Forum Discussion

I'm surprised Alito didn't bring in a choir of orphans to cry behind him during the hearing. Oh no, they're asking him QUESTIONS, and expecting ANSWERS, oh boo hoo...

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

Sound familiar?

*Sigh* I don't know how many times I have to state that I thought Clinton was a smug jerk and a smarmy excuse for a human being, and that attacks on his character don't upset me in the slightest. That aside, HOW, exactly, does Clinton's evasion of questions almost ten years ago have ANY bearing on Alito's confirmation at all?

I was actually replying to Good Will, but you do bring up a good point Stevie, you mind if I call you Stevie? It has nothing to do with the Alito hearings. I think he will be a good addition to the Supreme Court. Better then Bush's lawyer. I didn't know Ms. Meyers, she resigned before she could answer anything, so, there is no real fraim of reference that I can decide if she was a good candidate. I think Roberts was an absolute surpurb choice, he walked circles around the senate during the hearings. But, Alito, he appears to definately be biased, he is biased in an area I could appreciate, being a conservative myself, but they are not exactly supposed to be biased. All in all, I think he will be good.

>"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
>Sound familiar?
Sounds like you can not stay on topic!!!
It also sounds like maybe you should stay out of people private lives. I know, I know, consensual sex between adults is a horrible crime. Much worse then changing votes for money.
Oh wait!!! Is not that last one ILLEGAL????

>you mind if I call you Stevie
Do you mind staying respectful? You do not see me naming you Pity or something. Seriously, TJ can nott seem to type up the word Good, and you seem to like calling people you do nto know by cutsey names. Having a debate does nto imply having person attacks.

>But, Alito, he appears to definately be biased
Here is the thing about judges. They are supposed to be in impartial. Now its much harder to do rela life, but to specifically got to the bench with an agenda to over turn this or that, sounds liek judicial activism to me. And I do believe conservatives said they do nto like that. Or is this anotehr flip-flop?

Actually, that Stevie question, yea...your not stevie, so please don't answer for him. And as for the respect thing, thats why I asked if he minds if I call him stevie. If he has a problem with it, then I will stop. So... thankyou for answering for him and showing his concern. Allow Stevie to reply for himself. I don't know why you would call me Pity, but...okay.

Well...it looks like you got a lot of personal anger built up, you should take a vacation or something, I sense much hostility in you my young Goody.

Your right! I do have problems staying on topic, my mind races alot, its fun though. That was always my problem in my research writing class, somehow, (and I don't know how) but I appear capable of avoiding it in a public speaking class. What a relief.

Liberals should know something about flip flopping.

>you should take a vacation
Ya paying? I do not think I can afford it. After all Mr. Bush needs as much of my tax money as possible to pay for the war. Right? You see, since I do not earn a lot fo money I got none of the whatch ya call it..."tax cuttsss".

>Liberals should know something about flip flopping.
What should we know?

Yea, I'm sure your not making much money is Bush's fault. I bet you wouldn't mind if a demmy raises your taxes instead?! Thats...interesting. I'm saving up for a vacation of my own. I don't make much money either, which is Bush's fault.

Everything is his fault. He caused my cellphone to break down last week too! I even blame him on my voice message.

Would you quit highlighting all of my text and posting them on your own post?! My words are copyrighted.

As for the flip flopping thing...ummm...I'll just let that one hang for a while, see if anybody picks up on it. Maybe somebody can explain it to you.

cough *kerry* clears throat.

>Would you quit highlighting all of my text and posting them on your own post?! My words are copyrighted.
This is just to point out to which topic you are reffering to.

>As for the flip flopping thing.
Oh I thought you mean this:

"President Bush -- April 20, 2004:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

But I guess he4 does nto need them anymore.
flip-flippity-flop. Illegal one at that.

When listening to citizens, the court orders still are required. When listening to terrorists overseas, who might be talking to terrorists here, that is, essentially, a military action that doesn't require a court order.

Does Bush really have to distinguish between what's done to our enemies in a war with what's done to citizens? When the military has to go into houses in Iraq or Afghanistan to go after enemies or whatever, our soldiers aren't going for a search warrant first. And if Bush says "we don't break down doors and search houses without warrants", does he really need to say "oh, except for soldiers pursuing enemies in Iraq?"

>>"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
>>Sound familiar?
>Sounds like you can not stay on topic!!!
>It also sounds like maybe you should stay out of people >private lives. I know, I know, consensual sex between >adults is a horrible crime. Much worse then changing >votes for money.
>Oh wait!!! Is not that last one ILLEGAL????
Oh wait, isn't changing money for votes exactly what the Democrats did in the 2004 election, and oh wait, are you saying that perjury is not a crime?

