And I assume your answer will be the same if the Supreme Court affirms DC and overturns the Ninth, yes?
I mean, how could it be otherwise? According to you, since 1789 the Fourth Amendment has said that the government could put GPS devices in cars without a warrant, so if the Supreme Court rules differently, they are misinterpreting it - correct?
You’re welcome to your opinion. I’m sure you’re very happy with those election results then.
It won’t.
Correct. That’s why they won’t.
Sure. But you might look at the analytical method they used to reach their decision, and decide for yourself if it was a valid one, and resolve to appoint other judges who also use that analytical method… and resolve to NOT appoint judges that used other analytical methods… right?
Whew. Well, that’s a load off my mind, especially since they’re likely to grant cert because of the conflict in circuits.
But we cannot, I assume, read into what you’ve written here the idea that the Supreme Court never misinterprets the Constitution… right?
I mean, they said in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick that the Constitution (text written in 1867) DID NOT protect the right of two adults to engage in consensual, non-commercial sodomy. That was a misinterpretation, because in 2003 they said in Lawrence v. Texas that the Constitution (text still written in 1867) DID protect the right of two adults to engage in consensual, non-commercial sodomy. Or was Lawrence the misinterpretation?
So how are we to tell if, for any given decision, the Supreme Court misinterpreted the Constitution?
Yes, the Supreme Court can misinterpret law (“ceremonial deism”), I just don’t think it will in this case.
Just because I said that one court interpreted a law correctly doesn’t mean that I think all courts always do. That court in Iowa did not create law.
Well, assuming Supreme Court judges could be voted out.
But the point you’re trying to refute isn’t one I’ve been making. My point was that
And
Hate and bigotry have no better ally here than Bricker, who keeps essentially arguing that the Iowa Supreme Court had no right, or should not have the right, to reach a decision based on the straightforward reading of the state’s constitution if that decision changes the status quo in any significant way. What an obscene and utterly wrong-headed legal rationalization for willful injustice!
It is unequivocally evil and flagrantly repudiative of the founders’ manifest will to allow people to vote on granting or removing the civil rights of any group of American citizens! It is as depraved and repulsive a crime against America and American ideals as any I can imagine, yet Bricker and JXJohns openly endorse precisely that!
Consider the disingenuous con job Bricker delivers in his response to Zakalwe’s hypothetical regarding a vote denying left-handed people the right to vote:
Bricker’s “reasoning” is, of course, quite offensive and off-base. For the analogy to be applicable, the “previous, long-standing state of affairs” would have to be one in which only right-handed people could vote, and it is only to that state of affairs that Bricker would grant the court the right to decide.
Note also the reference there to the “rational basis standard” of reviewing Equal Protection cases. Bricker and other defenders of bigotry prefer that standard over heightened standards because it allows bigots to prevail far more easily. This is because under that standard, if the court can imagine any marginally “rational” hypothetical justification for the legislature’s decision to discriminate against a given group – even if the legislature never even imagined it – the discriminatory statute prevails.
Bricker and JXJohns and others who agree with them are being manifestly contemptuous of our ideals and system of government. No matter how much they dance around it, in the end they are flagrantly perverting the role of the third branch in the United States into passivity and impotence by arguing that the courts have no right to rule on the constitutionality of legislation if the decision might have non-trivial real-world consequences, such as if it invalidates a bigoted law.
Be not deceived: Those who argue thus do so because they know perfectly well that voters are easily manipulated into voting for evil and hate and bigotry, whereas judges are not quite so easily moved. JXJohns made this point quite openly when he wrote:
OK.
So how can we determine this difference? How can we, the public, know that the text of the Constitution says, and has always said, XYZ?
By reading it.
Bricker, congratulations on your fine disassembling of **Dio **above.
That said, I should like to pose a question to you employing the principles you establish above, to wit, that Supreme Court judges as a rule have a greater understanding of the law than most common people–or even most attorneys.
