[Sabertooth]

In 1943, during our war against Hitler, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision concerning the Pledge of Allegiance that created fierce controversy around the country—just like last week's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling....

The majority of the Court, in a decision written by Robert Jackson—later chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials—defined the very essence of Americanism as they rebuked the West Virginia Board of Education and sent those kids back to school:

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." (Emphasis added.)

By refering to a "fixed star in our Consitutional constellation," Jackson establishes an orthodoxy of his very own, even as he claims none exists.

In doing so, Jackson exercises typical overreach in that, by definition, only the Acolytes of the Holy Judiciary can divine for the laity the entrails of the Mysteries of the Constitutional anti-Orthodoxy.

All kneel...

"Order in the Court!

Thank the (mumble mumble) that Robert Prometheus Jackson arrived in 1943 to pluck this spark of wisdom from the (cough cough), or we might still not know what the fixed star of the US Constitution of 1787 actually was."

I think a national holiday, or at least a postage stamp are in order.

[muawiyah]

The very same Court left the Japanese-Americans, most of them children themselves, languishing in concentration camps.

Jackson's words sound quite progressive and humane. But when the it was really necessary for him to stand up, he didn't - he was as cowardly as the rest of the court.