Leading Candidate To Replace Supreme Court Justice

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[media][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBqdKKKRrrg&feature=player"]http://www.youtube.c...&feature=player[/url][/media]
She sounds exactly like Rosie O'Donnell...

[Arco]

I just want to say that it is not uncommon to pick justices who haven't previously served as judges. There have, in fact, been forty of them, out of 111 justices, the most recent being William Rehnquist, Chief Justice before John Roberts. Others include Chief Justice John Marshall (served as secretary of state), Louis Brandeis (a private attorney), Salmon P. Chase (secretary of the treasury), and Chief Justice Roger Taney, (treasury secretary and attorney general).

I'm pro-life, but as far as I can tell as a laymen of law, federal abortion protection is more or less settled law, and the Supreme Court hasn't even heard a significant abortion case since 1992. The only way to deal with abortion is a constitutional amendment that either bans it outright or clarifies the position of state authority vis a vis the federal government in making those sorts of decisions. Case law is settled law. Abortion is legal. It's not going anywhere without revising the Constitution.

Edited June 30, 2010 by Arco

[Lil Red]

[quote name='kamiller42' date='09 May 2010 - 08:39 PM' timestamp='1273462771' post='2107923']
Every time I see a picture of her, I can't help but wonder if she was a man.

[img]http://l.yimg.com/a/i/ww/news/2010/05/07/kagan1.jpg[/img]

A match?

[img]http://images.starpulse.com/pictures/2009/01/05/previews/Kevin%20James-RWP-001935.jpg[/img]
[/quote]
disgusting behavior from a Christian

[quote name='fides quarens intellectum' date='10 May 2010 - 10:39 AM' timestamp='1273513173' post='2108137']
could we maybe keep the discussion to her qualifications/limits/abilities, rather than poking fun at her facial features?

i can't find much on her (big surprise)...
[/quote]
agreed

[quote name='Lilllabettt' date='10 May 2010 - 11:53 AM' timestamp='1273517602' post='2108175']
1. I think it is somewhat mean spirited, sexist and lame to be attacking the nominee because she does not look "femme" enough. She looks neat, professional, and is wearing nice jewelry.

2. imo, her credentials blow chunks.

[size="1"]nvrmd. fqi beat me to it[/size]
[/quote]
agreed

[quote name='havok579257' date='12 May 2010 - 07:44 PM' timestamp='1273718645' post='2109698']
its so great when i see posts like these. let's make catholic's look great by attacking a women's looks. cause that is definatly something Jesus would have done, attack someone about how they look physcially. i don't like the nomaniee any more than most on here but i don't feel the need to insult the ladies looks. its just not catholic.
[/quote]
agreed

i can't believe this picking apart what she looks like - that's what liberals do!! be better than that people! for once i've actually used up all of my -1s.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 12:08 PM' timestamp='1277914085' post='2136196']
I'm pro-life, but as far as I can tell as a laymen of law, federal abortion protection is more or less settled law, and the Supreme Court hasn't even heard a significant abortion case since 1992. The only way to deal with abortion is a constitutional amendment that either bans it outright or clarifies the position of state authority vis a vis the federal government in making those sorts of decisions. Case law is settled law. Abortion is legal. It's not going anywhere without revising the Constitution.
[/quote]
Just like the Dred Scott settled the issue of the status of black slaves once and for all . . .

Roe v. Wade needs to be challenged by the states as much as possible. I'm not saying Roe v. Wade will be overturned anytime soon, but we need to fight and oppose the legal monstrosity of judicial activism that is Roe v. Wade in any way possible. (Roe v. Wade was a horrible decision, not just on the moral level, but on the constitutional level as well. There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution declaring abortion a universal "right" [or even implying as much].)

If Catholics/Christians take an attitude of complacent despair, and resign themselves to abortion on demand always being the law of the land, then this defeatism becomes self-fulfilling, especially if we keep using it as an excuse to vote for blatantly pro-abortion pols like Obama, who are guaranteed to appoint extremely pro-abort justices.
Sadly, it seems most American "Christians" and "Catholics" today lack any spine whatsover when it comes to fighting for what is right. It's a disgrace.

