I think in the long term Clinton winning could be the best thing for the GOP, other than obviously screwing SCOTUS for at least a generation. But I firmly believe that she'll be a one-term candidate. Lost recently in how comically awful Trump has been is what a terrible candidate Hillary is. She's going to be a one-term president because 1) She's hated by a large number of Americans and an overwhelming number of Americans don't trust her 2) Parties rarely win four straight presidential elections. It's only happened three times in American history 1) the Democrat-Republicans with Jefferson-Madison-Monroe 2) the Republicans during Reconstruction 3) the Democrats when FDR/Truman combined to win 5 elections.Northside Neighbor wrote:Well, I suppose it's a long shot, but I really would love to see the GOP get simply walloped all up and down the ticket, coast to coast.
Throw all the obstructionist bums out! The Trump effect could be felt for years!
True. A liberal SCOTUS is also less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments (particularly the 2nd, 5th, and 10th) and much more friendly to completely making **** up.MarkHaversham wrote:A liberal SCOTUS by itself makes Clinton winning a long-term loss for the GOP. Liberal SCOTUS is less friendly to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance rule hostility, plus of course various GOP culture war issues on guns, abortion, EPA regulations, etc.
It's the Democrats pushing for the terror watch list ban for gun purchases, which whether you agree with the 2A or not denies people rights without due process.MarkHaversham wrote:Well, debating the relative merits of restrictions to amendments probably belongs in a Debate thread more than the Election thread, but what does a liberal SCOTUS have to do with the 5th amendment? I would think that weakening protections for the accused would generally be a hobby of the right wing.
A liberal SCOTUS would be more likely to "make sh*t up" than a conservative one? Why?shimmy wrote:True. A liberal SCOTUS is also less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments (particularly the 2nd, 5th, and 10th) and much more friendly to completely making **** up.MarkHaversham wrote:A liberal SCOTUS by itself makes Clinton winning a long-term loss for the GOP. Liberal SCOTUS is less friendly to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance rule hostility, plus of course various GOP culture war issues on guns, abortion, EPA regulations, etc.
I'd call that a loss for America, but that's just my opinion. To each his own.
And on the flip side, just because a court ruling gives victory to a policy decision that you support does not mean that the decision was constitutionally correct. Roe v. Wade is notorious for its stunning interpretation of the right to privacy that the majority somehow got out of the 14th Amendment. Likewise, even if you support gay marriage, Obergefell is an embarrassing display of Constitutional logic.Dogtown Dog wrote:A liberal SCOTUS would be more likely to "make sh*t up" than a conservative one? Why?shimmy wrote:True. A liberal SCOTUS is also less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments (particularly the 2nd, 5th, and 10th) and much more friendly to completely making **** up.MarkHaversham wrote:A liberal SCOTUS by itself makes Clinton winning a long-term loss for the GOP. Liberal SCOTUS is less friendly to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance rule hostility, plus of course various GOP culture war issues on guns, abortion, EPA regulations, etc.
I'd call that a loss for America, but that's just my opinion. To each his own.
A liberal SCOTUS is less friendly to our constitution? Are you sure? Or is it just that they might be more likely to interpret it in a way that you don't like?
Also, saying they'd tack more left on controversial issues ("gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance rule hostility, guns, abortion, EPA regulations," etc.) is a given, but countering that with "they'd be less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments" is a) baseless and b) a B.S. false equivalency.
The court found that freedom to marry regardless of your sexuality is a fundamental right that falls under the 14th. Note that the text of the 14th does not say "this clause only applies to slaves, not to other classes of people we might want to discriminate against".All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
While the practical interpretation of this text is open to judicial interpretation, it's disingenuous to act as though tying gun rights to militias is some crazy modern liberal invention and not a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text. To say nothing of the fact that every right in the Constitution is subject to regulation.A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
You're falsely equating "friendliness" to constitutional provisions with interpreting those provisions in a way that you prefer. There is no evidence a "liberal" SCOTUS is more or less likely to actually uphold the constitution than a "conservative" one, making your assertions, in fact, baseless.shimmy wrote:And on the flip side, just because a court ruling gives victory to a policy decision that you support does not mean that the decision was constitutionally correct. Roe v. Wade is notorious for its stunning interpretation of the right to privacy that the majority somehow got out of the 14th Amendment. Likewise, even if you support gay marriage, Obergefell is an embarrassing display of Constitutional logic.Dogtown Dog wrote:A liberal SCOTUS would be more likely to "make sh*t up" than a conservative one? Why?shimmy wrote:
True. A liberal SCOTUS is also less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments (particularly the 2nd, 5th, and 10th) and much more friendly to completely making **** up.