>>you mind if I call you Stevie
>Do you mind staying respectful? You do not see me >naming you Pity or something. Seriously, TJ can nott >seem to type up the word Good, and you seem to like >calling people you do nto know by cutsey names. Having >a debate does nto imply having person attacks.
Why are you always spelling not as "nto?"
>>But, Alito, he appears to definately be biased
>Here is the thing about judges. They are supposed to >be in impartial.
The last time I checked there is no where in the constitution that says judges have to be impartial, I do know that the proper role of Supreme court judges is to interpret that U.S. Constitution.

>Now its much harder to do rela life, but to specifically >got to the bench with an agenda to over turn this or >that, sounds liek judicial activism to me. And I do >believe conservatives said they do nto like that. Or is >this anotehr flip-flop?
Just because a judge wants to turn something over, specifically with an agenda to turn over cases that were unconstitutional is NOT judicial activism.
Judicial activism does not mean judges wanting to make constitutional decisions.

>Does Bush really have to distinguish between what's done to our
>enemies in a war with what's done to citizens?
Have you actually followed the details of the issue?
Wiretapping of any call that is between a person in US and international caller still requires a wiretap. Given how it includes a person in US!!!!!!

>Just because a judge wants to turn something over, specifically with an agenda to turn over cases that were unconstitutional is NOT judicial activism.
>Judicial activism does not mean judges wanting to make constitutional decisions

I do nto have clue what you just said.

Yes, I have been following the issue. Bin Laden talking to Al Qaeda members in the U.S. is not the same as you talking to your mom. The latter requires a court order, the former does not. Jack Kemp had a good line, saying that it's apparently okay to drop a cruise missile on these guys, but it's not okay to listen to their phone calls.

Ok, lets repeat, since you do not seems to actually know the US law.
Wiretapping of any call that is between a person in US and international caller still requires a wiretap. Given how it includes a person in US!!!!!!

> but it's not okay to listen to their phone calls.
Sure it is. Just get a warrant. Retroactively if its really necessary.

OK, following my usual pattern, I'll ignore the digressions and only comment on the main discussion. Alito does have a conservative agenda... but it's a *judicially* conservative agenda, not *politically* conservative. A judicial conservative isn't the opposite of a liberal, it's the opposite of an activist judge. Basically, a judicial conservative believes that the *first* place you look to decide a constitutional issue is the Constitution... not precedent, not "evolving standards of decency", not "unenumerated rights" and "penumbras". In other words, if the Constitution explicitly says something can be done, it can be done, even if it's unfair or inadvisable, if the Constitution says something can't be done, it can't be done, even if it would be really good for the country and improve people's rights... and if the Constitution says neither, then it's not a constitutional issue, and it belongs to the States. A judicial activist believes (and this is not a caricature, it's the basic definition of judicial activism) that what is important is getting the right *outcome* to the case, meaning they try to figure out which ruling is "fair" or which one will "address the needs of the evolving culture" and then search for a flimsy constitutional justification for this.

A judicial conservative is as follows: If conservative, he will find in favor of reasonable restrictions on firearms (no RPGs, to name a fairly uncontroversial one) because the Second Amendment is not absolute (a Democratic idea), and he will also find in favor of reasonable allowances for optional prayer in public schools, because the First Amendment only prohibits "an establishment of religion" not any religion in government (a Republican view). If liberal... he will rule *exactly the same* because the Constitution is more important than his politics.

An judicial conservative will get a case about Roe, for instance, and his first question will be "Was Roe decided in accord with the Constitution?" A judicial activist, on the other hand, will first ask, "Did Roe advance the cause of gender equity?"

The upshot of all this is basically that the Constitution is served by judicial conservatives, regardless of party. I would rather a Court of 9 judicial conservatives, even if all were Democrats, than a Court of 9 activists, even if all were staunch Republicans. Activism is not simply the propensity to overturn decisions, nor is conservatism the propensity to uphold them. Conservatism (in the judicial sense) is the propensity to base every decision on the law *first and foremost*, and activism is the propensity to use the Court for social change, regardless of what the law actually says.

Anthony:
> OK, following my usual pattern, I'll ignore the digressions and only comment on the main discussion.
Hmmm...from now on I will put the name of the person I am reply to. I think some of my to other people are getting confused.

>the *first* place you look to decide a constitutional issue is the Constitution... not precedent

But in his hearing he continuosly defaulted to "stare decisis", the precedent clause. I do hope you watched the hearings.

