May 17, 1954, a date that will live in infamy. It was then that the Goddess of Justice took off her blindfold and looked with pity upon the poor, the mistreated, the downtrodden. No longer would she be a passive symbol of equality under the law but a warrior fighting for social justice.

Her sword would be an instrument of intimidation and coercion leveled against the oppressors and wielded for the oppressed.

Many cheered her conversion, but they would have done better to lament. Justice is like beauty: it is in the eye of the beholder. What is justice to one must, of necessity be an injustice to another.

So it was on May 17, 1954. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that "separate educational facilities [for white and black students] are inherently unequal." It was, the Court wrote, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and thus unconstitutional.

But regardless of the Court's noble intent, the Brown decision contained a poisonous seed that was to bear evil fruit.

The Seed.

The Brown ruling was not based on law. The day after the Court's historic decision the New York Times ran this headline: "A Sociological Decision: Court Founded Its Segregation Ruling On Hearts And Minds Rather Than Laws."

In the same issue of the Times, James Reston commented that "the Court's opinion reads more like an expert paper on sociology." Even the NAACP noted that "no constitutional principle justified the ruling."

The Court did not rule on the law---it made the law based on their notion of what was just.

The Fruit.

In a moment, Brown changed the Republic to a kritarchy, government by judges. So it has remained for the past 60 years.

Instead of a government that apportioned political power equally among three branches, Brown ushered in a government headed by just one institution, the Supreme Court. The Nine were invested with the ultimate power to decide what would be law. Their decisions were beyond appeal. After all, what body was superior to that of the aptly named, Supreme Court?

Further, Brown set a president for the Court to invent laws that accorded with its sense of morality. And this, as we shall see, often flew in the face of 230 years of established law, societal values, or just plain kitchen-table common sense.

Brown also paved the way for the most revolutionary body of laws ever enacted: the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and its addendums.

Here's a list of civil rights that Madison clean forgot in his hastily written Bill of Rights: the right to be free of discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin---take a breath---color, age, political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, and disability.

No one reflected that giving special privileges to some would mean subtracting those same privileges from others.

Brown and the 1965 civil rights legislation have revolutionized America beyond recognition. Robespierre could not have done better.

The Power of The Bench.

A perennial gadfly in California was the $5 billion (inflation adjusted) burden imposed on taxpayers by 1.3 million illegals and their children. Proposition 187 would deny illegals access to public schools and welfare.

The prop was overwhelming passed by 60 percent of voters. But hold on. Judge Mariana Pfaelzer thought that was terrible. So she fixed it. In 1994, Pfaelzer---one person---overruled the 5 million who voted for 187. Take a look at California 25 years later.

California is indeed the Golden State for its 7 million illegals. Welfare with child allowance plus public education for their children is paid for by its unwilling citizens. And the state and local debt is $1 trillion.

Another glaring example of the judiciary's boundless authority is its ruling on same-sex marriage.

Single-sex marriage had been argued for forty years. Enough! Said the Court: It's legal. We found it tucked away in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Founding Fathers would be astonished. But there it was hiding in plain sight until discovered in 2015.

Writing for the majority (5-4), Justice Kennedy wrote, in his scholarly commentary, same-sex couples are "not to be condemned to live in loneliness."

The American Judicial Revolution, like the French, Soviet, or Maoist upheavals can take years to fizzle out. Where it's taking the US is unknown. But we bought the ticket and deserved the ride.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins, New Milford, PA