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Even [insert group] deserves a vigorous defense
spool32
Contrary LibraryRegistered User, Transition Team regular
Contrary LibraryRegistered User, Transition Team regular
Most of you would be very comfortable filling those brackets with any number of disfavored groups because you believe, and rightly so, that speech is important and everyone is entitled to a strong defense regardless of the speech involved. Most of you, I suspect, would extend that to cover a wider sphere than just speech as well, and would agree that each deserves his day in court - especially if some injustice has a shot at being ended over the objection of a vocal and belligerent opposition.
I agree entirely.
Now let's turn our thoughts to this:
I believe marriage ought not be restricted by sex. Let me say this again lest various geese decide black is white, up is down, and I am a homophobe: I believe marriage ought not be restricted by sex. Period.
But I also believe that those opposed to the idea have their day in court, that they may be ultimately defeated. Furthermore, I believe that questions addressed by DOMA cannot be put to rest within our society by simply ignoring them - DOMA should be defended, that it can be struck down over that vigorous defense.
There's no victory in beating a side that doesn't take the field.
More broadly, being pleased that public opinion drove this law firm out of the case is entirely wrongheaded. No one threatened to boycott the firms employing defenders of the WTC bombing. Tim McVeigh's lawfirm still gets candidates from all over the nation. Johnnie Cochran still has a job*. No law school tried to intimidate the firms involved with Lawrence v. Texas, on either side, or the legal parties involved in Citizens United. Legal history is awash in unjust laws and evil men whose lawyers did not suffer for the odious nature of the clients for whom they worked.
All this is entirely sensible, because it is sensible to believe that even the most odious positions, even the most unjust laws, even the most evil people deserve a vigorous defense in court. If you believe DOMA should never have been passed, and never been signed into law, I agree with you. If you believe the Obama administration was right in its decision not to defend the law, we might quibble a bit over the Constitutional duties of the Executive, but I suspect we'd end up agreeing. If you think the House is making a poor moral decision in deciding to defend the law, we might disagree a little more strenuously - there are reasons beyond bigotry to mount a defense.
However, if you believe that it's a good thing to see a vocal and belligerent minority intimidate a law firm into abandoning a case because its client or position was unpopular, I must disagree in the strongest terms. The ramifications are too great, and no one who wishes to see DOMA repealed would want this shoe on the other foot.
Paul Clement, former US Solicitor General, said this today:
He speaks the truth. Critics of DOMA are correct, and the law should be struck down or repealed. These methods, though, place supporters in opposition to justice, not in defense of it.
----
Politico blurb, including lame excuse from King & Spalding
Paul Clement's resignation letter
HRC's effort to intimidate King & Spalding by smearing its reputation
American University, Georgetown Law preemptively welcome complaints against K&S recruiting on campus
*at least until he died, he did.
I agree entirely.
Now let's turn our thoughts to this:
Orochi_Rockman wrote: »The law firm hired by the GOP to defend DOMA has thought better of it.
edit: reading the article, it looks like it's probably not the only firm the GOP hired, but still.
Awesome. Good for that law firm.
I believe marriage ought not be restricted by sex. Let me say this again lest various geese decide black is white, up is down, and I am a homophobe: I believe marriage ought not be restricted by sex. Period.
But I also believe that those opposed to the idea have their day in court, that they may be ultimately defeated. Furthermore, I believe that questions addressed by DOMA cannot be put to rest within our society by simply ignoring them - DOMA should be defended, that it can be struck down over that vigorous defense.
There's no victory in beating a side that doesn't take the field.
More broadly, being pleased that public opinion drove this law firm out of the case is entirely wrongheaded. No one threatened to boycott the firms employing defenders of the WTC bombing. Tim McVeigh's lawfirm still gets candidates from all over the nation. Johnnie Cochran still has a job*. No law school tried to intimidate the firms involved with Lawrence v. Texas, on either side, or the legal parties involved in Citizens United. Legal history is awash in unjust laws and evil men whose lawyers did not suffer for the odious nature of the clients for whom they worked.
All this is entirely sensible, because it is sensible to believe that even the most odious positions, even the most unjust laws, even the most evil people deserve a vigorous defense in court. If you believe DOMA should never have been passed, and never been signed into law, I agree with you. If you believe the Obama administration was right in its decision not to defend the law, we might quibble a bit over the Constitutional duties of the Executive, but I suspect we'd end up agreeing. If you think the House is making a poor moral decision in deciding to defend the law, we might disagree a little more strenuously - there are reasons beyond bigotry to mount a defense.
However, if you believe that it's a good thing to see a vocal and belligerent minority intimidate a law firm into abandoning a case because its client or position was unpopular, I must disagree in the strongest terms. The ramifications are too great, and no one who wishes to see DOMA repealed would want this shoe on the other foot.
Paul Clement, former US Solicitor General, said this today:
"Much has been said about being on the wrong side of history. But being on the right or wrong side of history on the merits is a question for the clients... When it comes to the lawyers, the surest way to be on the wrong side of history is to abandon a client in the face of hostile criticism."
He speaks the truth. Critics of DOMA are correct, and the law should be struck down or repealed. These methods, though, place supporters in opposition to justice, not in defense of it.
----
Politico blurb, including lame excuse from King & Spalding
Paul Clement's resignation letter
HRC's effort to intimidate King & Spalding by smearing its reputation
American University, Georgetown Law preemptively welcome complaints against K&S recruiting on campus
*at least until he died, he did.
spool32 on
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Clients can choose lawyers, and vice versa.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
To co-opt a false equivalence, nobody is going to stick their neck out for the sheep fuckers.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Is that somebody who rapes a pedophile sheep?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
We can't sit atop our moral perch and confidently assume all our beliefs are the correct ones - hell, if we could agree on this sort of ting we wouldn't need a Judicial branch.
