If you get unjust results from your laws, then you have the wrong laws, and should change them. Enforcing them to the letter is the only way that I can see to get the legislature to actually do that. Justices who rely on legislative history to find a way out of the bad result just enable the problem, imo.
Exactly. There are examples in history of where this wasn't upheld and we got likely the best outcome regardless. There are examples where Justices simply acted on what they felt was the right outcome based on politics of the day, and not what the Law and their position would dictate, but after decades of hindsight we still know that the outcome was right. But only those decades of hindsight can ever really justify it. And I'd argue that there are far more examples of bad/wrong decisions made when Justices rule based on what they want instead of reasoned interpretation. In the here and now, the ideal always needs to be that they rule on jurisprudence and what the due process of law would suggest, not end-running to a desired social outcome.
In other words, if we still need federal oversight of state voter laws, then it's probably time for Congress to revisit the law and perhaps apply it equally to all states. There is potentially all sorts of election shennanigans going on that aren't about blacks in the South. Because for better or worse, there is probably a pretty good argument on its way that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to still subjugate some states more than others 150 years after the Civil War.
Remember folks...slavery was a-ok while it was legal.
The Holocaust was also perfectly legal.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Are people really suggesting that if a law is bad then we should just 'change it'? Like, you sit down for 5 minutes and go "What the fuck is this bullshit? No more!" and done? Cause I'm fairly sure it doesn't work like that, even if you somehow got both sides to agree said law is bad.
If you get unjust results from your laws, then you have the wrong laws, and should change them. Enforcing them to the letter is the only way that I can see to get the legislature to actually do that. Justices who rely on legislative history to find a way out of the bad result just enable the problem, imo.
Exactly. There are examples in history of where this wasn't upheld and we got likely the best outcome regardless. There are examples where Justices simply acted on what they felt was the right outcome based on politics of the day, and not what the Law and their position would dictate, but after decades of hindsight we still know that the outcome was right. But only those decades of hindsight can ever really justify it. And I'd argue that there are far more examples of bad/wrong decisions made when Justices rule based on what they want instead of reasoned interpretation. In the here and now, the ideal always needs to be that they rule on jurisprudence and what the due process of law would suggest, not end-running to a desired social outcome.
In other words, if we still need federal oversight of state voter laws, then it's probably time for Congress to revisit the law and perhaps apply it equally to all states. There is potentially all sorts of election shennanigans going on that aren't about blacks in the South. Because for better or worse, there is probably a pretty good argument on its way that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to still subjugate some states more than others 150 years after the Civil War.
Thing is the law is constitutional at very least in it's purpose if not it's application. Voting rights are constitutionally guaranteed. So if they do feel the application of said law is the problem the logical choice is to apply the existing constitutional law equally to everyone
Put another way, I think that Sotomayor is toxic to the court's legitimacy, because she gives the impression that she works off of what she thinks is "right" and then backfills. O'Connor did the same thing. There is no Justice I would fear writing an opinion on a technical matter like my area of the law more than Sotomayor, because who knows if she will even care about the words on the page. Unconscionable. Contrast Kagan, who has gone on record about deciding cases she thought were "wrong" because the law compelled that "wrong" answer. That is the job.
So, you're just very concerned about how some people you made up might feel if a person behaves how you've decided they might based on the fact that you don't like them and do like other people who have the same observable behavior.
I mean here let me try
"I'm just concerned that Scalia really undermines the legitimacy of the court, because it's pretty obvious he's touching himself under his robes while mumbling nonsense whenever he writes an opinion. Unconscionable."
Except that Sotomayor actually talks to the press about how her life experiences shape her views of justice. It's also just a feeling that I think comes across in her writing, much like O'Connor. No sitting justice talks about their own life as much as she does.
Yes, it's easy to see the law as some dispassionate, bloodless thing when you were never beaten with it.
That's the job. The job is not to figure out what you think the answer to a particular question should be under just laws. It is to figure out what answer the law compels, and in some cases, conflicts between laws may compel that one law be struck down. These are not arbitrations. . .
Just to be clear, you think a judge's duty, specifically at the Supreme Court level, has no relationship with justice?
I was gonna say. Shouldn't the number one priority of someone called a Justice, in fact, be justice?
