant women and new mothers, making meals for the homebound, and joining PTA and other groups to improve their communities.
- In my neighborhood, rowdiness after dark was not common - even on the weekends. We lived in quiet neighborhoods, where the families, after dinner, would watch TV, read, play board games, or quietly talk. People were conscious of sleeping babies, fathers who needed to get up early for work, and school schedules - they would not have thought their desire for 'fun' was more important than other people's need for a quiet environment.
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