Edited June 30, 2010 by Socrates

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Socrates' date='30 June 2010 - 10:57 AM' timestamp='1277920624' post='2136227']
Just like the Dred Scott settled the issue of the status of black slaves once and for all . . .

Roe v. Wade needs to be challenged by the states as much as possible. I'm not saying Roe v. Wade will be overturned anytime soon, but we need to fight and oppose the legal monstrosity of judicial activism that is Roe v. Wade in any way possible. (Roe v. Wade was a horrible decision, not just on the moral level, but on the constitutional level as well. There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution declaring abortion a universal "right" [or even implying as much].)

If Catholics/Christians take an attitude of complacent despair, and resign themselves to abortion on demand always being the law of the land, then this defeatism becomes self-fulfilling, especially if we keep using it as an excuse to vote for blatantly pro-abortion pols like Obama, who are guaranteed to appoint extremely pro-abort justices.
Sadly, it seems most American "Christians" and "Catholics" today lack any spine whatsover when it comes to fighting for what is right. It's a disgrace.
[/quote]
it is this same attitude of complacent despair that many Catholics use to justify their votes.

[Arco]

Dred Scott is the wrong example to use, man, because it *did* settle the slavery issue. Until slavery was abolished by *constitutional amendment*. It was settled constitutional law until the Constitution was altered to change it. It was not overturned by the courts. It was not fixed by legislation. It required a fundamental change in the law that governs law.

So my point stands.

Roe v. Wade, and thus legal abortion, is the law of the land and unlikely to change without constitutional reform.

Edit: I do not believe we shall ever effect meaningful change on the abortion issue without the conversion of much of the nation to Christ. Perhaps we should focus less on legislation and courts and focus more on preaching the Gospel.

Edited June 30, 2010 by Arco

[Arco]

Look. Agree or disagree with the ruling all you want, but the United States is a common law jurisdiction, and case law *is* law. Legal precedent has the same power as statute, and so the right to an abortion is a protected right. It is. I'm not supporting it. I'm not defending it. But it is very much now a part of American constitutional law and jurisprudence, and this is not likely to change without changing the Constitution to explicitly remove it as such or at least to explicitly remove it as something Federal law is empowered to regulate.

But even that change won't stop abortion.

Evil will always exist in this world until Christ comes again. Let's preach the Gospel, and change hearts and minds. I have no expectation that any government made up of men is ever anything but an enemy of God.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 02:03 PM' timestamp='1277921009' post='2136232']
Dred Scott is the wrong example to use, man, because it *did* settle the slavery issue. Until slavery was abolished by *constitutional amendment*. It was settled constitutional law until the Constitution was altered to change it. It was not overturned by the courts. It was not fixed by legislation. It required a fundamental change in the law that governs law.

So my point stands.

Roe v. Wade, and thus legal abortion, is the law of the land and unlikely to change without constitutional reform.[/quote]
Of course, we wouldn't be in this mess if the Supreme Court "justices" actually went with what the constitution actually [i]says[/i], rather than effectively re-writing it to mean what they want. Roe v. Wade directly opposes the 10th Amendment.

[quote]Edit: I do not believe we shall ever effect meaningful change on the abortion issue without the conversion of much of the nation to Christ. Perhaps we should focus less on legislation and courts and focus more on preaching the Gospel.[/quote]
The two are not mutually exclusive, all current popular opinion to the contrary.

[Arco]

I didn't say they were exclusive, but one relies on man to do good, which he is not reliably capable of doing, and the other relies on God to move in man's heart. One places our trust in courts and legislatures. The other recognizes God as sovereign of the world.

