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Justice Scalia's dissent or Bob Backlund promo?


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  • "The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis."
  • "When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases."
  • "Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its 'reasoned judgment,' thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect."
  • "This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government."
  • "But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003."
  • "The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic."
  • "It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so."
  • "Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality (whatever that means) were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say."
  • "If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."
  • "Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall."
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One of the better heels of our era for sure.

I still don't understand how he can be a judge.

 

 

The fact he's a genius doesn't hurt, even if its more insanity than A Beautiful Mind. But its called the other side of the coin. From time to time everybody gets to flip it even if we disagree with it. And that's coming from somebody who finds Fox News & its ilk much more revolting than anything on the liberal side. Unfortunately its that kind of close-minded attitude about the other side that makes all of these discussions so pointless and force anyone who's not extreme conservative or liberal to head for the hills. When people paint Scalia and Elizabeth Warren as standard bears is when you know the bizness is in trouble.

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I know it's sometimes hard to believe,but it is possible to be a conservative (even one fairly hard right) and not be completely batshit. I've seen well thought out arguments for things I don't personally believe in, but there's something about this particular issue that causes even the most educated conservatives to lose their goddamned minds.

 

My theory is that this case might be the closest thing so far to finally making it clear you can't use "because BIBLE!" as a justification for being a discriminatory asshat anymore.

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I know it's sometimes hard to believe,but it is possible to be a conservative (even one fairly hard right) and not be completely batshit. I've seen well thought out arguments for things I don't personally believe in, but there's something about this particular issue that causes even the most educated conservatives to lose their goddamned minds.

 

 

 

Its not hard to believe, its just that batshit is given a much larger forum to make noise in 2015 -- and that goes for conservatives and liberals. Unfortunately nobody seems very interested in anything that's not on the margins when it comes to political discourse.

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I know it's sometimes hard to believe,but it is possible to be a conservative (even one fairly hard right) and not be completely batshit. I've seen well thought out arguments for things I don't personally believe in, but there's something about this particular issue that causes even the most educated conservatives to lose their goddamned minds.

 

 

 

Its not hard to believe, its just that batshit is given a much larger forum to make noise in 2015 -- and that goes for conservatives and liberals. Unfortunately nobody seems very interested in anything that's not on the margins when it comes to political discourse.

 

Part of the big problem is that everybody on tv talking politics in America identifies as either Republican or Democrat.

 

There is a lot of people who center on politics in Canada and I have no idea what party they support. I guess since we have more than 2 parties that makes it easier.

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In a quote that is too ridiculously hyperbolic to make up, Ted Cruz called the past 24 hours "some of the darkest hours in American history."

 

This reminded me of Tony Schiavone calling every Nitro main event, no matter how terrible or inconsequential, "the biggest event in the history of our sport."

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Scalia is really hit or miss for me, in terms of whether I agree with him or not, but the guy knows how to write. And his snark is legendary, both during oral arguments and in writing. His concurrence in Ohio v. Clark a few weeks ago is one hell of a mic drop.

 

 

One of the better heels of our era for sure.

I still don't understand how he can be a judge.

 

Because he had a standout legal career (teaching at three of the best law schools in the US, District Court of DC Judge which is a highly prestigious position). And, like WingedEagle said, he's a genius, like him or not.

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Scalia is really hit or miss for me, in terms of whether I agree with him or not, but the guy knows how to write. And his snark is legendary, both during oral arguments and in writing. His concurrence in Ohio v. Clark a few weeks ago is one hell of a mic drop.

 

 

One of the better heels of our era for sure.

I still don't understand how he can be a judge.

 

Because he had a standout legal career (teaching at three of the best law schools in the US, District Court of DC Judge which is a highly prestigious position). And, like WingedEagle said, he's a genius, like him or not.

You can't vote for citizens united and say that same sex marriage is an attack on democracy. It's just wrong.

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Disagree with his opinions if you want, sure, but they're consistent with each other. They're not really even related. Citizens United follows the legal theory that, while a corporation or other entity is legally distinct from its owners, it is nevertheless an amalgamation of owners and it doesn't make sense to limit people acting as a group when they could act as individuals in the same way. In particular, Scalia's view is that the First Amendment entitles people to speak as associates, not only as individuals. Scalia takes an originalist view of interpreting statutes, i.e., apply the language as it was written, with the meaning when written.

 

His vote against the same sex marriage decision rests on the originalist notion that this is something that states should decide and traditionally states decide it via vote. His opinion, and this is consistent in his jurisprudence, is that the US Supreme Court should not invalidated "bad" laws just because they are "bad" because that is not the Court's role. The US Supreme Court is, in his view, supposed to interpret and apply law, not create or destroy it. Invalidating state laws against same sex marriage is "an attack on democracy" in that it is the Court deciding popularly-elected laws should be tossed out. The opinion he, Thomas, and sometimes others hold is that if you want an unpopular law repealed, use the legislature, not the Supreme Court.

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They're actually not consistent.

 

In one, the originalist is pointing to the 1st Amendment to strike down legislation.

 

In the other, the originalist is saying that the 5 in the majority shouldn't point to the 14th Amendment to strike down legislation.

 

You can point to the first being a Federal piece of legislation, and the second being State pieces of legislation, but again Tony wouldn't be consistent.

 

He didn't like the 5 in the majority pointing to the 14th Amendment in the Windsor case, which went to DOMA which was Federal legislation. In turn, he's been happy to vote to strike down all sorts of state pieces of legislation when the don't fit his world view.

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  • "When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases."

 

 

The "one and one" becoming common by that point was largely due to anti-Mormonism. Pretty much the watershed thing in the era similar to Hawaii triggering DOMA and Massachusetts triggering the wave of changes to state constitutions in the 90s then 00s.

