Which makes it even funnier to notice that the wild-eyed, tantrum-throwing movement led by Vander Plaats forgot to notice the ballot item regarding a state constitutional convention, which goes before the voters every 10 years. If they’d spent their time and energy on getting a “Yes” vote on that, they could whip the state constitution to fit their ends probably pretty easily. I suppose it’s less of a hassle to whip people into a frenzy against something instead of for something.
(By the way, Vander Plaats’ next move is apparently to ask the new/old Gov. Branstad to issue an executive order overruling the Varnum decision. Which every person I’ve heard of with any kind of legal experience whatever goggles at in disbelief and hysterical laughter, mocking its absolutely ridiculous unconstitutionality and complete disregard for separation of powers … but I’d give 'em about a 15 percent chance of Branstad actually doing it.)
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Agreed completely, except that I reach no particular decision about what percentage of Iowa voters had what particular levels of insight. I’m sure it’s small, but I’m not sure I’m willing to put the unthinking Iowans at “100% minus epsilon.”
Wrong implication. I was just locking Diogenes into an interpretation where he’d have to acknowledge that his “analysis” was simply “I’m right, and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong.”
MY answer is: of course same-sex marriage was not permitted by the Iowa constitution in 1864. The meaning of laws and constitutions change as caselaw develops. The authority for what each means at any given point is the court.
Congrats for breaking a story with about the same surprise factor as stories about the Pope being Catholic, bears defecating in woods, and the sky being blue. Where in the world would we have been without your penetrating insight into this issue?
And this is where you and I depart. My answer is: given the evident facts available today, the Iowa Constitution absolutely permitted same-sex marriage in 1864. It’s the evidence that has changed, not the document.
In this case that would be accurate, but it’s also a fatuous point on your part, since all opinions are opinions. You are saying the same thing yourself. You’re saying that your opinion about the decision is right and everyone who disagrees with you (including thos judges with greater expertise than you who made the decision) are wrong.
Bricker, it is difficult to scan your multiple posts on this thread and conclude that the proposition you are asserting is that the Iowa Supremes ruled correctly in the Varnum case. In fact one may read your clarification as conceding only that the Iowa Supremes applied the correct standard of review.
In terms of the character and intent of the leaders of the Anti-judge faction, I can only say that I have known Mr. Hurley for a fair long time and have thought for that same fair long time that he is both a fool and a bigot.
Mr. VanderPlaats has made a political career out of decrying the homosexual addenda and contending that any claim, as Uncle Jocko so exactly puts it. that the Constitution requires that homosexuals be allow to do anything that heterosexuals are allowed to do is a demand for special privilege. During his doomed primary campaign it was his promise that when he became Governor his first official act would be to issue an executive order overruling the Varnum decision. Now he is pushing for Mr. Brandstad, the once and future Governor, to do the same thing, even though Terry said more that once that the Gov had no such power.
Congressman King is his own creature, impervious to history, logic or law with a black heart and no discernable soul. He has made a career of attacking foreigners, homosexuals, and government. He has no policy except to be against things and people who aren’t just like him.
At least on this point all three are motivated by homophobia, plain, simple and ugly.
While some people may have voted against retention of the three Justices because they didn’t like the Chief Justice’s private life, or because they wanted to protest the appointment system or because they were gripped by an irritable impulse to try to knock off a top hat with a snow ball, the organized campaign, the TV and radio ads, the big purple bus, the phone calls, the occasional sermon or homily rallying the Godly, were motivated by fear and hatred of homosexuals.
One may read it that only if one is not paying attention. They applied the correct standard of review, they applied it the right way, and they reached the right result. It was correctly decided. It is good law, both as a term of art meaning “applicable precedent” and as a term of common sense meaning I agree with their decision.
Because it’s apparently incomprehensible to some readers that someone can agree with the result of a decision without also believing that the opposing side is irredeemably evil, let me again say that at the same time I believe the principles in the above paragraph, I also believe that a reasonable voter could take the opposite position without being a bigot.
The bulk of my posts in this thread contain lines like, “A reasonable voter could believe…”
I can only imagine that in your .. um… “scanning…” you have discarded those lines as meaningless filler, believing that when I say “A reasonable voter could…” it’s code for “and therefore I do…”
OK. I don’t know him, but I have no reason to believe you’re mistaken.
Sure. And as I said way back on page 1, '“Now, I’d grant that for every voter who said, in his mind, ‘I’m voting ‘no’ because they let gays marry,’ THAT is an unreasonable voter.”
And I am sure that many, most, voters fit that mold.
But I refuse to believe that all voters did. Some voters could reasonably think, “I don’t care about gays marrying, but a decision of this magnitude should come from the legislature.” A voter versed enough to know about general roles of the legislature and judiciary, but not hip to Footnote Four in United States v. Carolene Products Co. could well reach the conclusion that the court was wrong. This is not an unreasonable level of sophistication for the general public.