Law is great, but not all laws reflect justice. If we were purely based on the ideology of what's law and never change it, women and minorities would still be second class citizens and homosexuals wouldn't be allowed to serve in the military.
Fuck collaberation if people are oppressed. Do what's right, not what's easy.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
There are a wide range of views on the relationship between law and ethics taken up by various reasonable legal academics, and nothing SKFM has said on that particular subject strikes me as beyond the pale. In fact, I tend to agree with him and contra the more "pragmatic" types, at least in one sense of that term. There is a certain strain of such who would prefer to render themselves unaccountable by occluding the actual procedures by which they come to their opinions behind the shroud of 'good judgment.'
Please stop misstating CU. The problem was not that the government didn't like the people behind "Hillary: The Movie". The issue was that the people who made it did so by way of an organization incorporated such that it was not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way in the three months before an election.
I'm not misstating anything. "Not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way three months before an election, because of the nature of your organization" is exactly what I am talking about, and is exactly the problem, and exactly what they ruled against. I'm curious as to how you think I misstated anything, because this was exactly the issue. I'm curious how you can possibly believe that "your organization is incorporated such that it is banned from political advertising three months before an election" is in any was different from "we are censoring this political movie because we don't like who is behind it."
Thing is the law is constitutional at very least in it's purpose if not it's application. Voting rights are constitutionally guaranteed. So if they do feel the application of said law is the problem the logical choice is to apply the existing constitutional law equally to everyone
Yeah, that's what I said, and that's what some of the Justices have said. The challenge facing the court is the fact that it only applies to people who live in certain states. That's the issue.
Are people really suggesting that if a law is bad then we should just 'change it'? Like, you sit down for 5 minutes and go "What the fuck is this bullshit? No more!" and done? Cause I'm fairly sure it doesn't work like that, even if you somehow got both sides to agree said law is bad.
???
Of course that's how it should work. A bad law should be changed. If the bad law is supported by the Consitution, then we need an Amendment. If Congress isn't doing that, vote them out and vote in people who will. That's exactly how it's supposed to work. Justices are very much not supposed to do that work for us. They only rule a law is bad if their interpretation of it leads it into conflict with a more prevalent law.
There are a wide range of views on the relationship between law and ethics taken up by various reasonable legal academics, and nothing SKFM has said on that particular subject strikes me as beyond the pale. In fact, I tend to agree with him and contra the more "pragmatic" types, at least in one sense of that term. There is a certain strain of such who would prefer to render themselves unaccountable by occluding the actual procedures by which they come to their opinions behind the shroud of 'good judgment.'
The magic of SKFM is that his deep legal reasoning always seem to end up in a place that benefits him. If it wasn't so hard to believe that a lawyer could argue in bad faith, I'd suspect him of being less than honest.
Honestly I'm ashamed to be a white male at times with the absolutely crying pussyhood of christian white males from the south I feel I have to make a disclaimer that I'm not an absolute whiner and feel the need to keep my priveledge even when I didn't lose it at all and the majority of state and federal government is directly ruled by my race and gender.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
There are a wide range of views on the relationship between law and ethics taken up by various reasonable legal academics, and nothing SKFM has said on that particular subject strikes me as beyond the pale. In fact, I tend to agree with him and contra the more "pragmatic" types, at least in one sense of that term. There is a certain strain of such who would prefer to render themselves unaccountable by occluding the actual procedures by which they come to their opinions behind the shroud of 'good judgment.'
The magic of SKFM is that his deep legal reasoning always seem to end up in a place that benefits him. If it wasn't so hard to believe that a lawyer could argue in bad faith, I'd suspect him of being less than honest.
I seriously doubt that SKFM is personally benefited in any significant way by classical legal philosophy.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure this is the epitome of "States Rights" purity being fucking retarded.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Man, what shitty justice would say "Do Good, let the law catch up"?
And the fact that you and so many others falsely believe that "hey, the government isn't allowed to censor political ads because they don't like who aired them" is perverting democracy... is just so disheartening to me.
Please stop misstating CU. The problem was not that the government didn't like the people behind "Hillary: The Movie". The issue was that the people who made it did so by way of an organization incorporated such that it was not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way in the three months before an election.
