Jesse Jackson's "Greater Good"

Jesse Jackson, without even a hint of irony, writes in Tuesday's Chicago Sun Times that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in the Ricci case (regarding discrimination against white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven, CT) that the "High court ignores the greater good."



It is the job of elected legislators to seek the greater good. The job of the Supreme Court, he apparently must be reminded, it not to aribtrate the "greater good", but to protect certain rights of individuals against legislative excess by putting those issues out of reach of the electoral process. (E.g., we cannot vote whether to reenslave blacks (or any other racial group)) by appeals to the greater good.



Jackson writes "[The Court's] reasoning depends on a hyperindividualistic interpretation of American Rights. Blacks were enslaved as a group. They were subjugated as a group. They were held in economnic and political subjugation in the South for decades following Reconstruction as a group."



So, does Jackson suggest that we take turns being subjugated? The problem with that idea is that it will always be someone else turn next. Only by making the rights against race discrimination "hyperindividualistic" do we guarantee that the principle that race discrimination is to be strictly prohibited remains in the law to the lasting benefit of all.



BTW - it was appeals to the greater good, made by legislative majorities in the South (e.g., slaverly is actually good for blacks), that permitted the institution of slaverly to take root and endure as long as it did.



Clearly, the thing about principles is that they should apply uniformly even when they are not convenient, not simply used as a sword when the an opportunistic impulse strikes.