AGAIN NOTE: just because I say a reasonable voter could do that does not mean that I agree. As it happens, I am hip to Footnote Four.
It’s clear I’ll have to return when I can spend more time correcting Bricker’s many offensive misrepresentations of my position and arguments. But for now, I wish to reiterate my main point:
I resolutely stand by my statement that Bricker has heaped such perfidious scorn upon: 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!
Why do I contend this? To put it as succinctly as possible: Any civil right that is granted by voters can be just as easily revoked by voters!
Consider Bricker’s reprehensible and incredibly hyperbolic attacks on my statements, such as:
Bricker, your base, craven willingness – nay, outright zeal – to grant the power to decide which rights a person or a (so-called) “discrete and insular” minority may or may not possess or exercise to majority rule is starkly obscene and even inhuman, let alone anti-American.
Astonishingly, you point to the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments with admiration. Incredible! How can you not see that the fact that such were necessary or even just held to be necessary is a matter of deep national shame? Can’t see that the notion that a numerical majority of voters should actually establish (and thus be equally able to rescind) the rights a numerical minority can exercise is easily the most powerfully compelling argument against democracy imaginable? Can’t see that this is precisely the most important reason the United States is emphatically NOT a democracy, contrary to yours and others’ despicable mobocratic rants about “shoving things down the throats of the voters”?
Be ashamed, Bricker, be ashamed!
I find it difficult to believe you’re being intellectually honest with us, sir. My intuition – based on other of your posts and threads – leads me instead to suspect you’re debating, to an appreciable extent, as would a defense attorney employing his rhetorical skills to defend a manifestly guilty client.
At least I hope that’s the explanation for your particularly heinous and depraved equation of justly barring voters from deciding which civil rights minority members possess or may exercise with, in your own words: “surrendering our sovereign power to the judges”!
Bricker, if you had to guess what percentage of the people voting to unseat those judges actually carefully read the decision in question and rejected it on intellectual grounds as opposed to those who voted due a pure visceral reaction against gay marriage, how do you think the numbers would break down?
How about another category: those that didn’t read the decision, carefully or otherwise, but based their vote on the generic concept that such big decisions should be made by legislatures and not judges?
In other words, your only two options are “carefully read the decision” or “visceral reaction against gay marriage.” That’s a False Dilemma.
And just to be crystal clear, lest I seem to once again be flouting the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive:
I LIKE the idea that the Thirteenth Amendment can be repealed tomorrow.
I am not in favor of the amendment being repealed. But I am highly in favor of the system which allows the people, by exercise of their sovereignty, to alter or abolish the laws that govern them.
I don’t think the “generic concept” is a good enough reason, considering that these learned men spent a great deal of effort reading briefs and sifting through case law on the Iowa constitution. This is precisely the reason why judges shouldn’t be elected. Popular sentiment should have no influence on a judges decision, most especially where the rights of an unpopular minority are concerned.
It leans more towards the latter, and you know it. I’d bet a million bucks that not even 10% of them even glanced at the decision before they condemned it.
There’s no chance in hell that this vote was motivated by some abstract concern about judicial philosophy, as Bricker is implying. I doubt any discernable number of those voters were simultaneously against the Iowa Supreme Court decision but in favor of gay marriage being implemented legislatively.
Given your love of pure majoritarian rule, I’m wondering if you would prefer that the U.S adopt a Parliamentary system like they have in the U.K. It seems that would be more your style. Parliament can theoretically do anything they want, with no written constitution to impede them. Whatever the majority wants, they get.
Then your objection is not to this vote, but to the popular election (or popular retention) of judges.
Do you object to voters voting on other referenda questions? In the vast majority of ballot questions, there’s a complicated issue with time devoted by learned men to its substance, but in each case the uneducated voter is expected to take a position.
How about voters on candidates? We surely accept that voters don’t study the positions taken by candidates. I suspect you would object to a proposal to limit the vote to those voters who could prove they knew objective facts about the candidate.
I agree. But why are voters incompetent to vote in judges unless they read a decision, but competent to vote on candidates without knowing anything about the candidate?
Not at all. I think our system is perfect. We require supermajorities to change the federal Constitution, which helps prevent the sway of passions of the moment but retains ultimate sovereignty in the people via their elected representatives.
The idea that there are certain portions of the Constitution handed down from Mt Sinai and simply unamendable is garbage.
"The idea that there are certain portions of the Constitution handed down from Mt Sinai and simply unamendable is garbage. "
Which usage? 3a?
gar·bage (gärbj)
n.
1.
a. Food wastes, as from a kitchen.
b. Refuse; trash.
2. A place or receptacle where rubbish is discarded: tossed the apple core into the garbage.
3.
a. Worthless or nonsensical matter; rubbish: Their advice turned out to be nothing but garbage.
b. Inferior or offensive literary or artistic material.
4. Computer Science Incorrect, meaningless, or unwanted data.