>In other words, if the Constitution explicitly says something can be done, it can be done, even if it's unfair or inadvisable, if the Constitution says something can't be done, it can't be done, even if it would be really good for the country and improve people's rights... and if the Constitution says neither, then it's not a constitutional issue, and it belongs to the States.

But if you follow that philosophy, then the 4th Ammendment definately trumps when it comes to the warrantless NSA wiretapping.
More over there are a number of issues which were not considered in the constitution simply because they did not exist at that time. Or they existed or were specifically left out of the constitution. Or were in constitution and were not followed. I mean slavery is definately one of those. If I recall correctly they only time slavery is mention is when they were defining how many votes does each state gets based on the population (slaves counted for 2/3 of a person). Or take human cloning. I bet founders when writing the Constitution never even imagined the problem of stem cells. Hell they did not even say that blacks were people who could have freedom and vote on their own accord. Or women voting rights.

Let me actually explore this a bit (this is a bit off topic, bear with me since I only mean to apply this example in this current debate of set constitution/living constitution):
I have heard the debate that "right to abortion" is not in the constitution.
Well "fetus right to life" is also not in the constitution. Now for it to apply, a fetus needs to be defined as a person. Is one cell a person? How about two cells? Just because it has a potential to become a person it does not mean it is one. Because by that logic ever sperm and egg cell would be one, the both have potential (maybe not the same as fertilized egg, but sitll). So since the "fetus right to live is not a constitution" we would first need an Ammendment to say that a fetus is a person. If you ask why, I'd have to point that we needed an Ammendment to recognize that a person can voting can be based on gender. And we needed same for "skin color/race".

And then the constitutional rights would apply to it.
I dare say that is a good argument. :)

//Hmmm...from now on I will put the name of the person I am reply to. I think some of my to other people are getting confused.//
No, don't worry, that was my first post to this thread. I wasn't saying anyone had digressed from an issue I had raised, I just meant that the entire thread had gone astray and rather than reply to the extraneous stuff that had been brought in, I would just comment on the original topic of the thread.

//But in his hearing he continuosly defaulted to "stare decisis", the precedent clause. I do hope you watched the hearings.//
Well, first off a semantic issue... "stare decisis" is merely a judicial doctrine, not a clause in any written law. Other than that though... of course he did. That's the standard fallback for judicial appointees when they are pressured on "litmus test" issues that they really shouldn't have to answer (particularly questions about how they would rule in specific situations - which it is generally accepted that they *shouldn't* answer because it might bias future cases).

//More over there are a number of issues which were not considered in the constitution simply because they did not exist at that time. Or they existed or were specifically left out of the constitution. Or were in constitution and were not followed. I mean slavery is definately one of those. If I recall correctly they only time slavery is mention is when they were defining how many votes does each state gets based on the population (slaves counted for 2/3 of a person). Or take human cloning. I bet founders when writing the Constitution never even imagined the problem of stem cells. Hell they did not even say that blacks were people who could have freedom and vote on their own accord. Or women voting rights.//
Absolutely right... and all those things that got left out required an official amendment to be put in... not some judicial mumbo-jumbo about "penumbras" and "unenumerated rights".

//I have heard the debate that "right to abortion" is not in the constitution.
Well "fetus right to life" is also not in the constitution.//
Absolutely right again. That means that there is neither a constitutional right to abortion *nor* a constitutional prohibition on it. I've never argued that abortion itself it unconstitutional (I *personally* believe life begins at conception, and therefore it's a "no person shall be deprived of life... etc." issue, but I admit that's opinion, not anything I could argue in court). I merely have argued that a ban on abortion is *also* not unconstitutional. In the same way, there is no constitutional right to drive a car, but there is of course also no constitutional ban on driving. The Constitution simply has nothing to say on the issue, and therefore lower laws prevail.

//if you follow that philosophy, then the 4th Ammendment definately trumps when it comes to the warrantless NSA wiretapping.//
It certainly would trump if it applied. What the Amendment says (in part) however, is merely: "The right of the people... against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..." Note well (and this is judicially supported - see "exigent circumstances" doctrine) that while the Amendment mentions searches and mentions warrants, and the two are clearly connected, there is no sense in which it mandates that the latter is an absolute prerequisite for the former.

Anthony:
I actually would like your input on this (partly a repost):

> (I *personally* believe life begins at conception, and therefore it's a "no person shall be deprived of life... etc." issue, but I admit that's opinion, not anything I could argue in court).