Furthermore, the reason the government put that restriction in was to prevent a group from coming in at the last minute and run a media blitz to alter the momentum of a close race in the direction they want.
Which is what Karl Rove did to Ami Bera in 2010. Oddly, in 2012, when he wasn't able to do a unilateral media dump due to the nature of presidential year elections, Bera won.
I'm pretty sure this is the epitome of "States Rights" purity being fucking retarded.
States rights as an arugment in modern times has always been a dodge of what the civil war was about anyway. Is it really shocking that the same people trying to rewrite the war over slavery are now trying to use a states sovereign rights to oppress black people, outlaw abortion and keep gay people from being married?
Hilariously these same "States rights" advocates absolutely blow their top when a more progressive state say Washington allows people to smoke pot and not wind up in jail, or let gays get married, or make abortion legal years before the supreme court did it.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Please stop misstating CU. The problem was not that the government didn't like the people behind "Hillary: The Movie". The issue was that the people who made it did so by way of an organization incorporated such that it was not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way in the three months before an election.
I'm not misstating anything. "Not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way three months before an election, because of the nature of your organization" is exactly what I am talking about, and is exactly the problem, and exactly what they ruled against. I'm curious as to how you think I misstated anything, because this was exactly the issue. I'm curious how you can possibly believe that "your organization is incorporated such that it is banned from political advertising three months before an election" is in any was different from "we are censoring this political movie because we don't like who is behind it."
Because they're not similar at all? Churches, in exchange for not paying taxes, are not allowed to participate in politics (not that that stops them, but that's a different discussion). If the IRS went after a preacher who openly told his congregation to vote for a certain candidate, would that also be censorship because they didn't like him?
I'm pretty sure this is the epitome of "States Rights" purity being fucking retarded.
States rights as an arugment in modern times has always been a dodge of what the civil war was about anyway. Is it really shocking that the same people trying to rewrite the war over slavery are now trying to use a states sovereign rights to oppress black people, outlaw abortion and keep gay people from being married?
Hilariously these same "States rights" advocates absolutely blow their top when a more progressive state say Washington allows people to smoke pot and not wind up in jail, or let gays get married, or make abortion legal years before the supreme court did it.
That's pretty much the bottom line here. It's political purity, oh until people you disagree with use it, then it's a moral travesty.
Man, what shitty justice would say "Do Good, let the law catch up"?
Justice Marshall said do what you think is right, and let the law catch up, and I agree with those who have responded that policy-making ought to be the purview of elected officials, not appointed ones.
Furthermore, the reason the government put that restriction in was to prevent a group from coming in at the last minute and run a media blitz to alter the momentum of a close race in the direction they want.
Which is what Karl Rove did to Ami Bera in 2010. Oddly, in 2012, when he wasn't able to do a unilateral media dump due to the nature of presidential year elections, Bera won.
I don't get your point. When the government silences someone, the other guy wins? Point being what exactly? That this is how it should be?
Yar on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Making the decision that feels right is not the hard choice. The hard choice is making the decision that feels wrong, and telling congress that until they fix their law, the wrong result will keep occurring, because that's what they wrote.
Making the decision that feels right is not the hard choice. The hard choice is making the decision that feels wrong, and telling congress that until they fix their law, the wrong result will keep occurring, because that's what they wrote.
Because they're not similar at all? Churches, in exchange for not paying taxes, are not allowed to participate in politics (not that that stops them, but that's a different discussion). If the IRS went after a preacher who openly told his congregation to vote for a certain candidate, would that also be censorship because they didn't like him?
The issue there is that freedom of religion is seen as in conflict with freedom of speech, and thus a compromise is enforced. Arguments have thus far failed to show any issue as legally sacrosanct as "freedom of religion" when a PAC runs a political ad. There is a lot of vague concern over faith in democracy and appearance of bribery and so forth, but nothing actually affecting anyone's rights. If a decent argument could be made that PACs running ads violates the freedom of the press or something, then maybe.
But as for the churches, personally, I say tax them and let them be political. I don't see their ban on politicking being enforced much at all anyway. I don't really see why they or any non-profit can't engage in political discourse, too. I would hope that if any issue ever came to the courts on it these days, they'd rule in favor of free speech over tax exemption.
