RIP Scalia

[smithsb]

I enjoyed his writing in earlier days. I may not have agreed with his decisions but he showed wit, humor, and sarcasm. He devolved in my opinion recently. He became a political lightning rod, a spokesperson for conservative causes, a genuinely mean, dismissive, and prejudiced hater, and a (really sad to say) sell-out to lobbyists for personal perks.

His death is sad for his family - my sympathies. The death his opinions in many areas - no loss.

[Little_Pig]

Here is where numbnuts was staying. Cushy.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@smithsb

I enjoyed his writing in earlier days. I may not have agreed with his decisions but he showed wit, humor, and sarcasm

Sarcasm is the weak tool of the incompetent mind. If you want to lionize someone, don’t do it on account of their sarcasm.

[Starving_Artist]

@Rick_Kitchen

Burn in hell, Scalia.

I suspect flights of angels will sing him to his rest.

[septimus]

I have one good thing to say for the late Injustice: On at least one matter he was far more open-minded than most Dopers.

Scalia joined Justice Stevens in concluding “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” that Edward de Vere, and not Shakespeare of Stratford, wrote the famous plays and sonnets.

[GIGObuster]

@D_Anconia

All nine of the Justices were elected democratically.

As others noted Gaudere’s law can be a harsh mistress.

In this case the browser dictionary gave me democratically instead of democratic, I meant to say that a democratic president did choose the judges that do care about the future of our nation and the world too for that matter.

[Starving_Artist]

Here’s where Justice Scalia was staying. I’ve never been much on western or rustic decor but I have to admit the place is pretty tasty.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I am glad the guy is no longer a Supreme Court Justice.

That said, regardless of how detestable I find his politics, I still did not want him to die for that to happen.

Retiring would have been more than adequate.

I will say that there seems to be a double standard about appointments. If a liberal justice dies under a conservative president, and a conservative justice gets appointed, that’s all fair in law and war, but if a conservative justice dies, we can’t allow a liberal justice to get appointed.

???

I’m pretty sure Bush would have stuffed that court full of conservatives if all the liberal justices died.

[GIGObuster]

@septimus

I have one good thing to say for the late Injustice: On at least one matter he was far more open-minded than most Dopers.

Scalia joined Justice Stevens in concluding “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” that Edward de Vere, and not Shakespeare of Stratford, wrote the famous plays and sonnets.

Now I do hope that was a whoosh.

Skeptic's Take on the Life and Argued Works of Shakespeare

I explained this to John M. Shahan, chair of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (www.DoubtAboutWill.org), who insisted that although most skeptics hold that the true playwright was the earl of Oxford, their mission has merely been to sow the seeds of doubt. I understood why when I examined the case for de Vere. For example, de Vere’s partisans exalt his education at both the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford and believe that the plays could only have been penned by someone of such erudition. Yet the plays make many allusions to the grammar school education that Shakespeare had and not to that university life held so dear by the skeptics: instead of Cambridge masters and Oxford dons, Shakespeare routinely references schoolmasters, schoolboys and schoolbooks.

In other words, reasonable doubt is not enough to dethrone the man from Stratford-upon-Avon, and to date, no overwhelming case has been made for any other author. In contrast, hundreds of examples of historical and literary consilience have been compiled by Purchase College theatre professor and playwright Scott McCrea in his aptly titled book The Case for Shakespeare (Praeger, 2008), which demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that, in the Bard’s own words from Julius Caesar, Shakespeare was not just a man but the man: “the elements / So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up, / And say to all the world, This was a man!”

[Merneith]

@septimus

I have one good thing to say for the late Injustice: On at least one matter he was far more open-minded than most Dopers.

Scalia joined Justice Stevens in concluding “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” that Edward de Vere, and not Shakespeare of Stratford, wrote the famous plays and sonnets.

Of course he did, lol. The whole “Shakespeare was a Manky Peasant Who Couldn’t Possibly Write Good” is classist bullshit. Just the sort of thing Scalia would go for.

[septimus]

It would be nice if those ridiculing the “Oxfordian hypothesis” actually examined the evidence shown in the books, articles, and webpages of those supporting the hypothesis. Instead, the sheeple regurgitate over and over the misconceptions from “debunking” sites, without ever familiarizing themselves with the actual arguments.

[GIGObuster]

@Merneith

Of course he did, lol. The whole “Shakespeare was a Manky Peasant Who Couldn’t Possibly Write Good” is classist bullshit. Just the sort of thing Scalia would go for.

