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 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Trump & Co wants to nominate and confirm a new judge before the midterms.

Who would have thought.

Advise and Consent. Who has control over the Senate?

The Trump party!

I am betting this is the nominee

Well then why chose the Republicans over the Democrats? What is the attraction? If they are both the same why support the one with a sex offender as a leader?

 Da Boss wrote:
Well then why chose the Republicans over the Democrats? What is the attraction? If they are both the same why support the one with a sex offender as a leader?

Are you serious?

To avoid more people like the 9th, or who would support HRC's "common sense Australia style gun regulation."
Again this is why the nonhardcore Trumpshirts voted against HRC.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Trump & Co wants to nominate and confirm a new judge before the midterms.

Who would have thought.

Advise and Consent. Who has control over the Senate?

The Trump party!

I am betting this is the nominee

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*

*fraz is so right... bleh!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Well then why chose the Republicans over the Democrats? What is the attraction? If they are both the same why support the one with a sex offender as a leader?

Are you serious?

To avoid more people like the 9th, or who would support HRC's "common sense Australia style gun regulation."
Again this is why the nonhardcore Trumpshirts voted against HRC.

Almost 60% of trump voters were polled in saying that the SCOTUS picks were #1 reason why they had voted for Trump. That should tell you something...

I mean, okay. But next time cut the dishonest crap about the voters having a say and just admit you are all for power for powers sake whatever the method used to obtain it, so people know where you stand.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Trump & Co wants to nominate and confirm a new judge before the midterms.

Who would have thought.

Advise and Consent. Who has control over the Senate?

Oh boy there is that hypocrisy I was talking about

 Da Boss wrote:
I mean, okay. But next time cut the dishonest crap about the voters having a say and just admit you are all for power for powers sake whatever the method used to obtain it, so people know where you stand.

Who's this "you" crap?

You know, as much as the UK Politics thread whines, it looks so green on the opposite side of hte pond. Abortion was legalized in Ireland, sane, if somewhat odd, people run the governments, business is booming compared to America...


Brace for a wave of people seeking asylum from North America. Particularly with Trump demanding that right to a fair trial be done away with and his supporters frothing to let him do it (until it's them that want one).

 Stevefamine wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stevefamine wrote:
Any choice that would slow down drug legalization and shut down a lot of possible future Trudeau tier progressive ideas would be ideal

Yes, because locking people in prison for long sentences (after which their employment prospects are terrible and odds of ending up back in prison high) for a victimless crime, using a drug that is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, is good policy and efforts to change it must be opposed at all costs.

Victim-less crime? Regular users will defend their Marijuana use, proceed to buy illegal cartel products, and influence their friends to smoke.

And alcohol and booze are different...how?

I have no issues with medical use or CBD. I'd aim for Acid/Mushrooms medical legalization well before I even touched allowing recreational pot usage. I hate the fact that I regularly smell it in the city.

I hate that I have to smell vomit and stale beer sometimes. I hate that I have to smell cigarette smoke walking down the street. Not seeing how they're different from weed.

I also had an issue recently with a tenant living in my first investment property selling pot out of it so this solidified my anti-pot stance recently.

Thats an issue with tennants being gakky and doing illegal things, which is hardly unique to marijuana. If they had set up a still in the garage instead would it make you anti-booze?

Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

Legalize it, regulate it, then fine, I'm on board. But to continue to purchase it while its still illegal goes beyond thumbing your nose at authorities. It helps prop up the cartels in Mexico, as well as the potential the funds are reaching all the way back to organizations like the Taliban. That's the point where folks are deciding that their "innocent" high is more important then peoples lives.

 djones520 wrote:
Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

Right there we have what we refer to as a dishonest argument. In response to the question as to why marijuana shouldn't be legalized bring up that criminals supply it and profit from it because it is currently illegal, something that would not happen if it was legal.

Weird, it’s almost like legally produced and regulated weed would address that issue...

 d-usa wrote:
Weird, it’s almost like legally produced and regulated weed would address that issue...

