The Night The United States Supreme Court Cancelled Law
from the obviating-law-school dept
Last week's news about Justice Barrett fretting about the Supreme Court being seen as partisan calls to mind the old joke about a defendant on trial for murdering his parents and begging the court for mercy because he's an orphan. If you've created the mess you find yourself in, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Nevertheless, there is credence to her protest (which other justices have since echoed) that the way the Court has acted recently is not actually "partisan." After all, Republican-appointed Justice Roberts has been frequently joining the Democrat-appointed justices of late, which we wouldn't expect if political loyalties were all that were at the root of all Supreme Court actions. As Justice Barrett herself suggests, to understand what the Court has been doing of late, we need to look deeper:
“To say the court’s reasoning is flawed is different from saying the court is acting in a partisan manner,” said Barrett[.] “I think we need to evaluate what the court is doing on its own terms.”
So let's do what she suggests and evaluate the Court's actions on its own terms. Because what we'll find is even worse than partisanship.
Justice Barrett argues that what the public is seeing is merely a difference in "judicial philosophies," as if the prevalent splits among justices are but two sides of the same coin. But what we are seeing from this Court is hardly a case of the justices simply calling balls and strikes differently according to their respective vantagepoints. Instead we are seeing the majority deploy a "judicial philosophy" willing if not eager to erode the previously stalwart foundations upon which American law has historically depended. It is a philosophy of little more than legal nihilism. And it represents a profound change in the nature of the Court of enormous if not cataclysmic consequence.
Trouble has been brewing for some time now, with the majority's increasing use of its "shadow docket" to wield a heavy hand on legal questions without any meaningful opportunity for briefing or substantive argument by anyone affected. Instead of carefully weighing the pros and cons of the particular issue raised by the case before them in an open and transparent way, as the Court traditionally has on matters of such significance, they are instead making ad hoc and inconsistent procedural decisions behind the scenes, despite the fact that these sorts of decisions are having huge practical effect and impacting people's rights just as much they would in any case brought before them for their full and reasoned review.
This problematic practice culminated a few weeks ago with its rushed, unsigned, barely two-page, late-night order in Whole Women's Health v. Jackson, when the majority declined to exercise its procedural powers to stop Texas's SB8, a facially unconstitutional law that offended the Constitution in almost every way a law possibly could, from coming into force. As a result, rather than upholding the Constitution, or protecting the public from a wayward state actor, or even acting consistently with its own principles of jurisprudence, that slim majority, with only a few, ill-supported sentences, casually abdicated the Court's role as a protector of liberty and ruled instead as arbitrary, unaccountable autocrats.
There are at least two key reasons why the majority's behavior here is so deserving of such excoriation. The first relates to the specious way the majority misapplied procedural rules as convenient cover for producing substantively consequential outcomes, apparently deliberately, although even if it had been unintentionally it would still be a problem. Procedural rules exist to help ensure that justice can be meted out timely and fairly. While it's true that in this case the Supreme Court found itself in the position of having to clean up the mess caused by the Fifth Circuit's own procedural hijinks – which had abruptly, and dubiously, snatched the Texas statute away from the district court's established review process and thus made it practically impossible for it to act before the law was supposed to go into effect – the Supreme Court's astonishing refusal to take corrective action is what made this review ultimately impossible. And it did it by turning those very same procedural rules designed to help administer justice into outright obstacles obstructing it, opting instead to hide behind them with nothing more than a brief prevarication explaining why these rules somehow, and suddenly, had made it, the most powerful court in the land, unusually powerless to prevent a clearly unconstitutional law from going into effect.
In failing to act the Court also unilaterally overruled the long-standing judicial preference in American courts for preserving the status quo when there is a reasonable chance of a law potentially causing an improper injury before the matter has been able to receive appropriate review. And not only did the Court ignore that concern, but it all but invited those injuries to occur. The statute in question had basically walked up to several areas of settled precedent protecting constitutional rights and proverbially punched them all in the nose, openly daring the Supreme Court to come after it. Yet, shockingly, the majority declined to.
