Ever since Brown v. Board, this country's been headed for a constitutional crisis. Eventually, an executive (gov. or pres.) is going to refuse to comply with the order of a federal court. And when that happens, it's going to be a dark day in America, because the loss of prestige of the judiciary will spread far beyond the case in question. But if no one ever faces down the courts, popular rule will be dead.
Actually it started with Marbury v. Madison. Nothing in the Constitution implies that the courts are the arbiters of what is and isn't Constitutional; the courts are to decide on specific issues within the law, but the law is inherently valid (John Marshall used Marbury v. Madison to save the court from insignificance because he didn't want to make a ruling). Now they are looking to other countries court's rulings for what should and should not apply in our's.
Robert Bork wrote a book fairly recently about the bad situaiton with the constitution and judicial system. I've read "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" twice and it is an excellent boo.k Have either of you read it or his new book? I've got to read the new one. Even uneducated I can understand him - although I have to read it fairly slowly and some sections go through it twice.
The situation currently reminds me of where several train tracks converge, there are trains on each one, heading towards all the other trains. And the engineers are either asleep, on drugs, or suicidal.