Let us assume (and despite JXJohns’s protests, I think we safely can) that Ternus, et al, were unseated because of their participation in Varnum v. Brien .
Given that Varnum v. Brien was a unanimous, 7-0 decision, and thus by reasonable definition sound law, is it reasonable to assume that the Iowa electorate, consisting almost entirely of persons untrained in the law, really didn’t understand the issues involved and were voting in an ignorant, ill-informed manner? Or, more charitably, did the Iowa electorate display a flagrant disregard for the existing legal system?
I’d conclude that it’s pretty evident the Iowa electorate didn’t understand the law, didn’t really give a damn, and unseated the judges because they didn’t want gay folks to be able to get married.
Ummm you read how I voted and why, correct? You also know enough about the situation that nobody voted away anyone’s civil rights, correct?
I made no protest, only stating why I think Ternus was unfit for the position of Chief Justice. A point that I have not heard anyone argue against.
This is what your argument boils down to. It’s not enough that someone disagrees – not even enough that someone agrees with the ultimate goal but disagrees as to method. No, no – it’s all hate and bigotry, obscene and wrong-headed wilful injustice.
Bullshit.
The most basic will of the founders is: “We The People.” This embodies our notion that ultimately the sovereigns of our country are not kings, divinely annointed to rule, but the collective voice of the people. WE THE PEOPLE are our own rulers. Every single piece of text that governs us is traced to an assent by the people, directly or through their elected representatives.
But you would have it differently. You would surrender our ability to govern ourselves to philosopher kings; you would give them a mission of protecting us from ourselves. “We’re too stupid to rule ourselves,” says Ambushed, “so please take the authority from us.”
THAT is the depraved and repulsive a crime against America and American ideals. While we place obstacles in our legislative path, such as supermajorities, we do so with our own full assent. But in the end, the Constitution and every word in in is subject to the vote of the people. When the Constitution permitted slavery, we did not turn to judges and say, “Please, worthy judges, slavery is repulsive, but we lack the strength to undo it. Save us from ourselves!”
Ambushed, undoubtedly, would still be on his knees in front of his Kings-on-the-bench, awaiting salvation. But people who actually understand what the true American spirit of We the People means approved the Thirteenth Amendment, forbidding slavery. It was ratified by 3/4s of the states after passing two-thirds of Congress. That ended slavery. But some states still sought to leave former slaves unable to vote.
“Please, worthy judges, this disenfranchisement is repulsive, but we lack the strength to undo it. Save us from ourselves!” cried Ambushed’s ideological brethern. But We The People knew that to be true to American ideals meant passing the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting race as a means to deny the vote.
“Please, worthy judges,” ried Ambushed’s ideological brethern again in 1918, “this disenfranchisement of women is repulsive, but we lack the strength to undo it. Save us from ourselves!”
But the judges, the kings, were not the way to solve that problem. No, We the People used our sovereign power to pass the Nineteenth Amendment.
Your base, craven willingness to surrender our sovereign power to the judges is sickening. We have the power and the responsibility to govern ourselves.
There’s no question that we should end discrimination and permit same-sex marriage. But we should – we MUST – do it by vote.
And don’t you dare whine that we can’t. We have. Vermont, New Hampshire and DC have both passed, by legislature, bills legalizing same-sex marriage. It can be done. It WILL be done. But not by pusillanimous appeal to some benevolent philosopher king.
And if you don’t like the sensible ideological arguments against that, let me give you a practical one: when you try to shove things down the throats of the voters by judicial fiat, it often backfires.
But two different people can read it, and come to opposite conclusions. What then?
Thanks. Dio, like the berserkers of old, won’t notice a fatal wound and will continue to fight on, but it’s safe to say he’s skewered.
I absolutely agree that the vast majority of Iowans did not make a detailed analysis of the law.
BUT…
I also say that many of them simply said to themselves, “I don’t know about the law, but I know that this is a big change in this state, and big changes should come from the legislature.”
