On this day in 1892, Homer Plessy refused to relinquish his seat in a “whites only” train car. This led to Plessy v Ferguson — one of the most infamous Supreme Court cases ever that enshrined “separate but equal” in law for the next 58 years. It used to annoy me that Sarah Palin couldn’t even name this one case when asked to name a Supreme Court case she disagreed with other than Roe v Wade. It is a case I first learned of in high school. But I later realized that Palin probably doesn’t disagree with Plessy v Ferguson — except in the sense that it is a case that is now universally vilified. The reasoning in the case is fully consistent with modern conservative thinking.

In my previous educational encounters with this case, I never read about the specifics of it. And they are quite interesting. To start with, this was not a case of a man just happening to be in the “wrong” place and causing a ruckus. Rather it was just like it would later be with Rosa Parks. The African American civil rights group Comité des Citoyens (French: Citizens Committee) was looking for a way to challenge the recently passed Louisiana Separate Car Act, which mandated separate but equal train cars. So the Comité chose Homer Plessy.

One of the reasons that Plessy was chosen was that he was 7/8ths white — an “octoroon.” So he could “pass.” This allowed him to purchase a ticket on a “whites only” train car. When the conductor came by, Plessy told him that he was 7/8ths white that that he refused to move to the “blacks only” train car. And the rest, as they say, is literally history. According to Wikipedia, “Everything that the committee had organized occurred as planned, except for the decision of the Supreme Court in 1896.” Of course, the Comité knew it was likely to lose.

The problem was the Supreme Court as an institution is dedicated to preserving the power of the powerful. For people of my age, that sounds wrong. We saw a lot of good work by the Court over the last 60 years. But really, that was the exception. What the Court is now is more in keeping with what it has traditionally been. Even if the court were filled with Elena Kagans, it would hardly be liberal; it would be more for the status quote. As it was, the Supreme Court found against Plessy by a vote of 7-1. In Ian Millhiser’s list of The Five Worst Supreme Court Justices In American History, two of them found with the majority on Plessy v Ferguson: Stephen J Field (#1) and Melville Fuller (#4).

The lone dissenter was John Marshall Harlan who said — correctly — that Plessy v Ferguson would be remembered as infamously as Dred Scott v Sandford. But lest you think that we should consider Plessy v Ferguson as typical of the time, remember that Harlan’s argument (apart from his own ethnocentrism) is remarkably modern:

What’s sad is that three current justices certainly, four probably, and five possibly would find against Plessy if this kind of explicit segregation were still an issue. That’s what’s so dangerous about this court. The conservatives are loons, but they are extremely smart and creative loons.

We mark this day when the African American community organized to protect their civil rights, but lost — to our nation’s great shame.

On this day in 1963, troops from the South Vietnam army poured chemicals on the heads of peaceful Buddhist protesters in Huế. As a result of this, 67 of the protesters were hospitalized with “severe blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.” This was part of the Buddhist crisis of 1963. At that time, Ngô Đình Diệm was president of South Vietnam. He was also a Roman Catholic and he discriminated against other religious faiths — most especially the Buddhists.

This was probably the first time the US government began to really question its support of Diệm. It shouldn’t have been. On 8 May 1963, the police and military shot guns and threw grenades into a group of Buddhist protesters. Nine of them were killed, and four others were severely injured. Diệm reacted by blaming the Viet Cong. I know of no reaction to this within the US government. I suspect it was like “plausible deniability”: Diệm had a plausible explanation. But the chemical attacks were another matter. And it was about to get much worse.

As a result of the push-back for the attacks on 3 June 1963, Diệm started negotiation with the Buddhists. This started but it was clearly not a serious effort. Regardless, even before the negotiations really got going, on 11 June 1963, Thích Quảng Đức self-immolated himself. Over the next five months, several other monks and nuns did the same thing — mostly with fire, but as I recall, at least one with a sword.

The crisis only abated when Ngô Đình Diệm was assassinated on 2 November 1963. I used to think it was crazy that he was the guy who the US decided was worth supporting. I know far too much now. He’s exactly the kind of repressive strongman that our government loves. And the truth is, any dream the US government had of hanging onto South Vietnam ended with his death. The country never again had a strong leader. But we would oversee the deaths of millions before we finally figured out that our fate had been sealed.

We mark this day 52 years ago as an important moment in the tragedy of Vietnam.

On this day in 1692, the Salem Witch Trials stated. It seems like only yesterday (Because it was!) that I writing about the good people of 17th century Massachusetts Colony killing Quakers. But after 1661, that became illegal by royal edict. What to do? People get afraid and every American knows that the best thing to do when you are afraid is to lash out at people who are not threats. Thus, on 2 June 1692, 60 year old Bridget Bishop was hauled in front of a grand jury on the charge of witchcraft. The main thing at her trial was that she didn’t dress properly for a Puritan. And just eight days later, they hanged her. She was the first of twenty.

I know that we all look back on things like this and wonder what the people were thinking. I don’t. I look out at modern America and see the way that we continue to do the same kinds of things. My favorite example is the drug laws. And I know most people respond to this, “We don’t kill drug users!” Well, that’s not really true. To start with, Iran kills people for unauthorized drugs. And that “advanced” country Singapore killed two people for drug offenses just last year. It didn’t kill any for murder.