This refusal to defend the Court's own precedents was yet another way the majority's behavior was aberrant and destructive. Precedent is what gives the law stability, because once the Court has spoken we can all know where we stand. Sure, new cases will come up and be litigated, but the questions then will be about if and how precedent applies to the new situation. Sometimes this inquiry may result in the narrowing or limiting a precedent's reach, but precedent has historically been outright nullified only on the rarest of occasions and only when there has been a material change in the circumstances upon which the Court's reasoning had rested, like a new statute, a new Constitutional amendment (rare), or some other fundamental shift in society prompting a second look by the Court.
And even then the Court's practice has not been to simply ignore or overturn its previous rulings; rather, it would generally issue decisions to explain what holdings were being revisited, and why, so that the new decisions could take on the same weight of recognized authority the previous precedent once had. But that standard went out the window on that Thursday night when it issued the Whole Women's Health order. With this order it signaled that it is happy to cavalierly trash the Court's previous rulings, and, worse, with no explanation. While reasonable minds may disagree about the wisdom of a particular Court decision, everyone should be able to read its analysis to understand how the Court arrived at its conclusion. But there is nothing here in this order to legitimize the Court's sudden and drastic rejection of all the past precedent the statute implicated. Worse, in so rejecting it, it has told the world that we can never know what the law is, because it can change instantly, depending entirely on the majority's mood of that moment.
Such a reality is untenable. No matter what you think of the Texas statute, even if you believe in or support its policy goals, what the Supreme Court did on this Thursday night should still strike fear in your heart. Because the impact of what it did transcends any particular law or policy. Not only did it undermine its own esteem as an institution, but it made America unsustainable, a hollowed-out Potemkin Village of abandoned constitutional principle, and Americans no better off than the wretched citizens of the ancient feudal empire that inspired the story.
What happened on that Thursday night was the catastrophic undermining of not only the Court's own legitimacy but the legitimacy of the entire American legal system. It left all our laws and freedoms, and even the very adjudication of these questions, subject only to the capricious whim of the handful of people with enough power to unilaterally decree, with no argument, consideration, or any need to justify themselves, how we must live our lives. We might as well replace their black robes with crimson ermine and sit them on thrones, so at least we can all see and acknowledge the sheer unchecked power they now rule us with.
This is not how our constitutional order has worked. It is not how our constitutional order can work. Yes, courts have always had lots of power. And the Supreme Court in particular has always had an enormous amount of power to shape our legal world. But there were always apparent rules tempering this power. Which meant that such things as reason, persuasion, equitable procedure, predictable precedent, transparency, and notions of fair play could function as guiding pillars within which advocacy took place so that, win or lose, we all could believe in the justice of the result. But not anymore. With this order all those basic tenets have now been bulldozed. Even any sort of reasonable standard for injunctive relief is out the window. As Justice Kagan noted in her dissent, the Court's unconstrained behavior has become increasingly "unreasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend." In other words: our law has itself become lawless.
Supreme Court justices are of course human beings and therefore fallible, and the Supreme Court itself is a human institution that necessarily has to evolve as the society it serves does as well. But the concern is not that the Supreme Court may be evolving, because evolution is one thing; radically altering the operation of the Court practically overnight is another. And what the majority did can hardly be explained away as mere mistake, as in, "Oops, five justices' pens slipped and they accidentally repudiated decades if not centuries of past practice and precedent." But when even the most generous view of what happened is incompetence it severely undermines the esteem of the institution and those who inhabit it.
Nor can we say it's simply a matter of one bad decision. Bad decisions have happened before, and while it's never good when they do, as long as the system still works they can eventually be overcome. But what happened here represented a fundamental shift in the way the Court exercises its power, from one of predictable certainty to one of subjective judicial impulse, and there's no overcoming that change.
How could we? For those of us connected to the legal profession, what power would we still possess as practitioners to influence the cause of justice in this new system? What skills could we still exercise? How could we continue to play our own constitutional role in furthering justice in the courts when everything we were taught in law school about the American legal system has just suddenly been rendered moot?
Yes, life will go on for most tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. But for how long can we deceive ourselves that everything remains normal when the new normal is anything but? When the Supreme Court can so dramatically change our understanding of the law and the scope and dimension of our rights with little more than a snap of its fingers, how are we to live in a society predicated on the rule of law and guaranteed rights? How can we even tell ourselves that we are? We're like the coyote that has run off the cliff, and sooner or later we're going to notice that there is nothing supporting us anymore. And then where will we be?
