Scalia is a piece of crap.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That is the book. I haven't actually read it; I read his forward or introduction to it, I think in his other book of similar title (on Roe).

This is all IIRC. I could have picked it all up somewhere else.

Yeah, he is quite productive!

I mean, they did determine the fact that separate was inherently unequal, but generally the way I view it is, that trial courts make the findings of fact, send them up if appealed, and the app courts and sup courts rule based on their interpretations of the law. So, yes, facts were "found", but the main thrust is that they changed the legal interpretation of the 14th from allowing sep but equal to not.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If a police or other law enforcement person says tell me this or I will torture you then you are being punished for your actions. There really is no way around that truth.

No. I could easily torture you without making any judgment whatsoever as to the culpability of your actions. It's just a tool used for the very specific single purpose of inducing you to utter X, period. Nope, no punishment there. I suggest you pick up a dictionary.

And that's just pertaining to the lay definition of punishment. As has already been pointed out, two centuries of jurisprudence have developed a very distinct legal definition as well.

Answer me this Oerdin, if I beat you with a tire iron until you give me your wallet, is that "punishment" for your having money?

[Berzerker]

As for the OP, I don't see what Scalia got wrong here. The word "punishment" has an inherently retributive connotation, and nobody is tortured as retribution for being a terrorist.

I wonder why he went down that twisted road when the Constitution clearly says Congress shall make rules regarding land and sea captures during wars. If we wanna torture prisoners for information, thats up to Congress.

Some people are tortured (depending on your definition of torture) for the sole purpose of extracting information, without even a sliver of retributive motives.

Robots aint doin the torturing...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Massive xposts.

To Spif,

Actually the 3/5 compromise kind of goes to exactly what you are saying. And no one in their right mind thinks of a black man as a 3/5th human being.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Actually the 3/5 compromise kind of goes to exactly what you are saying. And no one in their right mind thinks of a black man as a 3/5th human being.

Yeah, but the 3/5 compromise was amended out of the constitution after the civil war (and it targeted "other persons", rather than "black persons").

If the post-civil-war era hadn't been used to make the radical changes your constitution needed at the time, your constitution would still be cluttered today by plenty of anachronisms nobody dares touching, because the public opinion defends the status quo (and again, there are several such anachronisms - on top of my head, I can naturally think about the right to bear arms, but also about many quirks of the electoral process)

For some topics, we have exactly the same kind of stasis in France: for example, in 1905, the separation of Church and State was seriously rough, it splitted the country into two.
Since then, everytime some ruler dares touching the 1905 compromise, be it for or against the Church, the protests are huge and completely disproportional. That's also the reason why we never applied the common French law to the territories we took back from Germany in ****ing 1918

[Ben Kenobi]

Spiffor, why do you consider the 2nd to be an anachronism?

[Kuciwalker]

Spiffor: I think your analysis is exactly correct

[Imran Siddiqui]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Berzerker
I wonder why he went down that twisted road when the Constitution clearly says Congress shall make rules regarding land and sea captures during wars. If we wanna torture prisoners for information, thats up to Congress.

Some people are tortured (depending on your definition of torture) for the sole purpose of extracting information, without even a sliver of retributive motives.[/qiuote]

Robots aint doin the torturing...

Well, I think he'd still have to address it because the amendments of the Bill of Rights come afterwards and supersede contrary passages in the Constitution.

[q=Ben Kenobi]why do you consider the 2nd to be an anachronism[/q]

I'm surprised that any does not, even though I do support gun ownership.

The point is that the 2nd Amendment was intended to have an armed populace to prevent the government from oppressing the citizenry. But due to technological advances, the US Armed Forces could destroy any militia movement.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

A chicken in every pot and a nuke in every garage.

[Ben Kenobi]

The point is that the 2nd Amendment was intended to have an armed populace to prevent the government from oppressing the citizenry. But due to technological advances, the US Armed Forces could destroy any militia movement.

As well as foriegn incursion.

Yes, the US Armed forces can isolate and destroy any militia but what would happen if the revolts were extremely widespread? The US army only can be stretched so far.

I don't think the idea is an anachronism, when you have 300 million people armed, even if they aren't armed with the top level weaponry, that would still be a singificant deterrent.

And saying you support gun ownership is like saying you support church construction.

[Berzerker]

Yup, Ben is right. And I'd add, you'd find people in the military very reluctant to turn on Americans in a widespread rebellion. Nukes backing up 300 million armed Americans is what defends this country from invasion. The military, while obviously the first line of defense and very helpful to our security, is more for projecting influence. Nothing anachronistic about guns, just the short memory of those willing to give them up.

[Berzerker]

Well, I think he'd still have to address it because the amendments of the Bill of Rights come afterwards and supersede contrary passages in the Constitution.

What amendment changed Congress' power to make rules regarding captures?

[Berzerker]

However, if your constitution had continuously sported some anachronistic garbage of the same kind (discrimination against natives was fairly en vogue at the founding fathers' time, for example), I am absolutely sure there'd be plenty of people who'd defend it today. On the sole basis of it being written in the constitution.

No way, people might try to defend the actions of people 200 years ago out of respect for the people who created this country, but not soley because something was in the Constitution.

If the post-civil-war era hadn't been used to make the radical changes your constitution needed at the time, your constitution would still be cluttered today by plenty of anachronisms nobody dares touching, because the public opinion defends the status quo (and again, there are several such anachronisms - on top of my head, I can naturally think about the right to bear arms, but also about many quirks of the electoral process)

The more we destroy those quirks, the further we get from the Constitution. One of those quirks was how senators were elected - by state legislatures, not the voters. Why? The senate represented the states, not the people. The House is the people's house. The Framers were trying to disperse power and I find nothing anachronistic about that. The electoral process is indeed quirky but there are reasons for it. It was weighted to help small states influence policy, a straightforward democracy diminishes their influence.

[SpencerH]

After just finishing a Jefferon biography, I'd suggest that "cruel and unusual punishment" refered to the habit of hanging people for minor crimes. Something that Jefferson apparently abhored.

Berz has carried the rest of the arguments

[Imran Siddiqui]

Nukes backing up 300 million armed Americans is what defends this country from invasion.

I'd think the most powerful military force in the world (by a good deal) is what defends this country from invasion (well that and invasion of big countries isn't in vogue in this era). Not 100 or so million citizens who actually own guns.