In this post, I coin what I will name Scott's Law, which states:
"As an online discussion about a Supreme Court case grows longer, the probability of the decision's opponents comparing it to the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision approaches 1."
This was partly inspired by the recent op-ed "Move over, Dred Scott" by David D. Cole in The Washington Post, about the Supreme Court upholding Trump's travel ban.
There are plenty of examples to be found if you look around a bit, such as with Keith Olbermann and Citizens United (Olbermann's slamming of that decision was another major inspiration behind my coining of this law), Alan Grayson (also talking about Citizens United), Keith Ellison talking about the same Supreme Court case regarding Trump's travel ban as above, Rick Santorum about Obergefell v. Hodges, Ben Shapiro on Obamacare, and of course, Roe v. Wade and conservative Christians.
As with Godwin's Law, there are some situations where comparing a case you don't like to Dred Scott makes sense, and it's not automatically an invalid comparison. After all, historians overwhelmingly agree that it was one of the two worst Supreme Court decisions ever (along with Plessy v. Ferguson).