And considering how he also fell for climate change denialism, Scalia leaves also a legacy of being one of the better examples of being a crank magnet.

Climate Change and the Supreme Court

Crank magnetism

Funnily enough there are several experts involved in skepticism and investigating conspiracy theories that noted how Shakespeare skeptics were like climate change deniers.

http://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/what-shakespeare-taught-me-about-climate-change/

[Askthepizzaguy]

@madmonk28

The Onion is reporting Scalia died after a 30 year battle with social progress.

That’s clever though.

@jayjay

Better yet, find me a quote where Obama says that you shouldn’t be cleared and released from Death Row even if new evidence (such as DNA evidence that wasn’t possible when you were convicted) proves you didn’t commit the capital crime in question. Even more than his utterly vile opinions on same-sex orientation and rights, of women and their rights, etc, I think that opinion was the one that demonstrated to me just how evil and horrible a human being he was.

Point. Some of this guy’s opinions and rulings were truly horrendous.

@jsgoddess

I’m sorry he’s died. I always hope people will see how unfounded their fears and hatreds are. I didn’t want him dead. I was hoping he would change. People do change.

He won’t have that opportunity, and I think that’s something to be sorry about.

Agreed.

I hold out hope that people change wrong-headed views before they die, not because I believe in a soul or afterlife, but because I think that’s what we’re supposed to do as human beings, and every time it happens, it gives me hope for the rest of humanity.

Always sad to see when it doesn’t happen.

[GIGObuster]

@septimus

It would be nice if those ridiculing the “Oxfordian hypothesis” actually examined the evidence shown in the books, articles, and webpages of those supporting the hypothesis. Instead, the sheeple regurgitate over and over the misconceptions from “debunking” sites, without ever familiarizing themselves with the actual arguments.

:sigh:

So, not a whoosh. Really, if the “Oxfordian hypothesis” had as much validity as their proponents claim then it would be looked at and constantly by proper experts and academics, instead the academics did look already and they are not impressed by the “evidence” the Oxfordians showed, it does not show any signs of going anywhere.

http://www.skeptic.com/insight/false-balance-and-the-shakespeare-authorship-debate/

First of all, I’d hardly call the authorship manufacturversy the “greatest ongoing investigation in literary history.” Second, the description of Shakespeare as a “Stratford businessman” suggests that he had a full-time job some distance from London that wouldn’t allow him the time to write plays. More importantly, what Gore-Langton says about the lack of documentary evidence is inaccurate. It is true that Shakespeare doesn’t mention plays or books in his will, but he entailed the bulk of his estate, including his primary residence, New Place, and its contents. He didn’t need to mention plays or poems. It might be true that no poem or play survives in Shakespeare’s hand, but that is not unusual among Elizabethan/Jacobean poets. Moreover, Hand D of the play Sir Thomas More may be in his handwriting (see image, right).

Most crucially, Shakespeare absolutely was recognized as an author during his lifetime. About half of Shakespeare’s plays were printed during his lifetime. Many of those list his name as author on the title page. Here is one early example (see image below, left).

Wikipedia has a convenient list of Shakespeare’s quartos, along with images of all the title pages. There are many other contemporary references to Shakespeare as a writer as well. Scholarly editions of the Complete Works, such as the Norton Shakespeare and the Riverside Shakespeare, generally include these references in appendices. The problem isn’t that documentary evidence doesn’t exist. The problem is that Shakespeare deniers claim that somehow these references to William Shakespeare don’t actually refer to William Shakespeare, the actor from Stratford, but to a pseudonym of another person. To say that these references don’t exist, however, is simply false.

Gore-Langton gives the impression that he is neutral, just like those mock-trial jurors who will decide the issue once and for all if the SAC gets its way. I imagine he believes that he is presenting both sides of the argument in a light-hearted manner. **However, there really aren’t two equally valid sides to this argument. There is a mountain of evidence for Shakespeare’s authorship, no evidence that he didn’t or couldn’t have written the works, and a bunch of weak and contradictory evidence for other authors. After all, evidence (of a sort) has been offered for dozens of putative authors over the years. None of it is convincing.
**
The Newsweek article reveals a common problem with false balance: not only does it give a minority view legitimacy it doesn’t deserve, it is often noticeably skewed against the conventional, well-supported view.

