re: #126 EPR-radar

It would appear that you agree that civil rights are being violated by local authorities in St. Louis. Why exactly should the Feds do nothing about this because the state and local authorities won’t fix this on their own?

How would one distinguish the Ferguson situation from earlier cases in which Federal civil rights action was pursued? The state and local officials in the Jim Crow south were also part of the problem, after all.

For starters, there’s the fact that black-run towns are pulling this sort of shit as well as those run by white people. I also don’t think a court order can be obtained to do what really needs to be done: Force consolidation upon St. Louis County and dissolve/combine a large number of its towns.

The underlying legal problem is too many town governments chasing government revenue streams. But I don’t think a civil rights case can be brought on that aspect of the problem, which leaves any case treating some of the symptoms but not the real disease. And if all you treat is the symptoms, the disease will just recur in somewhat different form.