That’d be great - when do you plan to start?
I made my last post regarding 14th Amendment rights for the unborn before reading this. I agree. Finding such a right might be good right wing politics, but it has no support in the history and traditions of our country.
To respond to your post, I am not sure why we should not be reaching for that howitzer. They want to pack the Court with people who have no concern for history or tradition, and make the Court a new source to find new rights that have heretofore been unheard of? The Warren Court, on the day Loving was decided, would have rejected same sex marriage in a 9-0 decision.
I know that we differ with regards to same sex marriage, but I think we both agree that if we were legislators, we could and should have had a slugfest on the floor of our state legislative chamber over this issue instead of having it decided by five lawyers.
The 14th Amendment did not change, only five Justices’ opinions changed. That is not a solid foundation to build a rule of law. I don’t think that taking a puritanical stand will help anything except to allow our side to get steamrolled and “borked” while we give them the courtesy of confirming nominees who are simply qualified.
We could then only puff up our chests that we did the right thing while the country no longer is based on the rule of law. I respectfully reject that idea.
Yes. They would confirm Luttig in ten minutes.
Hence the need for a judiciary, thanks for proving my point.
Hah, no. It is, if anything, blunting a clear violation of the 14th Amendment, which says “any person”, not “any person, unless you’re gay”. Find that text in an early draft, if you want to be some kind of originalist.
I can’t clearly tell what your side is, except that it apparently involves a lot of rhetoric about how SCOTUS has destroyed democracy or something. My side is the one where individual freedom is maximized and governments do not make or enforce laws without a good reason, nor do they single people out for different treatment without a good reason.
Hypothetically, I could picture fetuses being declared “persons” for the purposes of 14th Amendment protection. I suppose that could mean they couldn’t be denied due process and such, but the immediate application to abortion laws, where the action being taken is by a private citizen and not a government agent, would take some sorting out. It’d be a right mess, I’m sure, which I would watch with some curiosity.
Much of this post consists of opinions that are stated as facts. Saying something confidently enough doesn’t make it factual, as opposed to just a strong opinion. “No concern for history or tradition” is a statement of opinion, as is any prediction about how nine dead justices would have voted in a modern case.
If that’s your view - that evolving cultural standards are subordinate to the text itself - then you should be calling for the constitution itself to be revoked and rewritten every twenty years or so, allowing it to stay current.
So, why do you support liars?
I agree. I think it’s important that those of us who do fall in the “textualist” camp recognize that there is a spectrum of constitutional interpretation that has become, for good or ill, generally accepted to be within “mainstream” thinking and that the president has the authority to pick someone for the SCOTUS who should be affirmed as long as he or she is not outside that mainstream of jurisprudence thinking. We might not agree with their method, but that doesn’t make the method invalid.
I think the Republicans are playing with fire, and I can’t condone what they are doing, but they do have the right to do it.
Short of removing ourselves from the poetical process, we have a choice in that matter?
Your nitpick is well taken.
Of course, such a law should be struck down. I am not saying that everything should be subject to a vote of the people. Most things should, but those particular areas which infringe upon fundamental rights, as accepted by history and tradition, are not up for a vote. If you want to go to the Methodist Church, the Jewish Temple, or worship no god at all, that has been historically held to be beyond the power of a majority to compel you to do so. Any judge that sees that has ample text in support and is simply applying the law.
A judge that says a state must grant a license for two men to marry each other? There is no history or text to support that, no society allowed that until 2000, and it must only come from a judge’s personal beliefs. And his or her beliefs are no better than mine. The judge was selected only for his skill as a lawyer, not because he had better beliefs than me.
I judge could personally believe that gay marriage is a bad idea but that the Constitutional right to liberty doesn’t allow the government to ban it. That’s using his skill as a lawyer.
You assume it is not current. Presumably because there is no provision for abortion on demand, sodomy, or same sex marriage. Well, many people do not think those things need constitutional protection. Therefore, in what sense is the constitution not “current”? Because it does not conform to the latest high-minded decree from the liberal ivory tower?
It would be a piss poor use of that skill. There is no right to liberty under the constitution. It only states that liberty may not be deprived except by “due process of law.” Further, the right of marriage is not the right of liberty, or to be left alone. It is asking a positive grant of authority from the state. Liberty is the exact opposite.
Yes, I understand substantive due process and its bastardization throughout the years, but in no way is a gay person’s “liberty” being constrained by a failure of the government to positively recognize his or her relationship. He or she is still free to do as he pleases.
At least I still have a problem with it, instead of openly embracing it, even when it’s politicians I support.
Not at all!!
Actually, yes. They’re lying through their teeth.
Well, it doesn’t explicitly address computerized encryption, either, but I assume you’re attempting sarcasm. It was you who seemed stuck on the idea that modern interpretations of the text were antidemocratic.
Heck, I just wish the riff-raff hoi-polloi prole masses who get all choked up with patriotism at the sight of a U.S. flag would take a minute to understand the values behind the symbol.
The Constitution itself thwarts the will of 320 million Americans, and it was intended to. Otherwise we would have a direct democracy instead of representative, there would be no Supreme Court, and there would even have been no limits on who can vote or run for office. The founders were very concerned with limiting who actually had democratic power, for some good reasons and some bad.
Regardless of where liberty rests in regards of this matter, how is issuing a marriage license to one couple but not another solely on the basis of gender not an equal-protection issue?
The world evolves. Until quite recently, discrimination against gays was legally sanctioned. Hopefully you agree that laws against homosexual activity are an invasion of privacy. Once you cross that bridge, is it really that much of a leap to say that one should be free to marry whoever one loves, regardless of gender? Is it that unreasonable to state that sexual preference is one’s own business and gays should enjoy the protection of the 14th amendment, and building on that, why should straight people enjoy privileges that gays do not? I think the modern belief in full equality is indeed a better belief.
Because no one who tells the truth is available for my support.
They all lie? Really?
Or is it that the ones with the power to push the agendas you support lie?
Do the ends justify the means?