‘The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom’

The Politically Incorrect Guides and allied groups have always been critical of an activist Supreme Court, preferring that the Constitution be viewed as a means of preserving the power of those groups whom pre-Communist Manifesto philosophy thought legitimate participants in politics. They frequently criticise the Supreme Court, especially during the final two-thirds of the twentieth century, for legislating from the bench rather than interpreting the law.

Robert A. Levy in 2008 produced a book titled The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom. In strictly chronological order, the cases are:

1. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
2. Helvering v. Davis (1937)
3. United States v. Carolene Products (1938)
4. United States v. Miller (1939)
5. Wickard v. Filburn (1942)
6. Korematsu v. United States (1944)
7. Penn Central Transport v. New York City (1978)
8. Bennis v. Michigan (1996)
9. Whitman v. American Trucking Association (2001)
10. McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003)
11. Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
12. Kelo v. City of New London (2005)

It’s interesting that this list is not the stereotypical list of the PIGs, although it is even narrower in its focus, with a 50—50 split between New Deal cases and very modern ones. The Warren Court, criticised by the Republican Party of today for its judicial activism, is entirely absent, although Berman v. Parker from the same year as and overshadowed by Brown v. Board of Education, paved the way for case #12 by ruling that private property could be taken for public purposes.