I'd call that a loss for America, but that's just my opinion. To each his own.
A liberal SCOTUS is less friendly to our constitution? Are you sure? Or is it just that they might be more likely to interpret it in a way that you don't like?
Also, saying they'd tack more left on controversial issues ("gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance rule hostility, guns, abortion, EPA regulations," etc.) is a given, but countering that with "they'd be less friendly to explicit Constitutional amendments" is a) baseless and b) a B.S. false equivalency.
In both of these cases, two of the most high profile cases of the last 50 years, liberal justices used the 14th Amendment to create rights and laws out of thin air. The purpose of the 14th Amendment is to ensure rights that are already recognized by the Constitution, specifically the intent was to ensure rights for freed slaves and black Americans. Social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are obvious examples of issues that, constitutionally, fall under the 10th Amendment and should be reserved to the states.
Conversely, the right of individuals to bear arms is explicitly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. It's got an amendment all to itself that guarantees this right. And if you really want to make the "it's talking about the militia" argument, then I would encourage you to use the search engine as I've had this argument numerous times on this board.
You may disagree with some of my points here, which is fine as I welcome challenging and respectful debate as Haversham and others can attest to, but to dismiss them as "baseless...BS" is a rather unconvincing argument. In fact, it's not even an argument at all. It's an unsupported opinion.
It's a fallacy to assume that because a justice was nominated by a conservative that such a justice could never rule liberally (or vice versa). Your logic is the same logic that some conservatives use when they try to accuse the Democrats as being the party of segregation because the Democrats of the 50's and 60's opposed it. Likewise, it's false to present Roe as being anything other than a liberal decision just because Republican justices were for it. As we know, the parties have evolved a lot over the past seven decades, and that's not even taking into account that justices appointed during the Eisenhower administration, for example, were appointed long before the culture wars began (let alone before they became the priority in judicial nominations).MarkHaversham wrote:In the case of Roe v. Wade, it was a 7-2 decision made by a 6-3 conservative-leaning court (Douglas, Brennan and Marshall being scored as liberals). The 2 dissenters were Rehnquist and White, White being a mildly-conservative Kennedy appointee. So the notion that Roe v. Wade was a "liberal" court decision doesn't really stand up to evidence, whatever you think of the decision's merits.
Right, so define "the right to marry." No one is against marriage equality. Everyone agrees that every marriage should be equal in the eyes of the law. The question is "What is marriage?" The Constitution doesn't even mention marriage, let alone define it. But what has defined marriage is human history, and virtually every civilization that has ever existed has defined marriage as consisting of a union between members of the opposite sex. Even civilizations that celebrated homosexuality, like the Greeks and the Romans, defined marriage in this way.MarkHaversham wrote:Obergefell rests quite clearly on the 14th:
…
The court found that freedom to marry regardless of your sexuality is a fundamental right that falls under the 14th. Note that the text of the 14th does not say "this clause only applies to slaves, not to other classes of people we might want to discriminate against".
It's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text from someone who just reads it without any concern for context or definition. For anyone who has actually studied the law then yes, it is a crazy modern liberal invention.MarkHaversham wrote:Regarding the 2nd,While the practical interpretation of this text is open to judicial interpretation, it's disingenuous to act as though tying gun rights to militias is some crazy modern liberal invention and not a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text. To say nothing of the fact that every right in the Constitution is subject to regulation.A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I did not assess the court by political party, but rather by using Martin-Quinn scores (which is why I said it was a 6-3 split, rather than 7-2). Also, I don't think "the justices didn't know this was a culture-war issue they were supposed to be taking partisan sides on" is an argument in favor of RvW being a partisan decision. Anyway, I'm not saying M-Q scores were given to us by an infallible god, but do you have a basis for rating the 1973 court as overwhelmingly liberal, aside from disagreeing with it on Roe v. Wade?shimmy wrote: It's a fallacy to assume that because a justice was nominated by a conservative that such a justice could never rule liberally (or vice versa). Your logic is the same logic that some conservatives use when they try to accuse the Democrats as being the party of segregation because the Democrats of the 50's and 60's opposed it. Likewise, it's false to present Roe as being anything other than a liberal decision just because Republican justices were for it. As we know, the parties have evolved a lot over the past seven decades, and that's not even taking into account that justices appointed during the Eisenhower administration, for example, were appointed long before the culture wars began (let alone before they became the priority in judicial nominations).
