A good kick in the shins

[kate_nepveu]

A while ago, someone on my reading list had a post inviting people to pick one historical figure they would like to kick in the shins. I can't find the post now, but as I recall, the rules were that a mysterious person with a time machine made you the offer, with the restrictions that you were strictly limited to one kick in the shins, and that you couldn't choose Hitler (or, I suppose, any other such really obvious figure) since if you did, everyone would, and then history would be altered thanks to the permanent bruise he'd have.

I couldn't think of anyone then, but now I've got my choice: Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the United States, the author of the Supreme Court's opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. It's been years since I read it, and my memory had faded about just how absolutely vile Taney's opinion is; but yesterday, I was listening to a lecture series on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court [*], and all through the sections on Dred Scott [**] and Taney's other slavery-related decisions, my foot just kept twitching.

So, who would you like to kick in the shins?

[*] I listen to podcasts, radio plays, or lectures while in the nursery with SteelyKid (I tried audiobooks, but while fiction moves fast enough when I'm distracted by driving, it's not sufficient for this). I picked this series as a way of easing myself back into the legal mindset before I go back to work in a few weeks.

[**] The decision is over 100 thousand words, so I don't recommend reading it (trust me—I have), but the principal holdings are that (1) no-one of African descent can be an American citizen, because the Constitution's framers viewed them "as beings of an inferior order" who "might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for [their own] benefit", and (2) Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in territories—neither of which was remotely supportable. For more, see Wikipedia.

Comments

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Albert Einstein, and then I'd take a picture of him being all pissed off and put it on posters everywhere to replace that stupid tongue-sticking-out one.

(Caption: MAD SCIENTIST IS MAD.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Gloria Vanderbilt, for "You can never be too thin or too rich." She just really, really deserved a swift kick in her meagre haunch, as well as the shin.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

*So* many excellent candidates.

But the first to come to mind is to kick the s**t out of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser William II of Germany, Tsar Nicholas II, and the other idiot leaders of Europe who thought tossing the lives of hundreds of thousands of their young men in a roll-of-the-dice gamble of the Game of Kings was a "simple" solution and to their individual (and usually, self-created) problems. And touched off a cycle of war, misery and oppression that, at least in Eastern Europe, didn't lift for nearly *eighty* years.

[thormation.livejournal.com]

Andrew Jackson is always a worthy candidate for a good shin-kicking.

Why is he still on the $20?

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Andrew Jackson himself would be mortified to find his visage on a Federal Reserve note. It was exactly to ward off such semi-independent, semi-official centers of financial power that he set off the Panic of 1837, one of the principal things (after the Trail of Tears, of course) that he deserves shin-kicking for.

[the_rck]

My memories of the Dred Scott case are frustrating ones that have nothing to do with it as a piece of history. One of my high school history classes was assigned to do a pseudo-re-enactment of the case. I say 'pseudo-' because we had half an hour and because we were actually arguing the case (as well as high schoolers can).

My head banging moment came when the students playing the Supreme Court unanimously found Dred Scott guilty.

I sort of suspect that the history teacher 'lost' the videotape of that re-enactment. I know that, if I'd been he, I'd not have wanted to be reminded of it in later years. Since I wasn't teaching the class, I can remember it and laugh. Sometimes.

As to who to kick, there are so many good candidates....

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Dred Scott ... guilty? Dred Scott wasn't on trial!

[the_rck]

And that would be the reason I bang my head over the memory. High school juniors *should* be able to comprehend that, but they didn't.

As far as I can figure out, they assumed that all court cases ended with either 'guilty' or 'not guilty.'

[kate_nepveu]

Oh my.

I mean, yes, lots of people seem to assume that what they know of criminal cases applies to every court proceeding, but still.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Sir Cyril Burt.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...actually, in that connection, Lewis M. Terman might be a better choice.

[kate_nepveu]

Well, now I know more than I did, and yes, kicks would definitely be in order . . .

[calimac.livejournal.com]

My vote for the most purely evil part of the Dred Scott decision - admittedly it's a tough choice - was the part saying that a slave-owner could sojourn his slaves any period of time in a free state without losing ownership.

Exactly how, pray tell, Mr. Taney, does that differ from simply canceling all prohibitions of slavery in free states? Bang goes the "states' rights" that the South was prating about, then. It's only the right to allow slavery, not to prohibit it.

This, I think, is the single point that most made the North unwilling to negotiate with the South again. Well, the Fugitive Slave Law had already made great strides in that direction.

[(Anonymous)]

Charles I of England, just on general principles.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

And then Oliver Cromwell, for NOT understanding that "dynastic republic" is an oxymoron.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

*my current president being an example, not an exception, of the rule*

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

The anonymous writer of Satan's Harvest Home.

[kodi]

I think I'd be dissatisfied at having to stop at one shin-kick for Taney. I'd forgotten how much I loathed him until I read this post. For a single shin-kick, I think it best to select someone that I have a good deal of respect for, but who nevertheless went off the rails often enough to deserve a solid kick to the shins. With that in mind, I select Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., most especially for "three generations of imbeciles."

[kate_nepveu]

Admittedly, stopping at one would be difficult, but I think it would be more satisfying. I like your reasoning for your choice, though.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

For a single kick in the shins, when the person is not standing at the top of a stairway? Bronson Alcott. Historical figures who accomplished things on a larger scale seem to inspire a larger scale of response, to my mind.

[kate_nepveu]

He might've been mentioned in the original post, come to think of it.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

So many shins, and only one kick...

You have, no doubt, heard the crack that one of the Blair family made when Taney died--they'd been afraid Taney would die while Buchanan was president, and that Buchanan would appoint someone even more insanely slavery-loving than Taney, so they prayed he'd live into a Republican administration--and he'd lasted so long and done so much damage in the meantime they were afraid to ever pray for anyone's health again.

[kate_nepveu]

I hadn't actually, so thanks.

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

Joseph McCarthy.

Though I suppose having your name irrevocably connected to the concept of being a wild-eyed paranoiac demagogue is history's own quite effective kick in the shins, at that...

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, but there's nothing like the personal touch . . . =>