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Filed Under: abortion, civil rights, laws, status quo, supreme court, texas
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SCOTUS crossed the Rubicon
and it cannot uncross it.
This is symptomatic of the last decades of corrosive rule -- of putting winning at all costs to appease a small minority of oligarchs over the majority of citizens.
When FDR was faced with a social backlash to the wreckage of the Gilded Age, he helped out the average work-a-day folks with a raft of (gasp) Social programs. This lesson was not institutionalized, instead it was derided, demonized and dismantled as soon as possible.
Since 1978, purchasing power has stagnated; standards of living have slipped and more money and power has flowed upwards. Without a fair rule of law, we unwashed masses have literally nowhere to go to address our grievances. Our politicians are bought-and-sold. We can no longer rely on the courts. What's next?
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As I understand it, when the Supreme Court strikes down such unconstitutional laws, it does so by injuncting the official charged with enforcing the law from doing so. If the state attorney general were to enforce it, he gets a court order telling him not to do so. If it were someone else, they get the court order. And so on.
So, with that in mind, who do they send that court order to?
The Texas statute was constructed in a novel way to make that difficult/impossible to do. Even if the Supreme Court were inclined to rule in a way you find agreeable, it doesn't seem very unexpected that it might have a little trouble constructing the court order to do so.
And I think it is inclined to rule in a way you find agreeable, and this delay amounts to them having trouble constructing the ruling to do that. But of course to you, that's the same as "the sky is falling". This will all be over in 6 months, and the pro-lifers will be disappointed, as always. And likely, SCOTUS will have shut down a whole host of new/novel approaches to making such statutes SCOTUS-proof.
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Not to sound ignorant but can someone do an ELI5 of this article? It's bad but I want to know HOW bad.
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What's next?
We've seen Occupy in 2011, which was a rather friendly call for change.
We've seen Black Lives Matter recently, which was less friendly but still a call for change.
My prediction is that we'll see more calls for change and that their friendliness will too soon be gone.
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5-4 or 6-3, Same outcome?
Isn't it so that the court only needs a simple majority? So if Roberts joins with the liberal justices that gives them a small amount of deniability, while still getting the result they want.
Btw, US democracy died twenty years ago when your bloodthirsty lust for revenge led you to destroy vast swathes of the planet and slaughter millions of innocent people. Found those WMDs yet?
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The answer to how we solve this institutional rot and the complete inability to make effective change is to counter speech with more speech. Just more speech. More more speech, all the time, no matter how disingenuous and inauthentic my opponents are. My belief in the Marketplace Of Ideas means that if I just tell someone they’re wrong, clap my hands and believe hard enough in my Holy Lord the First Amendment, and feed and give attention to bad-faith trolls for a long enough period of time, we’ll magically end up in a better place eventually.
/s
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The Supreme Court decided to undo Roe v. Wade in Texas without actually hearing a case about whether they should undo Roe v. Wade (in Texas or nationwide).
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Re: What's next?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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Re:
Also:
I’ve seen Techdirt’s authors and commentariat go on and on and fucking on about “What is a lie and what is truth? Can you really define what’s true and what’s not? It can always change.” in response to people talking about how easy it is for lies to spread around the world now with our current status-quo and how shit needs to change. How does it feel for the courts to flip that around on y’all?
I mean, the courts just let a law that you dislike continue to stand. That’s all this is, a law you don’t like. Just like y’all say that nazis spewing hate or high-profile people spreading lies without consequence is speech that we dislike. Remember, counter speech with more speech. That’s sure to solve everything.
/s
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Re: Re: What's next?
Violent revolution? I’m sorry, that goes too far for me. Even with all the evidence around me, as an aging white centrist liberal, I can’t bring myself to accept that we have to fight back. We need to feed the trolls more to counter their speech and wage expensive-as-fuck lawsuits that we have no money to actually fund. If we resort to the logic of beasts, then we lose. I mean, look, we’re totally winning right now by using the logic of man! We just have to sit down, wait it out, clap our hands and believe we’ll be saved.
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I bite!
No human is capable of knowing the whole truth, so all reporting will have some guesswork.
There is a difference between "laws I dislike" and "laws that raise serious constitutional issues". The Texas abortion law is one of the latter and it warrants noting that the Supreme Court sees no reason for an early review. The consequence is that thousands of women will have their right to a safe abortion removed.