As I said above, this is a position that intuitively makes sense. If judges are supposed to interpret the law as written, and the written law hasn’t changed, how could it possibly be true that suddenly, 164 years after Iowa’s constitution was written, it becomes true that it requires same-sex marriage? If this is simply the straightforward application of Iowa’s constitutional commands to the situation, how could it possibly have taken this long?
So I’d say that a fair chunk of those voters had no animus towards gays getting married, but didn’t like the idea that judges took it upon themselves to make the decision for them.
Bricker, I never questioned your very considerable skills in verbal manipulations and misdirections and in crafting deviously impostrous “summaries” of people’s arguments. Your years of practicing law very likely drew upon and then only heightened such skills, and, truth be told, I’d jump at the chance to hire you to represent me in court if I were guilty. As I once wrote years back of another attorney whom I found to be immensely skilled in verbal combat, I opined that he “could convince a drowning man to change his long-distance service on the way to the bottom”.
I’m afraid that none of your summaries accurately reflect my post that you are responding to. Science has demonstrated quite unassailably that humans emote first and verbally rationalize their emotions later; it is quite unusual for people to engage in the kind of critical thinking necessary to countermand their overwhelmingly emotion-driven decisions. Most people just aren’t cut out for it, especially conservatives-authoritarians whose impaired cognition and discomfort with nuance and subtlety make critical thinking a truly daunting, herculean task. (See, for example: Hetherington & Weiler 2009: Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, Cambridge University Press).
I did not claim in my post anything akin to asserting that not one single person who voted against the Iowa Supreme Court judges engaged in any critical thinking first. That is a grotesque misrepresentation of what I wrote. Clearly, I will have to quote my own words rather than allow you to summarize them:
Perhaps I should have underlined that word in the original.
Science tells us it is entirely natural and instinctive for the human mind to invent high-minded rationalizations to disguise or justify fear, hate, and bigotry. That’s all that you and JXJohns and the Iowa Family Policy Center and those who voted out the Iowa Supreme Court have done: You’ve crafted utterly spurious rationalizations to defend bigotry by flatly denying the primary role of the state’s Supreme Court.
And I honestly believe you should be profoundly ashamed of that. I’ve been around here since just about the beginning, and in that time you have earned my respect many thousands of times. I don’t know if I was fooled many of those times or if this thread represents some kind of aberration, but I am entirely sincere when I say that I very much hope for the latter.
But given the blatant viciousness of the closing shot in your reply, to wit…
… the odds that this thread doesn’t represent the real you seem increasingly remote.
Really?
Two points:
Had the Iowa court ever considered same-sex marriage before?
If your position is that judgements should only change *de facto *law when statutory or constitutional law itself changes, would you then also argue that *Brown vs. Board of Education *is bad case law? If not, what changes between Plessy vs Ferguson and *Brown *made this so?
I live about ten miles from Iowa. Let’s just say you may be overestimating their electorate by just a bit. Then again, I really don’t think South Carolina seceded from the union over Article VI, either.
Lot of words being used to misstate my position. I’m impressed.
Not sure what to do with this.
Are you suggesting that, as a matter of objective fact, we should ascribe better critical thinking skill to those who vote Democratic? I hope not.
I did not claim in my post anything akin to asserting that not one single person who voted against the Iowa Supreme Court judges engaged in any critical thinking first. That is a grotesque misrepresentation of what I wrote. Clearly, I will have to quote my own words rather than allow you to summarize them: Perhaps I should have underlined that word in the original.
Your point seems plain. The average American voter does not make informed, rational decisions before casting their ballot. Yes?
So my response to you is: if this is so, what value is there is making an effort to register more voters? It seems intuitively obvious that someone who goes out of his way to register to vote is, at the very least, not less likely to make informed, rational decisions before casting his ballot. Right?
Yet the left is strongly focused on registering many people to vote, people who don’t seem to me to be displaying any indicators that they would be any more likely than not to make informed, rational decisions before casting their ballot.
So – what am I missing? Explain it to me.