I think it’s less relevant, but that wasn’t really the point of my post – the point of my post was that it’s entirely reasonable, and not hypocritical (for most Democrats, anyway), for Democrats to be harshly critical of the Republicans for how they handled Garland.
Fair enough, but he was a pot head*. Didn’t get a vote, didn’t get a hearing, he withdrew his own name before that process started, and was only being considered for barely more than a week. That was just a bad pick on reagan’s part.
*yeah, I 'm sure he was no longer an active smoker, but it being the 80’s family values drug war times, being connected to drugs at all was a disqualification in the eyes of, well, mostly republicans. If he hadn’t withdrawn his name, then it would have likely been republicans (the party of family values and the party pushing the drug war [the party of nancy reagan’s “just say no”]) who voted him down as much if not more than democrats.
Obama started with the compromise candidate. If he followed Reagan’s pattern, he should have nominated Janet Reno (which would have been a short term) first, then Willie Nelson, then Garland.
We were talking about people getting hearings and votes and such. I skipped over ginsburg(and honestly didn’t even think of him) as he is barely a footnote due to the reasons that I responded to Bricker there. It is correct, if pedantic, to point out my omission there, but I do find your comment to be a bit personal and a bit close to trying to call me a liar for use in great debates.
Perhaps worth noting WRT this that Bork is no longer alive. Had his nomination been approved, Obama would likely have appointed his successor, in 2012. 
Well it’s not hypocritical for Democrats - they can say “we believe in going up to Point X and no further”. But they need to understand that that’s not how the world works, and once you politicize the SC nomination process you can’t control how far the other side will take it.
That’s obviously true, but also irrelevant to my point (especially since few Democrats around today played a role in that politicization). Republican Senators today did, on the other hand, play a role in the politicization of Garland’s nomination. Thus, in today’s world, Republican Senators are doing much more to politicize SCOTUS than Democratic Senators.
My position is that once the Bork nomination unfolded the way it did, it was already hopelessly politicized and anything after that is minor. (Though, I should be clear, that I’m referring to the SC nomination process, not the SC rulings - people use the term to mean different things.)
The key question is: does the Senate use a judge’s judicial philosophy to decide whether or not to approve a SC nominee, versus merely vetting legal qualifications, integrity & character etc., and defering to the Prez on judicial philosophy? In the case of Bork that question was answered with a resounding “YES!!!”, and it’s been that way ever since.
After that, this or that tactic is a relatively minor deal. (FWIW, IIRC the Democrats also pioneered the approach of refusing to hold hearings for judicial nominees, though not for SC nominees specifically.)
I grant the possibility. . . except that I notice two things. One: I can find plenty of posts in which I praise Democrats and others in which I criticize Republicans; I don’t recall seeing equivalent numbers from you. This suggests to me that I don’t suffer from this malady as seriously. Two: politically, in general, I place a great value on the concept of agreeing in advance on the rules and then applying them, rather than debating individual views of what’s right in each situation, which (in my opinion) leads to a more predictable result: favoring a federalism view, for instance, in discussions of assisted suicide, marijuana, and abortion, so that I support the power of a state, and not the feds, to regulate each, even though as a personal preference I want to see all outlawed.
My sense is that you’re much more willing to see the feds prevail on abortion and the states prevail on assisted suicide and marijuana, based on your desired policy result.
Am I wrong there?
One hundred quatloos to the newcomer. That genuinely made people in my office wonder why I was laughing so hard.
Is it not possible that this has something to do with the Republican party at present? Trump is president, after all, and supported by most Republicans in office. That seems pretty damn worthy of criticism, and IMO far more criticism-worthy than anything done by the Democratic party at large recently.
And I’m pretty sure there are plenty of posts in which I’ve criticized Democrats and even praised Republicans. The Republicans I’ve praised have probably been less likely to be present office holders (and often included co-workers and such other non-prominent figures), but they’re Republicans.
I place a great value on this as well – but we both have limits, presumably. It may have been legal and according to pre-agreed-to rules for Roman soldiers to execute Jesus… but maybe they should have gone past those rules because this was more important. Maybe judges should have found interpretations to invalidate slavery (don’t recall your opinions on Dred Scott), or protect escaped slaves and free black people in the 1800s, for example, even if that went against the strictest/most literal interpretation of law. Maybe if there were a hypothetical situation in which a madman was allowed by law to build a doomsday device, judges/authorities ought to violate this law (or find an interpretation that allows them to take away this device) before the world ends.
I tend to think that everyone (everyone discussing law, anyway) interprets law with their own biases, consciously or not. I don’t think it’s possible for humans to avoid it. I don’t trust anyone insisting they have the special secret sauce to interpret totally objectively, or literally, or strictly, or whatever – it’s all just different teams, as far as I can tell. Some are better at using language and research to provide a cogent justification of their decisions, but it’s still all interpretation flavored by human bias. Thus I think it’s a worthy goal to try and interpret law objectively, strictly, literally, and all that jazz, but in the many, many cases in which this isn’t very obviously clear (and in most substantive areas of disagreement, it’s not, IMO), then I’m content with going by “what’s right”, since that’s what everyone’s going to do anyway, regardless of what they say (or what they even believe they’re doing, in many cases).
Then report it.
Agreed here, and as I think someone once roughly said, “It’s a constitution, not a suicide pact.”