You're quite right that marriage is not defined in the constitution, which is why we have a Supreme Court to answer questions of how the constitutional rights relate to marriage. The court decided that marriage was a right belonging to all couples, not an institution that did or should exist solely for the purpose of heterosexual nuclear family stability. I suspect a key ingredient to this line of thinking is that allowing gays to marry does not hurt or really impact in any way the rights or lifestyles of anyone else. Nobody is forcing you to do anything except acknowledge a right for gay people to exist and associate freely. While historical precedent can be valuable, it's not sufficient to argue that we should continue discriminating because we've been doing so for a long time, therefore we should allow gay marriage or teaching literacy to minorities or whatever. Generally speaking, the court takes a dim view to restricting people's rights, absent those rights causing clear harm to others.Right, so define "the right to marry." No one is against marriage equality. Everyone agrees that every marriage should be equal in the eyes of the law. The question is "What is marriage?" The Constitution doesn't even mention marriage, let alone define it. But what has defined marriage is human history, and virtually every civilization that has ever existed has defined marriage as consisting of a union between members of the opposite sex. Even civilizations that celebrated homosexuality, like the Greeks and the Romans, defined marriage in this way.
It's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text from someone who just reads it without any concern for context or definition. For anyone who has actually studied the law then yes, it is a crazy modern liberal invention.[/quote]MarkHaversham wrote:Regarding the 2nd,While the practical interpretation of this text is open to judicial interpretation, it's disingenuous to act as though tying gun rights to militias is some crazy modern liberal invention and not a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text. To say nothing of the fact that every right in the Constitution is subject to regulation.A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I did not assess the court by political party, but rather by using Martin-Quinn scores (which is why I said it was a 6-3 split, rather than 7-2). Also, I don't think "the justices didn't know this was a culture-war issue they were supposed to be taking partisan sides on" is an argument in favor of RvW being a partisan decision. Anyway, I'm not saying M-Q scores were given to us by an infallible god, but do you have a basis for rating the 1973 court as overwhelmingly liberal, aside from disagreeing with it on Roe v. Wade? [/quote]MarkHaversham wrote:
Regardless, you raise some good points and I'll accept that I need to research more specifics.WASHINGTON — In a seeming rejection of liberal orthodoxy, President Obama has spoken disparagingly about liberal victories before the Supreme Court in the 1960s and 1970s — suggesting that justices made the “error” of overstepping their bounds and trampling on the role of elected officials.
Mr. Obama made his remarks Wednesday night against a backdrop of recent Supreme Court rulings in which conservative justices have struck down laws favored by liberals, most notably a January ruling that nullified restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections.
“It used to be that the notion of an activist judge was somebody who ignored the will of Congress, ignored democratic processes, and tried to impose judicial solutions on problems instead of letting the process work itself through politically,” Mr. Obama said.
“And in the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was — is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach. What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.”
He added, “The concept of judicial restraint cuts both ways.”
I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this because of the part I highlighted above. My contention is that's not the court's place. In a democratic society, that is the role of the legislature. That is creating law.MarkHaversham wrote: You're quite right that marriage is not defined in the constitution, which is why we have a Supreme Court to answer questions of how the constitutional rights relate to marriage. The court decided that marriage was a right belonging to all couples, not an institution that did or should exist solely for the purpose of heterosexual nuclear family stability. I suspect a key ingredient to this line of thinking is that allowing gays to marry does not hurt or really impact in any way the rights or lifestyles of anyone else. Nobody is forcing you to do anything except acknowledge a right for gay people to exist and associate freely. While historical precedent can be valuable, it's not sufficient to argue that we should continue discriminating because we've been doing so for a long time, therefore we should allow gay marriage or teaching literacy to minorities or whatever. Generally speaking, the court takes a dim view to restricting people's rights, absent those rights causing clear harm to others.
That's not law-twisting, that's completely ignoring the law. That's completely ignoring the 10th Amendment.MarkHaversham wrote:Regardless, as you pointed out, the Constitution does not give a clear guidance on the limits of marriage rights, which puts this issue squarely in the purview of the SCOTUS, no law-twisting necessary.
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Yeah, I was complaining about Roe, which stretched the "Right of Privacy" to include the right of a mother to intentionally kill her unborn offspring. That's a stretch. I also complained about Obergefell, which didn't twist text so much as inserting text where none existed.MarkHaversham wrote:Regarding the 2nd...
Weren't you earlier complaining about how liberals twist the text to fit their preferences?