I'm not a very political man. I believe conservatism and liberalism are both violent enemies of the Gospel. I don't trust the state to do good, and thus I'm not surprised when it does evil. Abortion is evil, and it's a systemic evil, and it cannot -- cannot under any circumstances -- be fixed by changing law, any more than the end of slavery made the situation of America's blacks substantively better; it simply thrust them from one evil into another. It took another hundred and more years before *hearts and minds* changed. They changed in large part because Dr. Martin Luther King and his ilk preached the Gospel.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 02:19 PM' timestamp='1277921950' post='2136241']
I didn't say they were exclusive, but one relies on man to do good, which he is not reliably capable of doing, and the other relies on God to move in man's heart. One places our trust in courts and legislatures. The other recognizes God as sovereign of the world.

I'm not a very political man. I believe conservatism and liberalism are both violent enemies of the Gospel. I don't trust the state to do good, and thus I'm not surprised when it does evil. Abortion is evil, and it's a systemic evil, and it cannot -- cannot under any circumstances -- be fixed by changing law, any more than the end of slavery made the situation of America's blacks substantively better; it simply thrust them from one evil into another. It took another hundred and more years before *hearts and minds* changed. They changed in large part because Dr. Martin Luther King and his ilk preached the Gospel.
[/quote]
Another anarchist in the house?


While we're at it, let's get rid of all laws against murder, theft, and rape.
After all, those things are still with us . . .

[Hassan]

[quote name='Socrates' date='30 June 2010 - 01:57 PM' timestamp='1277920624' post='2136227']
Just like the Dred Scott settled the issue of the status of black slaves once and for all . . .
[/quote]


It was settled law, until the Constitution was ammended. Which seems to fit exactly with his point.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 11:19 AM' timestamp='1277921950' post='2136241']
I didn't say they were exclusive, but one relies on man to do good, which he is not reliably capable of doing, and the other relies on God to move in man's heart. One places our trust in courts and legislatures. The other recognizes God as sovereign of the world.

I'm not a very political man. I believe conservatism and liberalism are both violent enemies of the Gospel. I don't trust the state to do good, and thus I'm not surprised when it does evil. Abortion is evil, and it's a systemic evil, and it cannot -- cannot under any circumstances -- be fixed by changing law, any more than the end of slavery made the situation of America's blacks substantively better; it simply thrust them from one evil into another. It took another hundred and more years before *hearts and minds* changed. They changed in large part because Dr. Martin Luther King and his ilk preached the Gospel.
[/quote]
but the law changed first, right? even though it took awhile for people to actually change their opinions?

[Hassan]

[quote name='Socrates' date='30 June 2010 - 02:21 PM' timestamp='1277922115' post='2136245']
Another anarchist in the house?


While we're at it, let's get rid of all laws against murder, theft, and rape.
After all, those things are still with us . . .
[/quote]
I admire the way you dance around him demolishing your arguments. That's some fine footwork. Mexican Salasa dancers would be proud.

[Arco]

I am something of a Christian anarchist, yes, but only something of one. I'm as much of one as St. Augustine was, when he spoke of the Gospel invalidating the need for law. I admit and acknowledge that we still need law and government and thus I don't support their abolition, but I also freely maintain that we [i]shouldn't[/t] need [i]any[/i] sovereign or law but God. We do, but we shouldn't.

That said, let's remember that it is the law that upholds abortion to begin with. It doesn't merely not restrain it -- it supports and encourages it. This is a much, much, much deeper problem than can be solved by merely outlawing the practice: it speaks to a culture that has no conception of honest morality, and governs itself by mere consent and personal autonomy. This is not just a legal problem -- this is a crisis of humanism, and it will not be solved by changing the law. If we overturn Roe, abortions will proceed apace, and people will work to overturn the overturning. The problem will not have been remedied.

Let's use as an example a society that allows open murder. Not just allows it, but encourages it as a positive good, an expression of a human right to self-assertion. Let us then say that this practice sparked, not *outrage*, but *confusion*, with vast swathes of the country saying "It should be scaled back, yes, but sometimes you just need to kill a man, and that needs to be protected." Would you say "this country needs a new law?" Or would you say "This needs to be a new country?"