For its time, the constitution was an amazing document. It was written by some of the best legal minds in the world at the time, and it had the advantage of not having any inertia in a form of government that would resist the change too strongly, a blank slate if you will.
Things have changed in the last 250 years, and other countries have looked to our constitution, said “that’s a good idea, I think we’ll start there, and improve upon it.”
The fact that our founding document is so outdated, and so behind the times in terms of social, technological, and even linguistic changes means that we have to keep coming up with new ways of interpreting these old words to be relevant to our current situation. Because the writers of the constitution did not explicitly talk about things they had no was of knowing would exist, means that some interpretation is absolutely required. And where there is interpretation, there is disagreement. And where there is disagreement in interpretation, you usually have two sides who cannot believe that the other side would be so stupid, disingenuous or even just plain evil to interpret it the way that they do. Both (or all) sides interpret it in the most favorable light to their own political philosophy, to do otherwise would be not only nearly impossible given human nature, it would be very counterproductive to the goal of fostering the society in which you wish to live.
As far as state’s rights vs federal rights, it is hard to say which is more important, as neither address human rights. Sometimes, the state can be oppressive, with the only relief being actions of the federal government (as in civil rights issues and slavery), and sometimes, the federal government is a bit oppressive on a subject, and it becomes the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens from the federal government’s actions (and example being marijuana laws). So there is always the competing hierarchy of which is supreme, and which should be supreme.
If we start with the idea of human rights being supreme, then the rest of the argument goes down easier. It is easier to allow states to have sovereign rights, when holding those rights does not mean oppressing their residents. It is much easier to make an argument that the federal govt has no place interfering in a state’s operation, if the state is not disenfranchising or marginalizing their populations in some way.
The government is by the people, of the people, and for the people. Some old piece of parchment is not the government, it’s just some notes that some people jotted down a while back on some ways of accomplishing governance. If that piece of parchment is not serving the people, then that piece of parchment is not relevant anymore. If some words on that parchment cause people suffering or misfortune, it is the parchment that should be altered or discarded, not the people it neglects.
Through the amendment process, or by fiat?
It’s not an absurd result, unless you start with the assumption that Congress has a statutory intent to avoid cruel firings of employees. They do not.
Are we reading the same dissent? That’s what he said. And there were only three judges on the panel. So only two judges disagreed. And I’m sure they did because they thought judges should have a role beyond the cold application of law.
There are hundreds of examples of cruel situations perpetuating because no law exists to remedy them. Most especially, there is no FEDERAL law to remedy them, because Congress does not have plenary legislative authority. I can fire you, even though you desperately need the job, because you embarrassed me on the golf course when you pointed out I was cheating. That’s cruel, and perfectly legal.
Are we seriously rehashing that same bullshit argument that because decades ago, the democrats rejected a hardline radical involved in unflattering ways with watergate who had fucking abhorrent views of women (and then proceeded to confirm the next two serious nominees the republicans put forward, despite one of them being barely qualified for the job), therefore the right wing refusing to even consider any democratic nominee, regardless of how moderate or how they praised that nominee beforehand, is somehow okay?
Because that’s bullshit.
It is a bullshit argument.
The argument is made of, coated in, and stuffed with bullshit.
…
BULLSHIT!
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Ahem. Moving on from that…
I’m increasingly of the opinion that the senate should force the issue, and here’s why: if the first time it matters, the filibuster is done away with, then the filibuster may as well not exist in the first place. If the first time the democrats buckle down and say, “Nope, that’s not okay, you need 60 votes to get that through”, the republicans respond by saying, “Okay, we’re killing the filibuster”, then the filibuster is, for all intents and purposes, already dead. It exists in name only. Or, worse, it exists in exactly one way: as a cudgel for those who reject norms to beat those who respect norms with. And that’s not okay.
k9befriender:
No, what’s required is amendment by the proper elected authorities.
You are not very familiar with the constitution if you believe it can be changed by fiat.
I would use a constitutional convention. As I said in the earlier post, the founders did not foresee everything, and in fact, they did not foresee quite a few things. But they did foresee that there would be situations they could not foresee, so they left provisions in it to make changes to update, or even completely overhaul it.
Then the first amendment does not apply to digital communications.
Are you OK with changing the Constitution by judicial fiat?
Or only in cases where your preferred outcome is the result?
Why not? The first amendment does not specify the means by which the speech is disseminated or restrict it based on such means.
No argument from me.
The argument comes from me when you try to alter or discard the pieces you find to be causing suffering or misfortune without following the rules that were accepted when everyone joined the club in the first place.
When women were denied the right to vote, the solution was not to convince a set of unelected judges with lifetime appointments that this was a source of suffering or misfortune. It was,of course, but that’s not their role. It’s the job of legislators to fix, and, indeed, two thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures passed the Nineteenth Amendment.
Today, you seek other modifications, but you say, “It’s too hard to modify the Constitution, so I’ll get the judges on my side.” The point is that making law like that is not of the people, by the people, and for the people – it’s taking power from their hands and vesting it in judges; it’s creating a class of philosopher kings, super-legislators to whom you can appeal when the electorate is too unenlightened to suit your tastes.
But I’m certain that if Trump appoints a couple more Supreme Court justices, and the Court then finds that not only is Roe v. Wade overturned but that no state can constitutionally even permit abortion (after all, no person can be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and that now includes unborn persons) you’ll be much less sanguine about vesting such powers in judges.
Don’t let the door hit your ass Neil.