I don't disagree.

 djones520 wrote:
Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

we are being more than a wee bit disingenuous if we don't acknowledge how much of a hand criminal and terrorist groups have had, and continue to have, with booze and tobacco.

Likewise, if I walk into a dispensary here, every bit of flower is tracked from a licensed in-state grower through labs and distributors and through to the retailer before sale. The people buying from these establishments aren't funding terrorists on the other side of the planet.

If we're going to get into street dealers selling stuff from unlicensed operations frm who knows where, or states where they havent legalized it well, again, hardly unique to weed, and if we're getting into the "funding terrorism" thing through multiple degrees of separation, well, lets think about how much oil sales have done the same thing and nobody loses sleep over it.

More to the point, my tax dollars have been funding the largest opiate boom in human history, mostly legally, with orders of magnitude more devastating medical and social consequences than marijuana has ever had, while the poppy crops in Afghanistan under US occupation have never been more productive and active.

The "weed funds terrorism" argument just doesn't hold water for me in such context.

So, as a non-American who studies politics for a living, I still struggle to understand what sort of madness would allow the Supreme Court to, for example, scrap Roe v. Wade, or how the Second Amendment could suddenly start meaning something else after 200 years of consistent interpretation (two examples that came most readily to mind; I'm sure there's countless others). Isn't that blatantly usurping the authority of the legislature? You've already asked the Supreme Court for their opinion on Roe v. Wade and it's already been delivered, just as the interpretation of the Second Amendment had already been made. Shouldn't Congress be the ones to change these laws, rather than the Supreme Court changing their mind for entirely political reasons?

 Peregrine wrote:
Also, I look forward to seeing the liberal justice Trump nominates, given his party's position on the importance of maintaining balance in the court.

I would honestly like him to re-nominate Garland.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So, as a non-American who studies politics for a living, I still struggle to understand what sort of madness would allow the Supreme Court to, for example, scrap Roe v. Wade,

It'll revert to state-by-state laws.

or how the Second Amendment could suddenly start meaning something else after 200 years of consistent interpretation (two examples that came most readily to mind; I'm sure there's countless others).

2nd amendment was pretty consistent until the last 20-30 years or so, and it wasn't until Heller that fully re-enforced it was an individual right.

Isn't that blatantly usurping the authority of the legislature?

Nope. They can only rule on the cases put forth in front of them.

You've already asked the Supreme Court for their opinion on Roe v. Wade and it's already been delivered, just as the interpretation of the Second Amendment had already been made.

Opinions *do* change... as the recent cases that fully repudiates the Korematsu ruling.

Shouldn't Congress be the ones to change these laws, rather than the Supreme Court changing their mind for entirely political reasons?

Congress *can* pass laws... but, as one of the co-equal branch, it's not plenary as it must be signed by POTUS (or overridden by Congress) and when brought to the court, it must be kosher to US Constitution.

I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

On another note;

It is quite telling how President Trump keeps whining and moaning about capitalism and it's consequences (see the current Harley Davidson debacle).

It appears that he is a dirty Leftist commie.....who knew?

...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

Your example starts off with "ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not". That is really THE issue SCOTUS is supposed to determine. The rest of your example is really a very poor example because of this.

 skyth wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

Right there we have what we refer to as a dishonest argument. In response to the question as to why marijuana shouldn't be legalized bring up that criminals supply it and profit from it because it is currently illegal, something that would not happen if it was legal.

Not that the ones currently using it can honestly say they give a damn, if they’ve been watching any news at all, about human life. They really can’t say they do, when tens of thousands of people a year are killed by the cartels fighting over control of drug distribution.

Relapse wrote:

 skyth wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

Right there we have what we refer to as a dishonest argument. In response to the question as to why marijuana shouldn't be legalized bring up that criminals supply it and profit from it because it is currently illegal, something that would not happen if it was legal.

Not that the ones currently using it can honestly say they give a damn, if they’ve been watching any news at all, about human life. They really can’t say they do, when tens of thousands of people a year are killed by the cartels fighting over control of drug distribution.