But okay: that’s not the United States. The fact that we don’t kill people for drug offenses is simply due to the same reason that we don’t kill people for stealing horses: it just isn’t done anymore. But there are certainly people in this country who want the death penalty for drugs. And we certainly destroy lives because of our drug laws. We put people in unsafe prisons where they are killed. And we are willing to go to war over drugs. Remember the invasion of Panama in 1989? That was sold to the American people as something we had to do because of drugs. As a direct result of that invasion, as many as 314 Panamanians and 23 Americans were killed.

But the point is not the punishment. The point is that our culture is so afraid of drugs that it can be sold pretty much any policy in the name of fighting it. The fact that our drug laws are primarily used to oppress the weak goes along with the witch trials. Of course, after a while, even powerful people were caught up in the witch trials — but that is what finally caused their destruction: the whole thing was out of control. This is what fear does. And I think Americans are among the most fearful people on the planet.

So we mark this day 323 years ago when the Salem Witch Trials stated. But we mustn’t feel superior to those people. We are, after all, the people who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis because we were vewy vewy afwaid.

On this day in 1962, Adolf Eichmann was executed. But they screwed up and he didn’t actually die until a couple of minutes past midnight on 1 June. Eichmann serves as a good example of the continued hunt for Nazis. In general, I’m not too keen on the process. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was clearly called for. But today, it seems strained as the pool of criminals has dried up and the wrongdoing decreased. I’m glad that Eichmann was brought to justice. But, of course, I think it was wrong to kill him. It’s interesting that people have claimed that if ever the death penalty should be applied, it should be applied to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. When I’ve heard that, I’ve been outraged. People have no sense of perspective. Eichmann’s crimes were almost unimaginably worse than Tsarnaev’s. Still, I don’t believe in killing other human beings — regardless of how horrible their crimes were. And Eichmann’s were indeed horrible.

I have frequent “tea dates” with my cousin Joan. We are similar in many ways, but where we differ is in the mercy-justice continuum. It’s a place where no one can ever get it right because there is no “right.” In looking at all the injustices of the world, there are always trade-offs between holding people accountable and forgiving them. And I greatly admire people like Joan who are out there every day fighting the good fight. My tendency is to understand where those people are coming from and just to accept that I could easily be the one acting as they do. Obviously, Joan too empathizes with others, and I too judge and hold people accountable. It’s just a question of tendencies. And the truth is that I often think of my tendency to quickly forgive may be just a sign of personal cowardice.

So in the case of Eichmann, I clearly come down on the side of justice. That one isn’t even close, because he was a public figure and society needed to say, “You don’t do this!” But with lesser figures, it is much harder for me. The case of Oskar Gröning seems ridiculous to me. Had he been found 30 years ago, I might think differently. Even today, he is hardly the worst around. So there is also the question of selective prosecution. And I continue to hear people complain that he doesn’t show remorse. You know who shows a lot of remorse? Psychopaths. They’re great at it!

But I understand that others fall somewhere else on this continuum and feel we must continue to seek justice against those who wronged in the past. But I’m glad that I am the way I am. Because ultimately, I don’t think the justice urge can ever be satisfied. There will never be enough justice. In fact, with every second that goes by, the justice deficit gets worse. But I doubt that punishing 90-something Nazis will really do anything to make genocide any less common. And I doubt that it will make the survivors feel any better. There are more effective ways to make the world a better place.

But Adolf Eichmann’s execution 53 years ago? It’s hard not to see that as an important justice.

On this day in 2001, the case PGA Tour Inc v Martin was decided. This was when Casey Martin sued the PGA for the right to compete in their golf tournaments using a golf cart. According to the official rules, golfers must walk the course. But Martin was born with Klippel–Trénaunay syndrome, which made it difficult to walk. He sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act and won. I’m mixed on this issue. On the one hand, I’m glad for Martin and I think he should have been able to play using a golf cart. On the other hand, why in the hell is a silly sporting event making its way to the Supreme Court?

But speaking of silly, Scalia and Thomas dissented in this case. (I’m sure Alito would have too, had he been on the court at that time.) They argued Martin should have to walk because of… Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron.” I’ve always (really: always) thought it was a stupid story. What I most remember from it is the ballet where the dancers are weighted down so as to equalize their abilities. The story satirizes attempts to mandate egalitarianism. The problem is that every conservative on the planet uses this childish short story as the ultimate slippery slope result of any and all attempts to create a more equal society.

I’ve always felt that Vonnegut was an overrated writer. I still admire him, but people think him far more clever than he ever was. And “Harrison Bergeron” is him at his worst and most facile. There is literally no point to the story. It is more or less Atlas Shrugged without the “happy” ending. The thinking that goes into the story is the same kind of sub-Nietzschean nonsense that Ayn Rand peddled. But what are we to think? That feeding poor children will lead to the elimination of talents? Had Vonnegut thought the whole thing through, he would have realized that such “egalitarian” laws would naturally make people seek out endeavors where they would not need to be handicapped. But of course, diving into the questions he raised was never his thing.

Vonnegut certainly must have hated the way his story was used, at the same time it reinforced his generally low appraisal of humanity. But it isn’t surprising that minds as simplistic as Scalia and Thomas (neither would need radio device to disrupt their thoughts if they lived in the world of “Harrison Bergeron”) would grab on to the most careless and simplistic of Vonnegut’s allegories. But at least seven of the justices sided with Casey Martin. Of course, today, it would only be five or maybe six.

Happy anniversary to PGA Tour Inc v Martin. In another ten years, it may well be overturned!