There seems to definately be a disagreement on when life begins.
For exampled I do not concider a single-celled fertilized egg a human.
But the whole question is this:
Is one cell a person? How about two cells? Just because it has a potential to become a person it does not mean it is one. Because by that logic ever sperm and egg cell would be one, the both have potential (maybe not the same as fertilized egg, but sitll).

So since the "fetus right to live" is not a constitution we would first need an Ammendment to say that a fetus is a person. If you ask why, I'd have to point that we needed an Ammendment to recognize that a person can voting can be based on gender. And we needed same for "skin color/race". We needed clarifications on others, why not these

And then it can be argued that the constitutional rights would apply to it.

Well, I do think one cell is a person if it will develop into one if left to itself in its natural environment (a fertilized zygote will, while a single sperm or unfertilized egg will not - they will simply die off if left to themselves in their natural environment). Incidentally, I'm OK with the "morning-after pill" because according to all I've read, it stops pregnancy before it starts rather than actually ending it like the "abortion pill".

Here's my argument... it's long, so bear with me. I'll start with a list of premises that I pretty much assume everyone agrees with.

1) It is wrong to kill a baby a day before it is due to be delivered [P]

2) Two qualitatively identical beings have the same moral rights [P]

3) *In circumstances in which it exists*, the right to life is a moral right (I'm not presupposing that it exists in any specific circumstance, only that it would be classified as a moral right, rather than a civil right, legal right, etc.) [P]

4) There is no catastrophic event that occurs (under normal circumstances) between the time one day from birth, and the time one second earlier than that (i.e. between T-minus 24:00:01 and T-minus 24:00:00). [P]

5) It is wrong to kill a being iff ("if and only if") that being has a right to life. (Note: the "iff" means it goes both ways, so it also follows that "a being has a right to life iff it is wrong to kill that being") [P]

6) Barring any catastrophic occurrance, a being at any time "t" is qualitatively identical to the same being at time "t - 1" where "t" is measured in seconds. (i.e. a being does not become qualitatively different over the course of one second unless something really major occurs in that second) [P]

Now, if any of these premises are objectionable, let me know, but if not, then continue reading. For those who haven't seen a formal proof, the notation is as follows: the [P]'s above mean "premise" (something that will be taken for granted and not proven). [1, 2] means that the preceding line is proven by lines 1 and 2 (and the same for any other numbers). If you want to call the proof "wrong", then you *must* mean one of two things (this is a rule of logic, not my rule): 1) You deny one of the premises, or 2) you think that one of the later lines is not proven by the lines I say it is proven by (i.e. an error of inference). If you cannot point to a line that you object to in these ways, then you *must* accept the conclusion of the proof as true (because the universally-accepted rules of logic state that the conclusion *cannot* be false if it is deduced from only true premises and true inferences). Now, I will copy steps 1-6 from above for reference, and move on:

1) It is wrong to kill a baby a day before it is due to be delivered [P]

2) Two qualitatively identical beings have the same moral rights [P]

3) *In circumstances in which it exists*, the right to life is a moral right (I'm not presupposing that it exists in any specific circumstance, only that it would be classified as a moral right, rather than a civil right, legal right, etc.) [P]

4) There is no catastrophic event that occurs (under normal circumstances) between the time one day from birth, and the time one second earlier than that (i.e. between T-minus 24:00:01 and T-minus 24:00:00). [P]

5) It is wrong to kill a being iff ("if and only if") that being has a right to life. (Note: the "iff" means it goes both ways, so it also follows that "a being has a right to life iff it is wrong to kill that being") [P]

6) Barring any catastrophic occurrance, a being at any time "t" is qualitatively identical to the same being at time "t - 1" where "t" is measured in seconds. (i.e. a being does not become qualitatively different over the course of one second unless something really major occurs in that second) [P]

7) At the time one day before it is due to be delivered, a baby has a right to life [1, 5]

8) At the time one day and one second before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is due to be delivered [4, 6]

9) At the time one day and one minute before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 8 many times]

10) At the time one day and one hour before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 9 many times]

11) At the time two days before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 10 many times]

12) At the time one week before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 11 many times]

13) At the time one month before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 12 many times]

14) At the time nine months before it is due to be delivered, a baby is qualitatively identical to the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [repeat step 13 many times]

15) At the time nine months before it is due to be delivered, a baby has the same moral rights as the same baby exactly one day before it is delivered [2, 14]

16) At the time nine months before it is due to be delivered, a baby has a right to life [3, 7, 15]

17) It is wrong to kill a baby nine months before it is due to be delivered (and by identical argument, at any other time during the pregnancy) [5, 16]

Now, the fact that I phrased this as a moral matter means it does not prove that abortion violates a constitutional right to life. In fact, I do not claim that I can prove that conclusively. However, I feel it is a simple enough extrapolation.