 

Fear of the Other tends to do the trick.

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In both, he's saying that the Constitution preserves rights to the people: right to associate and right to free speech under the First Amendment; right of the people and states to set marriage standards. In neither case does he think that judges should determine what a law ought to be, but is instead applying his Constitutional interpretation. I didn't say Scalia would never strike down a law, that's pretty obviously false. Nor do I particularly like his jurisprudence. For someone so fearful of government intrusion on the people, he certainly gives it a whole lot of deference, particularly in criminal matters. As one of the dissenters points out (Alito, I think), even the petitioner conceded that prior to 2001, marriage meant one-man, one-woman. Not defending this interpretation or its implications (hate having to caveat everything I say here, since again, I really don't care much for Scalia outside of his humor and I did pass on the opportunity to see him speak when he came to my law school), but the "he isn't qualified to be a judge" shtick is nonsense. So is the "he voted in the majority for Citizens United but dissented in Obergefell and these are wholly inconsistent." They're not. The former is a voted to limit federal power so much that the government had the ability to limit speech-through-association. The latter is a vote to limit federal power in that it should not be the federal government, especially a federal judiciary, who decides a historically state matter that legislatures are handling on their own, with no reason to think the legislatures cannot handle it on their own.

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Perhaps I wasn't clear enough on Windsor, where Tony was perfectly fine with the Federal Gov having the power to limit the definition of marriage and benefits that derive from it. He were states that granted marriage equality, and people who lived in those states who wanted the same Federal rights that other married couples had. DOMA prevented that. Tony was fine with DOMA expanding Federal power to deny rights that the states otherwise granted.

 

It's not a State Rights, or a Federal Expansion issue with Tony. Nor are most of his rulings. We all could go find a dozen cases where he was more than fine with expanding government powers and trampling rights.

 

As far as the "he isn't qualified to be a judge", I don't recall rolling that one out.

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I agree that Scalia is not consistent from the viewpoint of limiting federal power as his credo. But it's also not his credo, it's an originalist interpretation of the constitution. I wouldn't even say that more-often-than-not he votes to limit federal power, just more often than about anyone else on the court who isn't named Clarence Thomas. And you'll note if you read the Windsor opinion that Scalia starts by pointing out that SCOTUS should not even have heard the case. Gasp, it's almost like he's pretty hardline about what the federal judiciary should be deciding when they take cases. Disagree with his politics all you want, seems like about everyone here does that, but quit framing things in a lazy way to make them inconsistent when the continuing thread through this opinions are pretty evident.

 

As an aside, I'd add that calling him "Tony" repeatedly is as cringe-y as fans who insist on using shoot names.

 

But you are correct, you did not roll out that last argument. I did not attribute it to you either, but it did appear in this thread.

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So it's wrong for SCOTUS to overturn DOMA passed by the People’s Representatives in Congress and signed by an elected President because they find it in conflict with the 14th Amenmend, but it's okay for SCOTUS to overturn campaign finance laws because they find it in conflict with the First Amendment.

 

Again, he's not consistent. He doesn't care for campaign finance, so it's okay. We all know he really hates tuh gayz, so it's bad.

 

As far as "Tony", I'm also someone who calls Clinton "Bubba" and "Big Dog" and "Big Dawg", and Tony's court college RBG or Notorious RBG, and one of my senators DiFi. So... if it's a bug up your ass, I tend to fly that bug across party lines, and across niches within the parties.

 

As far as using wrestler's real names, it depends on the wrestlers. If you're talking to Konnan backstage in Tijuana, and everyone is calling him Carlos, and when he reaches out for the first time to shake your hand and say "Carlos"... you kind of get in the habit over the years of calling him Carlos. With Psic, I don't even remember his name and don't really care. You'll probably never see my use Shawn's real name, or Road Warrior Hawks even though they share the same one. On the flip side, does anyone really have a problem calling Mick "Mick", or should we keep the bug in the ass folks happy and call him Cactus or Mankind or Dude?

 

So... eh. Pointing to "Tony" and going on "shoot names!" is a bit like going spelling flame. You have a point on Scalia's stuff. I don't actually agree with it, though I run into it regularly when his consistency / inconsistency comes up. But I also wasn't calling you a dick or a Tony-mark or a rube when disagreeing with it. Was just disagreeing. A rare occassion when I can say to someone else that you might want to chill a bit.

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I had a conversation this weekend with someone who claimed processed and non-organic foods is causing male breasts to grow larger and altering hormones that results in other males being attracted to these larger man boobs and turning gay.

 

The whole 15-minute conversation was like a never-ending Ultimate Warrior promo.

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The issue for Scalia's dissent in Windsor was that there wasn't even a controversy for the Supreme Court to hear. In both the Windsor and Obergefell dissents, Scalia point out that if you want to undue these laws, use the democratic process to do it. Don't apply a haphazard Equal Protection/Due Process/kinda both/kinda neither analysis to it. Even supporters of the result of Obergefell have found flaws with the legal reasoning that the majority articulated, especially considering there were legitimate legal grounds to get to their conclusion.

 

I know some guys go by their real names, some don't, it's more a combination of complaining about someone while also using their 'shoot' name, or in this case, 'Tony', a diminutive form of his name. For what it's worth, I don't think "The Notorious RBG" is exactly a diminutive, but you're right that other names will cross party lines for who they piss off ("Barry" vs. "Dubya"). So it's not so much using the name, whether Tony here or a wrestler's real name, but more how it's used. That was also a minor point here, one that I literally called an aside, but I get your point. Tone is hard to convey in text.

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