But you failed to show how those two statements in the quote above aren't saying basically the same thing, because they are. I mean, yeah, if you want me to put it in those terms, the law does currently also say that they don't like certain registered non-profits engaging in political speech, and that really shouldn't be a real law, either.
Yar on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Making the decision that feels right is not the hard choice. The hard choice is making the decision that feels wrong, and telling congress that until they fix their law, the wrong result will keep occurring, because that's what they wrote.
No. Mercy has a place in the justice system.
So show it in sentencing, at the trial and appellate level. Sentencing and appropriate damages are almost never issues for the supreme court (at least not directly). When you are making decisions that have wide ranging impacts on the country as a whole, I think you need to keep that as your main focus. And if the court does not hold the legislature to the legislation that is creates, then they never need to try and do a better job, even though crafting clearer, more understandable laws is a HUGE net public good vs having rules that only lawyers can understand and which are still unclear until SCOTUS rules on them, especially since most cases take years to get heard, leaving long periods of uncertainty.
No. Scalia called the Voting Rights Act "racial entitlement", while Sotomayor pointed out that factually Shelby County is still trying to disenfranchise minorities and you have a problem with the latter?
Are people really suggesting that if a law is bad then we should just 'change it'? Like, you sit down for 5 minutes and go "What the fuck is this bullshit? No more!" and done? Cause I'm fairly sure it doesn't work like that, even if you somehow got both sides to agree said law is bad.
Yeah even bullshit laws aren't magically Unconstitutional just because they're bullshit. Otherwise the Supreme Court just become unelected Kings arbitrarily striking down laws. Scalia probably thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt, but if a case comes forward where a same sex couple were allowed to adopt and someone challenged it, I'm sure that most people wouldn't want him going "yeah that's bullshit" based on his own feelings and striking it down.
Otherwise Bush v Gore would be a perfectly reasonable case.
Making the decision that feels right is not the hard choice. The hard choice is making the decision that feels wrong, and telling congress that until they fix their law, the wrong result will keep occurring, because that's what they wrote.
No. Mercy has a place in the justice system.
So show it in sentencing, at the trial and appellate level. Sentencing and appropriate damages are almost never issues for the supreme court (at least not directly). When you are making decisions that have wide ranging impacts on the country as a whole, I think you need to keep that as your main focus. And if the court does not hold the legislature to the legislation that is creates, then they never need to try and do a better job, even though crafting clearer, more understandable laws is a HUGE net public good vs having rules that only lawyers can understand and which are still unclear until SCOTUS rules on them, especially since most cases take years to get heard, leaving long periods of uncertainty.
Oh hey, welcome mandatory minimums, which are absolutely clear, and absolutely bullshit!
But you failed to show how those two statements in the quote above aren't saying basically the same thing, because they are. I mean, yeah, if you want me to put it in those terms, the law does currently also say that they don't like certain registered non-profits engaging in political speech, and that really shouldn't be a real law, either.
Yes. Certain registered non-profits, the category that has chosen to be disallowed from engaging in politics in exchange for tax privileges. This isn't the government picking some organizations and declaring that they're not allowed to make campaign ads, and the fact that you don't see a difference between that actual (hypothetical) discrimination, and people choosing to make an organization that isn't allowed to spend money in politics three months before a campaign and then doing exactly that and whining when they get in trouble, worries me greatly.
Making the decision that feels right is not the hard choice. The hard choice is making the decision that feels wrong, and telling congress that until they fix their law, the wrong result will keep occurring, because that's what they wrote.
No. Mercy has a place in the justice system.
So show it in sentencing, at the trial and appellate level. Sentencing and appropriate damages are almost never issues for the supreme court (at least not directly). When you are making decisions that have wide ranging impacts on the country as a whole, I think you need to keep that as your main focus. And if the court does not hold the legislature to the legislation that is creates, then they never need to try and do a better job, even though crafting clearer, more understandable laws is a HUGE net public good vs having rules that only lawyers can understand and which are still unclear until SCOTUS rules on them, especially since most cases take years to get heard, leaving long periods of uncertainty.
don't act like the questions that come before SCOTUS aren't squishy and leave room for multiple interpretations. that's how life experience and personal world view come into play. there IS wiggle room on most of these questions, it's not a straight statutory interpretation all of the time. that's why it's important to have Justices from more than one perspective of American life.