That's an interesting point of reference. I'm actually familiar with a line of argument in liberal circles that Roe v. Wade politicized a non-political issue and thereby harmed abortion rights in the long term. But, I don't know whether I put much stock in that line of reasoning. To me, bodily autonomy seems to be a pretty integral part of liberty.shimmy wrote: I haven't heard of the Martin-Quinn scores and so I thank you for enlightening me with them and I look forward to researching them more. My perception of the 1973 court comes from many scholars' opinions of the court. This includes, ironically, President Obama's. Here's a piece of a New York Times article titled "Obama Criticizes Liberal Supreme Courts of '60s and '70s"
The second point is moot if you consider marriage to be a right, since the 14th amendment stipulates equal protection, in the same way that states can't enact racial segregation under the 10th.1. Not allowing gay people to marry is not discrimination because, to be blunt, such a union isn't a marriage.
2. Redefining such a union to be included in the definition of marriage is a responsibility delegated to the states under the 10th Amendment and should be decided by them.
Conservative ex-Chief Justice Warren Berger has something to say about that, more succinctly than I could.I would hope that if a justice, or really anyone, reads "A well-regulated militia" they would ask themselves "Well what do they mean by 'well-regulated'?" at which point they could do some research and see that in context of the 1780's "well-regulated" meant "well-trained" or "well-equipped". And then they could do some historical research on what composed the militia in those days, and also what U.S. Code says the militia is today (all able-bodied males between the ages of 17-45).
The notion that anybody in the US has a God-given right to brandish a firearm at the Zoo is basically an invention of the NRA and 21st century activist conservative justices. The notion of all regulation being antithetical to the 2nd amendment has never been a widely-held opinion of Americans; not in 1780, and not today....It was not surprising that the provision concerning firearms emerged in very simple terms with the significant predicate -- basing the right on the necessity for a "well regulated militia," a state army.
In the two centuries since then -- with two world wars and some lesser ones -- it has become clear, sadly, that we have no choice but to maintain a standing national army while still maintaining a "militia" by way of the National Guard, which can be swiftly integrated into the national defense forces.
Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishing -- or to own automobiles. To "keep and bear arms" for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago; "Saturday night specials" and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles.
Americans should ask themselves a few questions. The Constitution does not mention automobiles or motorboats, but the right to keep and own an automobile is beyond question; equally beyond question is the power of the state to regulate the purchase or the transfer of such a vehicle and the right to license the vehicle and the driver with reasonable standards. In some places, even a bicycle must be registered, as must some household dogs.
If we are to stop this mindless homicidal carnage, is it unreasonable:
to provide that, to acquire a firearm, an application be made reciting age, residence, employment and any prior criminal convictions?
to required that this application lie on the table for 10 days (absent a showing for urgent need) before the license would be issued?
that the transfer of a firearm be made essentially as with that of a motor vehicle?
to have a "ballistic fingerprint" of the firearm made by the manufacturer and filed with the license record so that, if a bullet is found in a victim's body, law enforcement might be helped in finding the culprit?
These are the kind of questions the American people must answer if we are to preserve the "domestic tranquillity" promised in the Constitution.
Yeah, I've heard Roe referenced in that fashion when hearing some scholars talk about Obergefell. Their argument is that, especially in the case of gay marriage, the nation was going that way anyways in regards to popular opinion. The Supreme Court jumping in and forcing it on states that weren't willing to accept it yet, for lack of better terms, just entrenched the issue in the culture wars. I do think that gay marriage is much more complicated than abortion. Pretty much, the abortion lines are drawn over the debate as to when life begins and has value. As long as people disagree on that, then they'll disagree on abortion.MarkHaversham wrote: That's an interesting point of reference. I'm actually familiar with a line of argument in liberal circles that Roe v. Wade politicized a non-political issue and thereby harmed abortion rights in the long term. But, I don't know whether I put much stock in that line of reasoning. To me, bodily autonomy seems to be a pretty integral part of liberty.
I think settling debates on what the law means is exactly the purpose of the Supreme Court.shimmy wrote:But you're right, there's strong and valid arguments on both sides of the debate. And that's exactly why I don't think it was the Supreme Court's place to make it law.
Low turnout is almost always going to favor the incumbent.hiddeninput wrote:The election board didn't come out of the HD78 court fight looking too great. Anyone want to prognosticate about the eventual outcome of the new election?
It would probably be impossible to remove her from the ballot before Friday.chaifetz10 wrote:Is it possible to disbar the Hubbards from running due to the facts and amount of evidence from these stories? I'm not a voter fraud conspiracist by any means, but this is blatant disregard for regulations and rules.