It's worth to have this reaction of the Supreme court recorded and publicised so that the citizens can make up their mind about the value of this institution. It could very well be that in due time "the people" decide that the court has outlived it usefulness and should be abolished... Time will tell.
P.S. Be sure to get a rabies shot, the fox could be infected!
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Re: Re: Re: What's next?
The US has had its civil war... I am not advocating a second civil war but that is the ultimate consequence if all three powers of the trias politica have become too corrupted to listen to the "common people".
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"This problematic practice culminated a few weeks ago with its rushed, unsigned, barely two-page, late-night order in Whole Women's Health v. Jackson, when the majority declined to exercise its procedural powers to stop Texas's SB8, a facially unconstitutional law that offended the Constitution in almost every way a law possibly could, from coming into force."
You're talking about the Bill of Rights,which was actually an afterthought to the Constitution intended to assuage critics of a federal government at the time of America's founding and get them to sign on to the idea of a federal government,which in hindsight was definitely a mistake.
It's pretty simple,just get those hamster wheels spinning and come up with a bs rationalization why this is ok in your minds too. It's not like you actually have any principles other than hating white people.
3.Do you people ever give yourselves whiplash going from condemning America as evil and white supremacist to "Omg,muh sacred democracy!" whenever people on the right legitimately attack the current system? Just wondering.
4.The people who wrote the Constitution didn't even let women vote,I very much doubt they would have consider the law in Texas "offensive to the Constitution in almost every way a law could be". When are you going to understand that blacks,Indians,Asians,Mexicans,jews,,and weird combinations of these people were NEVER intended by the people who wrote the Constitution to be citizens of America and women were NEVER INTENDED to be allowed to have any political power,let alone gay people or people who dress up in the opposite sex's clothing and impersonate them?
That is, YOU are the ones who are OFFENSIVE to the CONSTITUTION AND THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE IT in just about every way that it is possible to be offensive to it and about a third to half of the country DOES NOT WANT TO SHARE A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT WITH YOU.
That's why Texas passed this law, Cathy,because they are tired of you shoving blacks,gays,trannies,loud-mouthed female idiots,illegals,and the rest of your annoying shit down their throats.
They did it because they hate you.
They did it because they've tried repeatedly to peacefully separate their way of life from yours and you won't let them.
They did it because you chase them down wherever they go and search them out wherever they hide to harass them.
So you brought it on yourself. You deserve it.
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lolwut
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Re:
I'm going to regret arguing with a Nazi, but I'll bite.
The Founding fathers didn't even consider Swedes white, but you're way wrong about us Jews. Contrary to the anti-Semitic canard that Benjamin Franklin warned against the Jews taking control, Franklin donated to the construction of Philadelphia's first synagogue:
[ED: bolding mine].
I think I'll leave with a missive of the Dead Kennedys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyc62g7YQM0
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"“I think we need to evaluate what the court is doing on its own terms.”"
And what we've learned is the court will jump through hoops to speed 'religious' based complaints & other rights don't matter as much.
The fact they might have to wear a mask or limit the number of people in the church was so important you gave it the rocket docket.
A woman facing having to carry her rapists baby to term & face busybodies filing lawsuits to screw her over that little bit more wasn't important enough.
Someone looks sideways at a gun, rocket docket to defend the 2nd Amendment.
The court is playing favorites, and while they pretend its just important Constitutional questions, its really odd how many cases they take up are only important to a small loud religious minority of white people getting their way even in the face of causing harm & death to other citizens the court has made clear are not as important.
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Re:
Don't worry, it's just a run-of-the-mill retelling of the timeless classic: "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll recite Mein Kampf from heart".
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Re: Re:
"but you're way wrong about us Jews."
I guarantee you,I am not wrong about you jews.
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Re: Re:
"If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll recite Mein Kampf from heart".
Have you ever actually read Mein Kampf?
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Re: Re: Re:
LOL. You know nothing. Keep barking phlegm out of your pustules, Nazi.
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Re:
"A woman facing having to carry her rapists baby to term & face busybodies filing lawsuits to screw her over that little bit more wasn't important enough."
In most surveys where women are asked their reasons for having an abortion,2% of the time,it's for rape or incest. 98% of the time,abortion is being used as a form of birth control.