In a perfect world all judges are impartial robots, but that's just preposterous in practice. And if you think Scalia is somehow closer to this ideal than the other judges, well I strongly disagree.
So It Goes on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
No. Scalia called the Voting Rights Act "racial entitlement", while Sotomayor pointed out that factually Shelby County is still trying to disenfranchise minorities and you have a problem with the latter?
Are people really suggesting that if a law is bad then we should just 'change it'? Like, you sit down for 5 minutes and go "What the fuck is this bullshit? No more!" and done? Cause I'm fairly sure it doesn't work like that, even if you somehow got both sides to agree said law is bad.
Yeah even bullshit laws aren't magically Unconstitutional just because they're bullshit. Otherwise the Supreme Court just become unelected Kings arbitrarily striking down laws. Scalia probably thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt, but if a case comes forward where a same sex couple were allowed to adopt and someone challenged it, I'm sure that most people wouldn't want him going "yeah that's bullshit" based on his own feelings and striking it down.
Otherwise Bush v Gore would be a perfectly reasonable case.
Scalia is very collegial. He is the social butterfly of the court, and is dear friends with pretty much every justice.
No one is saying they should strike the laws down. What I and others are saying is that they should enforce the law as written, and then, if congress is not happy with the result, then congress should fix it. If anything, changing the meaning of language to approximate what the court thinks congressional intent was (ha!) is the act of the unelected king.
as a matter of the history of the court, there has always been a process where the court pursues some activist outlook, and then tries to mitigate the precedent of activism, by strangling the new jurisprudence in fairly thin arguments that it was always really in the US constitution - appealing to some higher principle under which the old and new would be consistent
this wasn't an unambiguous slide in a gloriously enlightened direction; both the creation of the Lochner era and its eventual reversal did this
hell, the creation of judicial review at all is, you may notice, completely absent from constitution and legislation. it just got wished into existence out of thin air by the court
as a matter of the history of the court, there has always been a process where the court pursues some activist outlook, and then tries to mitigate the precedent of activism, by strangling the new jurisprudence in fairly thin arguments that it was always really in the US constitution - appealing to some higher principle under which the old and new would be consistent
this wasn't an unambiguous slide in a gloriously enlightened direction; both the creation of the Lochner era and its eventual reversal did this
You could argue that this dates back to Marbury v. Madison. The role of the Court is left vague in the Constitution, which has always given it great leeway in how it pursues its mandate.
No. Scalia called the Voting Rights Act "racial entitlement", while Sotomayor pointed out that factually Shelby County is still trying to disenfranchise minorities and you have a problem with the latter?
Are people really suggesting that if a law is bad then we should just 'change it'? Like, you sit down for 5 minutes and go "What the fuck is this bullshit? No more!" and done? Cause I'm fairly sure it doesn't work like that, even if you somehow got both sides to agree said law is bad.
Yeah even bullshit laws aren't magically Unconstitutional just because they're bullshit. Otherwise the Supreme Court just become unelected Kings arbitrarily striking down laws. Scalia probably thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt, but if a case comes forward where a same sex couple were allowed to adopt and someone challenged it, I'm sure that most people wouldn't want him going "yeah that's bullshit" based on his own feelings and striking it down.
Otherwise Bush v Gore would be a perfectly reasonable case.
Scalia is very collegial. He is the social butterfly of the court, and is dear friends with pretty much every justice.
No one is saying they should strike the laws down. What I and others are saying is that they should enforce the law as written, and then, if congress is not happy with the result, then congress should fix it. If anything, changing the meaning of language to approximate what the court thinks congressional intent was (ha!) is the act of the unelected king.
Again, I don't give a fuck about Nino being a social butterfly in a black robe.
I do give a fuck about him not recusing himself from a case involving his son's law firm.
Yes. Certain registered non-profits, the category that has chosen to be disallowed from engaging in politics in exchange for tax privileges. This isn't the government picking some organizations and declaring that they're not allowed to make campaign ads, and the fact that you don't see a difference between that actual (hypothetical) discrimination, and people choosing to make an organization that isn't allowed to spend money in politics three months before a campaign and then doing exactly that and whining when they get in trouble, worries me greatly.
