The Civil War Part Deux

Saw this fun little secessionist revival: [1]

In a debate with powerful echoes of the turbulent civil rights era, four Republicans running for Alabama's Supreme Court are making an argument legal scholars thought was settled in the 1800s: that state courts are not bound by U.S. Supreme Court [2] precedents.

The Constitution says federal law trumps state laws, and legal experts say there is general agreement that state courts must defer to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters of federal law.

Yet Justice Tom Parker, who is running for chief justice, argues that state judges should refuse to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedents they believe to be erroneous. Three other GOP candidates in Tuesday's primary have made nearly identical arguments.

So some folks in Alabama fell the highest court of the land can go bugger themselves if they pass laws with which the mighty Alabama Supreme Court disagrees. I don't know why anybody is too surprised at this move. After all, Bush himself laid the groundwork for this.

First of all, Bush's policy of unilateral exceptionalism basically states that governmental entities (North American ones anyway) have the implicit right to behave unilaterally when they deem it necessary. This has come up both in the decision to defy international will in the Iraq invasion as well as in his flouting of congressional will [3] through over 750 so-called signing statements [4] in which he basically says that the president can do whatever he wants.

Secondly, with the help of his golem [5], Karl Rove, he has so inflamed the passion of the so-called red-state America that who could help but view it as the ultimate actualization of "The South Will Rise Again" which, having lived in the south for many years, I can tell you first hand is very much alive and well. How long did they think it would be before these characters came back around to their rebel roots?