[Arco]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='30 June 2010 - 03:27 PM' timestamp='1277922441' post='2136252']
but the law changed first, right? even though it took awhile for people to actually change their opinions?
[/quote]

My main point is that it wasn't the changing of the law that made the difference.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 11:33 AM' timestamp='1277922820' post='2136256']
My main point is that it wasn't the changing of the law that made the difference.
[/quote]
i'd say it started the difference though.

my main point is that we need both - changing law and changing hearts/minds. i'd say science is doing a good job of helping, and also a lot of the 'pro-life' ads that aren't intentionally pro-life (see AT&T, GE, etc.)

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote]By far the most interesting revelation about Elena Kagan to come out of the documents released by the Clinton library is her deep involvement in the partial-birth abortion fight, to the extent that it appears credible that she manipulated third-party findings to support her ideological position (and the position of the individuals she worked for at the time).
Senator Hatch pressed Kagan on questions surrounding this issue in the Senate Judiciary Committee today, but her answers remain unsatisfactory. Byron York reports in the aftermath:
"Before the Senate Judiciary Committee a short time ago, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan appeared reluctant to admit that she wrote a 1996 Clinton White House memo aimed at altering a key medical group’s opinion of whether partial birth abortion is medically necessary. The memo, reported yesterday by National Review, has caused a stir in conservative circles because it appeared that Kagan, then a White House policy aide, put words in the medical group’s mouth in order to soften its position on the controversial procedure. But when Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch brought the subject up with Kagan, he had a hard time getting her to admit that she did, in fact, write the document in question."
Kagan's eventual argument to Sen. Hatch was that she was only attempting to help the medical group express its true opinion on partial birth abortion.
But the actual document seems to tell a different story.

As Shannen Coffin at National Review and John Hinderaker at Powerline argue, Kagan actually supplemented her opinion on the issue for the medical group's original findings. The group in question, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), ended up opposing the ban even though their original findings held that the procedure is never medically necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. ACOG justified their opposition to the ban in part because of Kagan's suggestion that they change their findings to claim that partial birth abortion is necessary to save the life and protect the health of a pregnant woman.
This means that Kagan and ACOG colluded to change their findings to suit their ideological premises. In fact, the final draft of ACOG's findings, which followed Kagan's substance-changing edits, has gone on to become the benchmark report which supports the continued existence of this heinous procedure.

One must conclude in evaluating Kagan's fitness to join the Supreme Court that she has in at least one instance shown herself willing to selectively read or even present findings which she knows to be counterfactual in the blind pursuit of her notion of what is right.
This is not a charecteristic of a fair and impartial judge.[/quote] ~Thomas Peters http://www.americanprinciplesproject.org/blogs/why-kagans-partial-birth-shenanigans-matter.html

[Winchester]

[quote name='Arco' date='30 June 2010 - 02:19 PM' timestamp='1277921950' post='2136241']
I'm not a very political man. I believe conservatism and liberalism are both violent enemies of the Gospel. I don't trust the state to do good, and thus I'm not surprised when it does evil. Abortion is evil, and it's a systemic evil, and it cannot -- cannot under any circumstances -- be fixed by changing law, any more than the end of slavery made the situation of America's blacks substantively better; [/quote]
No one thinks it will solve the problem. But a state must have just laws, in spite of how its people behave. If legal abortion somehow diminished the number of abortions, it would still be required of the state to make abortion illegal.

The example of having legal abortion has provided people with an argument supporting abortion as an acceptable moral choice. It gives legitimacy to abortion. The cult of convenience is not strenghtening our nation.

[Arco]

I haven't said abortion *should* be legal, but I don't think its criminalization is even *possible* in the current climate, which is ultimately what I'm saying.

Again, the problem is cultural. Look at the analogy I drew above; is the problem our laws, or is the problem our country?

[Winchester]

I didn't think you did.

The problem [i]was[/i] our intelligentsia. Now it's both them and a significant portion of our people.