Wait a sec... you're shifting the goalposts here, and drawing some imbalanced comparisons. The relationship whereby a PAC cannot run ads three months before an election is not one of mutually agreed-upon benefit between PAC and government. It is a flat-out restriction on freedom of speech without any other balancing legal principal other than the government doesn't like too much spending on political ads. When they organized as a PAC, they did not do so because "yea!, now we don't get to run ads before an election!" A church does register as such because yea! no taxes. Not the same thing. Not sure what churches really ahve to do with this. As I said, I'd rather they be taxed and free to speak.
but this rather undermines any noble intent to uphold the law 'as written'. The court always asserts, after the fact, that it is upholding the law 'as written', so this is pretty meaningless.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
hell, the creation of judicial review at all is, you may notice, completely absent from constitution and legislation. it just got wished into existence out of thin air by the court
I agree 100%. The argument that I am making in this thread is about what the role of the court should be, acknowledging that there are competing views, and that the court itself is ulitmately the final arbiter on what it's role should be (absent an actual conflict with the executive branch over the enforcement of a judgement, which, ironically is precisely what Marbury was meant to avoid).
(Of course, since I am SKFM, autocorrect went to change Marbury to Burberry)
Yes. Certain registered non-profits, the category that has chosen to be disallowed from engaging in politics in exchange for tax privileges. This isn't the government picking some organizations and declaring that they're not allowed to make campaign ads, and the fact that you don't see a difference between that actual (hypothetical) discrimination, and people choosing to make an organization that isn't allowed to spend money in politics three months before a campaign and then doing exactly that and whining when they get in trouble, worries me greatly.
Wait a sec... you're shifting the goalposts here, and drawing some imbalanced comparisons. The relationship whereby a PAC cannot run ads three months before an election is not one of mutually agreed-upon benefit between PAC and government. It is a flat-out restriction on freedom of speech without any other balancing legal principal other than the government doesn't like too much spending on political ads. When they organized as a PAC, they did not do so because "yea!, now we don't get to run ads before an election!" A church does register as such because yea! no taxes. Not the same thing. Not sure what churches really ahve to do with this. As I said, I'd rather they be taxed and free to speak.
Please, keep dodging the 2010 Bera race.
And the benefit that they got was that they didn't have to disclose their donors, which is a pretty big benefit in politics.
hell, the creation of judicial review at all is, you may notice, completely absent from constitution and legislation. it just got wished into existence out of thin air by the court
I agree 100%. The argument that I am making in this thread is about what the role of the court should be, acknowledging that there are competing views, and that the court itself is ulitmately the final arbiter on what it's role should be (absent an actual conflict with the executive branch over the enforcement of a judgement, which, ironically is precisely what Marbury was meant to avoid).
(Of course, since I am SKFM, autocorrect went to change Marbury to Burberry)
that would undermine the fiction that it is an apolitical arbitrator that continually reveals higher principle
and that fiction is desperately important to the legitimacy of the court
hell, the creation of judicial review at all is, you may notice, completely absent from constitution and legislation. it just got wished into existence out of thin air by the court
I agree 100%. The argument that I am making in this thread is about what the role of the court should be, acknowledging that there are competing views, and that the court itself is ulitmately the final arbiter on what it's role should be (absent an actual conflict with the executive branch over the enforcement of a judgement, which, ironically is precisely what Marbury was meant to avoid).
(Of course, since I am SKFM, autocorrect went to change Marbury to Burberry)
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Exactly. There are examples in history of where this wasn't upheld and we got likely the best outcome regardless. There are examples where Justices simply acted on what they felt was the right outcome based on politics of the day, and not what the Law and their position would dictate, but after decades of hindsight we still know that the outcome was right. But only those decades of hindsight can ever really justify it. And I'd argue that there are far more examples of bad/wrong decisions made when Justices rule based on what they want instead of reasoned interpretation. In the here and now, the ideal always needs to be that they rule on jurisprudence and what the due process of law would suggest, not end-running to a desired social outcome.
