Today in History - Nov 9 - Massachusetts v. Laird

November 9 is the anniversary of the US Supreme Court's decision to not hear Massachusetts v. Laird in 1970. The case was concerning the legal status of the Vietnam War, and although several legal challenges had been brought forth about it in the past, this one was special.

The lawsuit was brought by the state of Massachusetts against the Secretary of Defence, Melvin Laird. The Vietnam War had been started by what turned out to be a false flag incident, which congress issued authorisation to protect American forces in the area. Massachusetts felt that since no declaration of war was ever given, and congress had never authorised a war that had been going on for 7 years at that point, the war in and of itself was illegal. They passed a law that said that no inhabitant of Massachusetts shall be required to serve abroad in an armed hostility that has not been declared a war by Congress, under Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the US Constitution. Then they sued the Secretary of Defence to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court.

The court declined to hear the case (6-3 vote) based on lack of jurisdiction, as it was a political matter. The dissenting argument said:

We have never ruled, I believe, that when the Federal Government takes a person by the neck and submits him to punishment, imprisonment, taxation, or to some ordeal, the complaining person may not be heard in court. The rationale in cases such as the present is that government cannot take life, liberty, or property of the individual and escape adjudication by the courts of the legality of its action.

I take issue with much of this statement, and the fact that this is the dissenting view should illustrate why. The US regime routinely takes life, liberty, AND property of the individual and escapes judication. One look through this comm should be proof of this. And if it's not the Supreme Court's job to judge on constitutional matters, then what is its job? Today it seems that the supreme court is perfectly willing to write its own legislation. The war was unpopular with the people, was based upon a lie, and was against domestic and international law. As the dissenting opinion wrote, the regime entirely escaped adjudication by the courts. Is this the democracy and freedom that the US claimed it was fighting for in Vietnam?