Lots of lawyers choose to defend evil, both in criminal and in civil trials. Should we begin pogroms against them all? How would that have worked out had it happened to the lawyers defending the Duke lacrosse players against false rape allegations and a dishonest, overzealous DA?
I have decided that John Boehner is an asshole.
That is a much more blatant example of Executive branch meddling than simply not spending public resources to defend a law that the DoJ has deemed unconstitutional. Are you opposed to Lincoln's actions?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
In Soviet Russia, sheep rape ewe!
on topic: Congress is full of lawyers. If they can't find anybody willing to defend the validity of their laws in court, maybe those laws are... indefensible?
There are many positions which are so abhorrent they are indefensible. While individuals within a group that espouses those views should be free to speak as well as receive equal justice in criminal cases, we as a society are not required to treat their views equally.
There's nothing sacrosanct about a law firm. They're a business like any other. They're under no legal or moral obligation to continue an association with a client, and I'm under no legal or moral obligation to refrain from pressuring them to abandon a defense I find odious.
Well, are you going to draw the line anywhere at all? Would we be similarly required to praise K&S for boldly defending a law that legalizes slavery? Genocide?
Businesses can be protested for doing things that are repugnant to enough people. Obviously there are limitations to this, usually when health or safety is concerned, but that doesn't really apply here.
Second, DOMA did, in fact, get its day in court. Where it lost. And the executive has chosen to abide by that ruling.
Third, what the House is doing is an extremely dangerous usurpation of Executive authority by the Legislative Branch. It is not the role of Congress to defend laws of the US in the Courts. This is why it is a Good Thing that law firms are refusing to aid the House in suborning the Constitution.
I'm not opposed, but I'm comfortable with a strong executive in most cases. Still, I find myself wary of situations where the Executive is "deeming" things Unconstitutional and I don't think you can just wave concerns away. The question is worth asking, regardless of the answer we arrive at.
If you're in favor of a weak Executive (as most every progressive was during the Bush terms), then I'd expect to see a stronger disagreement with the DoJ sitting on its hands.
Politicization of the DoJ under Bush, and the continuation of that under Obama, make these questions even harder to answer. I wonder whether a decision on DOMA's Constitutionality came before or after the decision not to defend it in court. Of course, some people wonder the same thing about Lincoln's motivation for emancipating the slaves, but as I said, I'm comfortable with a strong Executive in most cases and willing to let the Judicial check after the fact, rather than the Legislative check before.
Of course, for that to work you need to put forth a strong case against the Executive's action (or, in this case, Congress's).
Violent threats are against the law and although I haven't seen or heard of any actual credible violent threats made against the firm in question, because this is the internet and our examples have to be as dumb as possible I'm going to pretend that they have been because somebody will act like that's the case.
So violent threats are illegal and should be punished accordingly.
What's left are individuals who are able to choose on their own whether they want to support a company, firm, or group. An individual is fully within their rights to decide that they will avoid using an otherwise highly-successful law firm because they involved themselves in a case or matter the client dislikes, much like a firm can choose to limit their client base to focus on a particular type of law, type of client, or type of image.
The closest thing I can see to a scandal is why you're claiming there's "intimidation" or a "pogrom." If there are actual violent threats being made, those should be dealt with by law enforcement. If a bunch of people say "We don't like that you represented the Republicans in the DOMA case and therefore do not want to do business with you," that's part of doing business. This isn't new or exciting, law firms tend to focus on representing one style of client because doing otherwise makes you too many enemies.
Why do you hate the Free Market?
DOMA has already had parts of it struck down as unconstitutional. That's not the DoJ deeming it unconstitutional, that's a Federal judge updating the national public record with the fact that it's unconstitutional.
Would you be comfortable with the DoJ actively fighting to maintain a law that has been decided against in Federal court?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Short answer: depends.
Long answer: Yes, mostly I would. I think questions of Constitutionality ought to be reviewed by the SCOTUS, especially in cases where there's a larger social question the country is relatively split on. Legislating this at the state level is not working - it's failing over and over. I'd prefer to see the DoJ bring every decent argument available before the appellate courts, and ultimately the SCOTUS, where they can be stomped into oblivion once and for all. American history shows us that popular sentiment lags behind defense of a minority's rights more often than not, and we're well versed in warnings about the tyranny of the majority. Throwing up your hands in surrender is not the way to put the exclamation point on the arguments against DOMA - only the Supreme Court can do that for us and they need to address any conceivable legitimate disagreement. otherwise, we'll still be arguing about this insanity in 2030.
Damn, you beat me to it.
But Hedgie is even more right, and not nearly as sarcastic.
So if a law has been struck down in a lower court, would you have the DoJ defend that law in courts that are concurrent with the striking court in other states? At what point does the law become legitimately unconstitutional in your eyes, and does the DoJ have a stake in defending that law to the bitter end until it meets your personal test for that?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Except that is a different situation altogether (and analogous to the Prop 8 case.) Here, the DoJ defended the law in court, lost, and has chosen to accept the ruling.
It's not my test! Until the SCOTUS reviews and declines to take up the case, no one is going to be satisfied. Recall here that my wish is for the question to be definitively answered and I don't believe supporters of the law should be left with a leg to stand on here. All possible appeals should be exhausted, and the DoJ ought not miss an opportunity to defend the law when it can, so as to eliminate all the possible avenues.
I'd love to hear some more thoughts on this. Is it proper to do? How would you feel if the tables were turned?
I know you've said that you're in favor of a strong executive branch, but does that extend to the exercise of extra-constitutional authority by the DoJ? Because that's what you're pushing for here.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.