Compared to the 88k lives lost due to alcohol, and almost 500k from smoking since ya know we are throwing around numbers

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

It does seem odd that they (the Supreme Court, who is supposed to make rulings on constitutionality) decides that the Constitution - who in many American's eyes seems to be seen in an almost Biblical light - meant something different all along.
Did the previous Supreme Court judges get the Constitution wrong?
Do the current ones?

The parallels that can be drawn to Radical Evangelical Christians and their attitudes to what the Bible supposedly means (or "meant all along"), which appears to change sometimes drastically in the light of new science or changes on society, is pretty obvious.

 CptJake wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

Your example starts off with "ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not". That is really THE issue SCOTUS is supposed to determine. The rest of your example is really a very poor example because of this.

That was meant as a "ignoring whether it's constitutional in reality", just in case someone wanted to object to the example because it'd be unconstitutional in real life (I have no clue whether it would be or not).

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

Your example starts off with "ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not". That is really THE issue SCOTUS is supposed to determine. The rest of your example is really a very poor example because of this.

That was meant as a "ignoring whether it's constitutional in reality", just in case someone wanted to object to the example because it'd be unconstitutional in real life (I have no clue whether it would be or not).

The point is 'what is popular' should have zero influence, the question the SC should answer is 'Is the law constitutional?'

Anything is consititutional as long as 5 people in the Court think it is.

 CptJake wrote:

The point is 'what is popular' should have zero influence, the question the SC should answer is 'Is the law constitutional?'

Except, however, "what is popular?" is all that matters these days. That's why we talk about and have liberal/moderate/conservative judges. If the only thing that matters is "Is the law constitutional?", then we would genuinely want impartial judges who are not beholden to any particular political school of thought.

The simple truth is, the SC should rarely, if ever, have to use it's power as a check against Congress. Congress should be doing a much better job of writing laws that don't need to be cycled through the courts all the time to be either upheld or struck down. But that's not what a lot of people want anymore. They want Congress to write crap laws that agree with their political views and hope that they can squeak past five SC justices. When they get those five, they proudly proclaim they were right all along, when they don't, they scream "activist judges!"

At this point, why not just scrap Congress altogether and let SCOTUS write the laws? That's pretty much where we're going, in actual practice.

 whembly wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
So it does not bother you that your party says one thing and then does the opposite?

Welcome to US politics 101.

More like welcome to politics in general. Being a politician = being a hypocrite and a liar. It is the same in every country. The US isn't worse in that regard.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I know that opinions change, but what I mean is, shouldn't it be Congress' job to make the laws reflect that change in opinion, rather than the Supreme Court overturning its own previous rulings?

Let's make an example. Let's say there's a law that says you're not allowed to dress "lewdly" (ignoring completely whether it's constitutional or not) in public. The Supreme Court has, in this example, previously ruled that bottomless chaps meet the legal definition of "lewd" clothing that is banned. Since then, however, there has been a huge upsurge in popularity of bottomless chaps and opinion is now strong enough that the public wants a change. Shouldn't it be Congress re-wording the law in such a way that bottomless chaps were no longer banned, rather than it being the Supreme Court deciding that the previous ruling no longer applies to bottomless chaps?

It does seem odd that they (the Supreme Court, who is supposed to make rulings on constitutionality) decides that the Constitution - who in many American's eyes seems to be seen in an almost Biblical light - meant something different all along.
Did the previous Supreme Court judges get the Constitution wrong?
Do the current ones?

The parallels that can be drawn to Radical Evangelical Christians and their attitudes to what the Bible supposedly means (or "meant all along"), which appears to change sometimes drastically in the light of new science or changes on society, is pretty obvious.

Part of it is judicial philosophies. Do you go by what the words meant when it was originally written (in the time period and context it was written), or do you go by what the words mean today? The problem with that, however, is that what people say they want from a judge isn't always what they really want. What they ultimately want is a judge that rules in favor of their politics, regardless of which path the judge took to get there.

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Trump & Co wants to nominate and confirm a new judge before the midterms.

Who would have thought.

Advise and Consent. Who has control over the Senate?

The Trump party!

I am betting this is the nominee

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*

*fraz is so right... bleh!

That haircut indeed warrants a very, very big NO.