William Hubbs Rehnquist.
One of the most repulsive of the United States of America's Supreme Court Justices, William Hubbs Rehnquist, has died at the age of 80.
May his soul, if he had one, never find a moment's peace.
Negatively affecting society in the U.S. since the Nixon era, Rehnquist was appointed Supreme Court Justice in 1986 by bad actor turned worse President Ronald Reagan. Maybe Ronnie suffered from dementia earlier than everyone thought.
To label Rehnquist an arch-conservative is a huge understatement. He believed in law and order, and the harsher and swifter "justice" prevailed, the better. A 1969 speech in which he referred to Anti-war demonstrators as the "new barbarians", who should be stopped by "whatever means necessary" made Rehnquist a hero to the facist element in the U.S.
Rehnquist was not shy about his racist beliefs, and took many opportunities to speak out about his disgust with equality and affirmative action. His 1954 speech extolling the virtue of "separate but equal" as written 1n the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 fought against inclusion during the Brown v. The Board of Education hearing. In 1983 Rehnquist voted to allow Bob Jones University (Bob Jones University?????) to exclude blacks from its campus. In 1964, Rehnquist was one of three people to testify against a proposed ordinance to ban discrimination in public accommodations in Phoenix. When it passed, he wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper saying that "it is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual liberty for a purpose such as this." As Rehnquist read it, the Constitution lets states outlaw abortion and sponsor prayers in public schools but bars them from giving special, affirmative-action preferences to racial minorities and women.
Obviously believing that equality between the sexes was as immoral as equality between races, Rehnquist voted against Roe v. Wade in 1973. He wrote: " even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the 'right' to an abortion is not so universally accepted as Roe v. Wade would have us believe."
In 2003, the Supreme Court preserved affirmative action in college admissions and issued a landmark gay rights ruling that struck down laws criminalizing gay sex, both over Rehnquist's objections. In 2004, Rehnquist disagreed when the court ruled that the government cannot indefinitely detain terrorism suspects and deny them access to legal representation.
This horrible human being was not interested in representing the views of "average Americans", he had no respect for the little people, and felt no need to understand the realities facing his fellow citizens. However the accolades will no doubt pour in and this hate-filled, self-important bigot will be remembered as a great American, at least by some.
Hopefully, history will not be kind to William Rehnquist. There are many American heroes, past and present, this ghastly man is not one of them.
May his soul, if he had one, never find a moment's peace.
Negatively affecting society in the U.S. since the Nixon era, Rehnquist was appointed Supreme Court Justice in 1986 by bad actor turned worse President Ronald Reagan. Maybe Ronnie suffered from dementia earlier than everyone thought.
To label Rehnquist an arch-conservative is a huge understatement. He believed in law and order, and the harsher and swifter "justice" prevailed, the better. A 1969 speech in which he referred to Anti-war demonstrators as the "new barbarians", who should be stopped by "whatever means necessary" made Rehnquist a hero to the facist element in the U.S.
Rehnquist was not shy about his racist beliefs, and took many opportunities to speak out about his disgust with equality and affirmative action. His 1954 speech extolling the virtue of "separate but equal" as written 1n the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 fought against inclusion during the Brown v. The Board of Education hearing. In 1983 Rehnquist voted to allow Bob Jones University (Bob Jones University?????) to exclude blacks from its campus. In 1964, Rehnquist was one of three people to testify against a proposed ordinance to ban discrimination in public accommodations in Phoenix. When it passed, he wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper saying that "it is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual liberty for a purpose such as this." As Rehnquist read it, the Constitution lets states outlaw abortion and sponsor prayers in public schools but bars them from giving special, affirmative-action preferences to racial minorities and women.
Obviously believing that equality between the sexes was as immoral as equality between races, Rehnquist voted against Roe v. Wade in 1973. He wrote: " even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the 'right' to an abortion is not so universally accepted as Roe v. Wade would have us believe."
In 2003, the Supreme Court preserved affirmative action in college admissions and issued a landmark gay rights ruling that struck down laws criminalizing gay sex, both over Rehnquist's objections. In 2004, Rehnquist disagreed when the court ruled that the government cannot indefinitely detain terrorism suspects and deny them access to legal representation.
This horrible human being was not interested in representing the views of "average Americans", he had no respect for the little people, and felt no need to understand the realities facing his fellow citizens. However the accolades will no doubt pour in and this hate-filled, self-important bigot will be remembered as a great American, at least by some.
Hopefully, history will not be kind to William Rehnquist. There are many American heroes, past and present, this ghastly man is not one of them.
posted by Alphamutt at 6:33 PM
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