I wonder if this story would have made the conservative gossip circle if it had been a 14 or 15 year old girl married in the U.S. moving to Germany.
This is going to be a huge problem when ruling on abortion rights. There will be pandemonium as different judges will have different definitions of “human beings”.
Bricker, I know your a big fan of Musical theater. One thing I’ve always wondered about you. When you watch Les Mis. do you root for Javert? Not meaning this as an insult but, you and he seem very simpatico in terms of your views of justice.
I don’t know if it’s in the conservative gossip circle, and I don’t know of any legal marriages for 14 or 15 year old girls in the United States, although I concede that the legal system in several states could theoretically approve such a marriage with parental consent and judicial approval. I’m just not aware of it actually happening present-day, although that means little since I haven’t checked.
But even so, my view of the two cases would still be different for precisely the reason that judicial approval was required.
Nope, it still happens, or at least as of a few years ago.
Holy shit.
I am absolutely stunned. And profoundly disturbed.
But I can tell you that if a German court ruled against recognizing those marriages, I’d be fine with that, absent some sort of unimaginably compelling reasons.
Holy shit.
“It’s their culture” isn’t a compelling-enough reason for you? :dubious:
I was born with scum like you; I am from the gutter too.
It’s hard to answer that. I thought the Bishop of Digne’s candlestick gift was the epitome of the grace of forgiveness.
But Javert had a point, and it’s difficult to explain how, but I’ll try.
We cannot have a society in which people are allowed to steal from others. SUrely you can see that no matter how noble Valjean’s deed was in stealing bread for his nephew, we cannot generalize permission for people to steal bread.
But if the law requires a five year sentence for stealing a mouthful of bread, and gives no wiggle room for circumstances, then the law is the problem, and it needs to be changed.
Javert clung so strongly to his belief that the violator of the law is evil, and deserves punishment, that his whole worldview depended on it being true, and when Valjean sets him free instead of killing him, he cannot bear the conflict.
That’s crazy, and it’s not at all what I’m saying here. I agree the crappy actor is the company, not the driver.
But at the same time, Valjean did break his parole.
I’m comfortable in saying that Valjean’s circumstances were so extraordinary that Javert should have let it go. But ultimately, the problem Valjean faced was a heartless body of law – and a system in which the law came from King Louis-Philippe I (although he was a constitutional monarch, the French were not ruled by We The People). The role of judges, of government itself, in France in 1832 is not fairly analogized to present-day United States.
So that question does not map to the present case. We’re not even talking about criminal law here – we’re discussing whether a law prevents an employer from firing an employee, one who is already free under the law to resign at any time. Any law that says the employee can quit without notice anytime he pleases for any reason he pleases, but the employer needs to justify himself, is unbalanced. Here, Congress has laid out certain protections for drivers. This wasn’t one of them. It’s not the case that the driver faces five years at hard labor – at most, he faces losing his job, and that’s only if there are no other provisions of law that might work to protect him.
As disturbing as that is, it is perfectly legal. One does wonder how such laws remain on the books (I assume they are a holdover from days when being pregnant outside of wedlock was a shame few could bear). Would you be OK if the SCOTUS overturned those laws?
Gorsuch’s ruling in the truck driver case was bad. That being said, the nominee is the nominee, and that’s too late to really change.
Absolutely not. On what basis?
They are awful, but they are expressions of legislative will. The legislature should repeal them.
Of course not. Repeat after me: SCOTUS is not your mommy! If you don’t want 14 year olds marrying adults you elect a legislature that will pass a law about it.
Precisely.
Now you understand that I understand you. 
Thanks, as I said in the original question this wasn’t meant as an insult of a gotcha. I’ve always viewed Javert as a sympathetic but tragically misguided soul, the epitome of Lawful Neutral according to the D&D alignment system. Ideally I feel the court system should be lawful good. I feel that the constructionist philosophy tends to sacrifice the good too much in the pursuit of the rigid lawfulness, but I can understand and accept your alternative point of view.
Not going to address the trucker case again as we seem to have gotten to the point where everybody keeps repeating themselves.
But this article from 538 applies a credible-seeming (yes, I checked this time!) methodology to evaluate Gorsuch’s ideology, and he actually doesn’t look bad for a Republican.
In cases involving immigration and employment rights, he actually ruled in favor of immigrants and workers slightly more often than the average Tenth Circuit judge (although the Tenth overall is conservative relative to SCOTUS). These were the only areas of law which this study examined, so it’s possible he’s disqualifyingly horrible on some other issue. But for now, I would lean strongly against filibustering him.
Although as has been discussed in other threads, given that the Democrats can’t stop the confirmation, the only real basis on which to make a decision about filibustering is how it will affect the next elections, and I’m prepared to trust Chuck Schumer’s judgment over mine on that call.
Other things that those on the left may find favorable about Gorsuch is his opposition to Kelo. Cnn article:
There is also his opposition to Chevron deference. From Volokh:
If a person is concerned about executive power, Chevron deference should be opposed.
Istm, concerns about executive power tend to fluctuate according to who is in power not a left or right issue.
Eta: I wanted to add that just because I didn’t like his truck driver dissent I haven’t seen anything disqualifying. I’m sure he’ll be a fine Supreme and the Dems would be silly to filibuster.
So where the law is ambiguous and an agency is interpreting it in a reasonable way, a judge is obligated to stop them from doing that and interpret the ambiguous law in some unreasonable way in accordance with his personal ideological beliefs?
I’m guessing the real argument here is about how common it is for laws to be genuinely ambiguous; otherwise, I can’t imagine how anyone could object to this doctrine.
Kelo was a left wing decision, opposed by the RW on the court.
I don’t understand why you’re inserting “unreasonable” and “ideological” here.
Pretty much, I would guess. If the most reasonable reading is X and an agency’s reading of Y is barely supportable by the text if you read it in the right light, do you defer to them or not?