In other words, if we still need federal oversight of state voter laws, then it's probably time for Congress to revisit the law and perhaps apply it equally to all states. There is potentially all sorts of election shennanigans going on that aren't about blacks in the South. Because for better or worse, there is probably a pretty good argument on its way that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to still subjugate some states more than others 150 years after the Civil War.
The Holocaust was also perfectly legal.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Thing is the law is constitutional at very least in it's purpose if not it's application. Voting rights are constitutionally guaranteed. So if they do feel the application of said law is the problem the logical choice is to apply the existing constitutional law equally to everyone
I was gonna say. Shouldn't the number one priority of someone called a Justice, in fact, be justice?
Law is great, but not all laws reflect justice. If we were purely based on the ideology of what's law and never change it, women and minorities would still be second class citizens and homosexuals wouldn't be allowed to serve in the military.
Fuck collaberation if people are oppressed. Do what's right, not what's easy.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Also, I'm totes in favor of all these things you guys like, but anyone who tries to support them is the wrong color, gender, or temperament.
I'm not misstating anything. "Not allowed to spend money on political advertising in any way three months before an election, because of the nature of your organization" is exactly what I am talking about, and is exactly the problem, and exactly what they ruled against. I'm curious as to how you think I misstated anything, because this was exactly the issue. I'm curious how you can possibly believe that "your organization is incorporated such that it is banned from political advertising three months before an election" is in any was different from "we are censoring this political movie because we don't like who is behind it."
Yeah, that's what I said, and that's what some of the Justices have said. The challenge facing the court is the fact that it only applies to people who live in certain states. That's the issue.
???
Of course that's how it should work. A bad law should be changed. If the bad law is supported by the Consitution, then we need an Amendment. If Congress isn't doing that, vote them out and vote in people who will. That's exactly how it's supposed to work. Justices are very much not supposed to do that work for us. They only rule a law is bad if their interpretation of it leads it into conflict with a more prevalent law.
The magic of SKFM is that his deep legal reasoning always seem to end up in a place that benefits him. If it wasn't so hard to believe that a lawyer could argue in bad faith, I'd suspect him of being less than honest.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I seriously doubt that SKFM is personally benefited in any significant way by classical legal philosophy.
Furthermore, the reason the government put that restriction in was to prevent a group from coming in at the last minute and run a media blitz to alter the momentum of a close race in the direction they want.
Which is what Karl Rove did to Ami Bera in 2010. Oddly, in 2012, when he wasn't able to do a unilateral media dump due to the nature of presidential year elections, Bera won.
States rights as an arugment in modern times has always been a dodge of what the civil war was about anyway. Is it really shocking that the same people trying to rewrite the war over slavery are now trying to use a states sovereign rights to oppress black people, outlaw abortion and keep gay people from being married?
Hilariously these same "States rights" advocates absolutely blow their top when a more progressive state say Washington allows people to smoke pot and not wind up in jail, or let gays get married, or make abortion legal years before the supreme court did it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
That's pretty much the bottom line here. It's political purity, oh until people you disagree with use it, then it's a moral travesty.
Justice Marshall said do what you think is right, and let the law catch up, and I agree with those who have responded that policy-making ought to be the purview of elected officials, not appointed ones.
I don't get your point. When the government silences someone, the other guy wins? Point being what exactly? That this is how it should be?
The issue there is that freedom of religion is seen as in conflict with freedom of speech, and thus a compromise is enforced. Arguments have thus far failed to show any issue as legally sacrosanct as "freedom of religion" when a PAC runs a political ad. There is a lot of vague concern over faith in democracy and appearance of bribery and so forth, but nothing actually affecting anyone's rights. If a decent argument could be made that PACs running ads violates the freedom of the press or something, then maybe.
But as for the churches, personally, I say tax them and let them be political. I don't see their ban on politicking being enforced much at all anyway. I don't really see why they or any non-profit can't engage in political discourse, too. I would hope that if any issue ever came to the courts on it these days, they'd rule in favor of free speech over tax exemption.
But you failed to show how those two statements in the quote above aren't saying basically the same thing, because they are. I mean, yeah, if you want me to put it in those terms, the law does currently also say that they don't like certain registered non-profits engaging in political speech, and that really shouldn't be a real law, either.