If there is a flaw in my argument, please point it out, but I hope this convinces at least one person. Please note that the *only* moral assumption I have made here is that "It is wrong to kill a baby one day before it is due to be delivered." Other than that, I haven't even come within 100 yards of a religious argument, so I don't want to read anyone complaining that I'm trying to push my religion on them.

I understood your argument. In fact its somewhat ingenious.
Maybe you should have used a factorial instead of repeating t-1 all the time. Would have been more fun --> (day of birth)!

You probably realize that such argument will not work in court though right? Because by such argument if lets say you stepped on a seed of an endagered tree species by accident you can be sued for CUTTING down a grown tree.
Or that I can sell you a junk of metal/plastic/sillicon and say that had it gone on its normal course it would have become a car.

There is insurmountable number of better examples that could be presented here.

Another interesting example is this: A woman does not know right away if lets say a condom broke and she is pregnant the next day. So if the next day/next week she goes out and drinks so much it, she got alcohol poisoning and affects her body so much that it causes her body to abort the cells shoudl she be charged with manslaughter 2 (causing death thru negligence)? Because again had the natural course been allow, there woudl have been a baby

Now you can claim that this one of those extrordinary circumstances. But this is so far into teh gray are, I think I lost my way back :)

Just for the kicks an example and a joke: Male mastrubation kills sperms on of which, had they been allowed to go the natural course would have become a baby. Natural course of course being sex.

I think it still remains that before we can constitutionally claim that a one celled fetus has a right to live, we need an Ammendment to recognize it as a human being.

Actually, I can distinguish every one of your examples... In the tree example, there is no *moral* issue involved. It is not *wrong* to cut down a grown tree. Therefore Premise 1 is denied. In the car example, the hunk of junk *will not* naturally become a car. It will require very deliberate and difficult intentional action to make it into one. Also, there is *still* no moral principle involved.

As for sperm, that contradicts Premise 6 (i.e. there *is* a catastrophic event, namely the moment of actual conception... and I use "catastrophic" only in its technical sense, not its connotation as "disasterous"). Also, again, for a sperm to become a baby requires deliberate action (the act of sex). Left solely to itself, a sperm cell will merely be reabsorbed by the testes.

Also, the example of the woman with the broken condom is still pretty simple - for negligence, the courts use what is called the "rational persons test". If a "rational person" *should* have expected the negative effect of her action, then it was negligent. In your example, if she didn't know the condom broke (and a rational person would be justified in assuming it didn't, since the breakage rate is fairly low), then she has no rational reason to think she might be pregnant. On the other hand, if a woman *does* know she's pregnant and drinks enough to abort the embryo (or, as bad or worse, cause serious developmental defects and make the child's life a living hell), then she *is* guilty of a crime (IMO).

The biggest problem with your reply, however, is that you haven't pointed out *where* my argument is wrong. You can say it is disingenuous, but to deny the conclusion, you would have to either deny one of the 6 premises, or deny one of the logical inferences I used (or deny that the basic principles of logic are necessary truths... but no one's crazy enough to do that). If you'd really like me to put it into fully symbolic logic so that the inferences are 100% explicit and verifiable, I can, and I'm moreover certain they're right, so I'd recommend you try to find a premise to deny if you really want to falsify it.

If you can't do that, then the principles of basic logic *do not allow* my conclusion to be false... "Valid inferences from true premises only lead to true conclusions" (to paraphrase a basic rule of logic). To say "the premises are true, and the logic is sound, but the conclusion is false" is to basically falsify all of logic and therefore make the very concepts of "proof" or "truth" utterly meaningless.

Ooops...
I posted this in another thread by accident:

Alright, after a week of thought, I have a QUESTION FOR YOU :)
I am warnig that is a conandrum.

If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with FIVE blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?

P.S.
blastulae - An early embryonic form produced by cleavage of a fertilized ovum and consisting of a spherical layer of cells surrounding a fluid-filled cavity.

I like this cartoon! Although, I didn't hear anything about his wife crying, and I keep up with political current events pretty well. I don't see why she should be crying, where it should be Alito who should be crying, crying out of pity. Poor old Democrats, they just can't find their brains. Or like Judge Roberts, when he was going through his hearings, he walked circles around those senaters and they still thought they had a brain!