[Tibby]

@Little_Pig

Have him RIP? Fuck him. Fuck him up the ass. I stood up and cheered when I heard that pompous prick bit the dust. My heart actually felt joy! I’m looking forward to that horses ass spending eternity in Hell being butt fucked by every Hell’s Angel who ever walked the earth and every barn yard animal who has passed in the last last 10,000 years. I r-e-a-l-l-y hope he gets embalmed with gasoline so we can “lite him up”, that fat fucking sack of rotting donkey dicks. Fuck him. Fuck him up the ass!
<snip>

I’d like you to give the eulogy at my ex’s funeral.

[Merneith]

@septimus

It would be nice if those ridiculing the “Oxfordian hypothesis” actually examined the evidence shown in the books, articles, and webpages of those supporting the hypothesis. Instead, the sheeple regurgitate over and over the misconceptions from “debunking” sites, without ever familiarizing themselves with the actual arguments.

Yeah, that’s probably it. We’re all just sheeple. If only we’d watch your precious 4-part youtube video, we’d totally understand that jetfuel can’t burn steel.

[septimus]

@GIGObuster

:sigh:

Sigh, yourself. There you go again, quoting from “skeptic” which cherry-picks the evidence they find easiest to dismiss.

If anyone wants to debate this [but not hijacking this thread of course] Please first post what you consider to be some of the strongest pro-Oxford arguments – to demonstrate that you’re actually familiar with the case --and then debunk those. I can’t be bothered to discuss it with people so arrogant that they dismiss a case without even knowing what it is.

Hint: To claim that the appearance of “Shakespeare” on title pages debunks a Shakespeare-as-frontman hoax just proves that you lack the slightest clue about what the Oxfordian hypothesis is.

[GIGObuster]

@septimus

Sigh, yourself. There you go again, quoting from “skeptic” which cherry-picks the evidence they find easiest to dismiss.

If anyone wants to debate this [but not hijacking this thread of course] Please first post what you consider to be some of the strongest pro-Oxford arguments – to demonstrate that you’re actually familiar with the case --and then debunk those. I can’t be bothered to discuss it with people so arrogant that they dismiss a case without even knowing what it is.

Hint: To claim that the appearance of “Shakespeare” on title pages debunks a Shakespeare-as-frontman hoax just proves that you lack the slightest clue about what the Oxfordian hypothesis is.

Nope, you are the one that only shows ignorance of where I’m coming from, it is not only the scholars that overwhelmingly agree that the Oxfordians have little to go for, but also it is the people that do investigate conspiracies and look at misinformation of all kinds who also agree that the pro-Oxford arguments are weak sauce.

You do need to explain properly how is it that people that investigate weird stuff and do consult experts and scholars about many issues do agree that issues like astrology, anti-vaccination, hollow earth, moon hoax, climate change denial and many others are poppycock, but that (somehow) only on items like Shakespeare they miss the boat, just like almost all experts and scholars… not.

Shakespeare authorship

[Merneith]

@septimus

Hint: To claim that the appearance of “Shakespeare” on title pages debunks a Shakespeare-as-frontman hoax just proves that you lack the slightest clue about what the Oxfordian hypothesis is.

Does it involve Crisis Actors?
For the curious -

From GIGObuster’s quote - This really is the key point:

@Eve Seibert

Most crucially, Shakespeare absolutely was recognized as an author during his lifetime.

Shakespeare’s contemporaries knew who he was and never expressed any doubt that he was the author and theatrical manager he claimed to be.

The alternate theories didn’t start popping up until hundreds of years later, in 1850 (or thereabouts). Francis Bacon was the first candidate, but there’s been dozens of others.

There’s no direct evidence for any of those so-called candidates, mind you. It’s all based on Bible-code type “research” and rooted in a Victorian conviction that Shakespeare’s divinely inspired talent must have belonged to a nobleman.

The Earl of Oxford died in 1604, by the by, while Shakepeare lived on until 1616 - that is, unless you follow the Oxfordian practice of combing contemporary documents for numerology hints that reveal the TRUTH to all the NON_SHEEPLE.

It’s all just stupid food for the discerning conspiracy theorist with class insecurities.

[septimus]

And again, you only quote debunkers.

Start a Pit thread “Septimus is foolish about Shakespeare’s authorship” if you need to further vent your ignorance. Meanwhile, I’ll pose a simple question:

If the case for Oxford is so weak, why do Justice Stevens and many other intelligent people (who ctually consider the evidence instead of just regurgitating from debunking sites) think Shakespeare was not the author?