So show it in sentencing, at the trial and appellate level. Sentencing and appropriate damages are almost never issues for the supreme court (at least not directly). When you are making decisions that have wide ranging impacts on the country as a whole, I think you need to keep that as your main focus. And if the court does not hold the legislature to the legislation that is creates, then they never need to try and do a better job, even though crafting clearer, more understandable laws is a HUGE net public good vs having rules that only lawyers can understand and which are still unclear until SCOTUS rules on them, especially since most cases take years to get heard, leaving long periods of uncertainty.
Wow.
No. Scalia called the Voting Rights Act "racial entitlement", while Sotomayor pointed out that factually Shelby County is still trying to disenfranchise minorities and you have a problem with the latter?
Yeah even bullshit laws aren't magically Unconstitutional just because they're bullshit. Otherwise the Supreme Court just become unelected Kings arbitrarily striking down laws. Scalia probably thinks gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt, but if a case comes forward where a same sex couple were allowed to adopt and someone challenged it, I'm sure that most people wouldn't want him going "yeah that's bullshit" based on his own feelings and striking it down.
Otherwise Bush v Gore would be a perfectly reasonable case.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Oh hey, welcome mandatory minimums, which are absolutely clear, and absolutely bullshit!
Yes. Certain registered non-profits, the category that has chosen to be disallowed from engaging in politics in exchange for tax privileges. This isn't the government picking some organizations and declaring that they're not allowed to make campaign ads, and the fact that you don't see a difference between that actual (hypothetical) discrimination, and people choosing to make an organization that isn't allowed to spend money in politics three months before a campaign and then doing exactly that and whining when they get in trouble, worries me greatly.
don't act like the questions that come before SCOTUS aren't squishy and leave room for multiple interpretations. that's how life experience and personal world view come into play. there IS wiggle room on most of these questions, it's not a straight statutory interpretation all of the time. that's why it's important to have Justices from more than one perspective of American life.
In a perfect world all judges are impartial robots, but that's just preposterous in practice. And if you think Scalia is somehow closer to this ideal than the other judges, well I strongly disagree.
Scalia is very collegial. He is the social butterfly of the court, and is dear friends with pretty much every justice.
No one is saying they should strike the laws down. What I and others are saying is that they should enforce the law as written, and then, if congress is not happy with the result, then congress should fix it. If anything, changing the meaning of language to approximate what the court thinks congressional intent was (ha!) is the act of the unelected king.
this wasn't an unambiguous slide in a gloriously enlightened direction; both the creation of the Lochner era and its eventual reversal did this
You could argue that this dates back to Marbury v. Madison. The role of the Court is left vague in the Constitution, which has always given it great leeway in how it pursues its mandate.
Again, I don't give a fuck about Nino being a social butterfly in a black robe.
I do give a fuck about him not recusing himself from a case involving his son's law firm.
Wait a sec... you're shifting the goalposts here, and drawing some imbalanced comparisons. The relationship whereby a PAC cannot run ads three months before an election is not one of mutually agreed-upon benefit between PAC and government. It is a flat-out restriction on freedom of speech without any other balancing legal principal other than the government doesn't like too much spending on political ads. When they organized as a PAC, they did not do so because "yea!, now we don't get to run ads before an election!" A church does register as such because yea! no taxes. Not the same thing. Not sure what churches really ahve to do with this. As I said, I'd rather they be taxed and free to speak.
but this rather undermines any noble intent to uphold the law 'as written'. The court always asserts, after the fact, that it is upholding the law 'as written', so this is pretty meaningless.
I agree 100%. The argument that I am making in this thread is about what the role of the court should be, acknowledging that there are competing views, and that the court itself is ulitmately the final arbiter on what it's role should be (absent an actual conflict with the executive branch over the enforcement of a judgement, which, ironically is precisely what Marbury was meant to avoid).
(Of course, since I am SKFM, autocorrect went to change Marbury to Burberry)
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Please, keep dodging the 2010 Bera race.
And the benefit that they got was that they didn't have to disclose their donors, which is a pretty big benefit in politics.
that would undermine the fiction that it is an apolitical arbitrator that continually reveals higher principle
and that fiction is desperately important to the legitimacy of the court
oh, you