My argument is very simple,if women can't take advantage of any of the 16 different forms of birth control available to them (now for free through their employer thanks to Obama) before resorting to abortion then they don't have the mental capacity to make informed decisions about the fate or future of this country and shouldn't be allowed to vote.
If one argues that women should be able to kill babies out of convenience or to improve their lot in life somehow,and certainly plenty of people make these types of arguments in favor of women who have killed both babies in the womb and out of it,then I argue that men should be legally allowed to kill their wives and girlfriends when in similar circumstances.
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Re:
Courts, from the local courthouse to the Supreme Court of the United States, exist to help people settle adult arguments. Normally, they try be fair and decide the same way every time. This lets people learn how a court makes a decision. If a court changes its mind, it likes to explain the change. That way we can still understand what is okay and what is not and why.
When the court made a decision in this arguement, they changed their mind about a lot of things. One thing they changed their mind about is explaining why they changed their mind. A lot of people are very upset because now we don't know what is okay and what is not.
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Re: Re: Re:
It's obvious you have.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
I know you guys have a religious ritual called Metitzah B'peh where you cut off the tip of a baby's penis and suck blood out of it with your mouth and other jews let you do it.
That's pretty much all you need to know about jews.
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Re: Re:
I would say what the court did in this decision is akin to what Kefka did in Final Fantasy VI with the statues: it shifted the balance so much that the world (or at least in the case of US law, the legal world) is plunged into chaos.
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Re: Re:
What about the person's health? This statistic is incomplete, try again.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Lulwhat? I never heard of such a thing. Are you talking about a Bris? That's a circumcision which removes the foreskin.
Goddammit, you're like Trump; not only are you a Nazi, but you're a lazy, pathetic nazi to [jack]boot!
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Yes or no: Would you force a 13-year-old girl impregnated by rape to bear the child of her rapist?
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Re: Re: Re:
No it didn't. You guys made up crap about "penumbras and emanations" in the Constitution emanating from an "implied right to privacy" which you now say we don't even have in the case of coronavirus mandates. There never was any Constitutional right to an abortion,this didn't shift the balance of anything except for a made-up "right" that no one ever even had in the first place. Every right in the Constitution comes from man in a state of nature,that's why they're all negative rights telling the government what NOT to do.
In a state of nature,if a woman gets pregnant,it's tough luck.
If you wanted a right to abort,you should have got 2/3rds of Congress to write an amendment saying women could abort but none of the crap that you have imposed on America since 1965 went through Congress.
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Re:
Also not in the Constitution are laws such as vehicular homicide; it changes. Also, not everything that protects folks is in the Bill of Rights. laws based on them were created after they were penned. For instance, youmight want to look into Roe-v-Wade.
Roe v. Wade, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the Court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”).
https://www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh no,I'm sure you haven't...Of course you haven't...
Fortunately,the Times of Israel has heard about it.
No,I'm talking about this,rabbi.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nyc-orthodox-jews-clash-over-oral-circumcision-rite/
Nice one. Giving them herpes before they're even out of diapers.
Yeah,no,I'm just like Nazi Trump with my 6 million jewish grandchildren.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's ok,the Times of Israel has heard of it.
https: //w w w[dot]timesofisrael[dot]com/nyc-orthodox-jews-clash-over-oral-circumcision-rite/
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Re:
Statistically,that is pretty much not happening in America.
Yes or No,would you force a 13 year old girl to have an mRNA vaccine injected into her body regardless of whatever side effects that might cause to safeguard what you view as the public health?
Of course you would. You don't actually give a shit about people's individual rights to bodily integrity in any kind of principled or abstract way.
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Re: Re:
Wow,that's real interesting. You know the government is forcing people to disclose their vaccination status and have medical procedures done on them against their will right now,right?
So the government doesn't actually believe any of that shit,and neither do you because you support those things.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And it's something most Jews do not do, just a sect of haredi Orthodox Jews: https://www.jta.org/2014/02/02/united-states/n-y-newborn-contracts-herpes-from-controversial-circumc ision-rite
[ED: bolding mine]
Great research you did there, Murrow.
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Re: Re: Re:
DIdn't surprise me that this Nazi was also an anti-vaxxer. https://sorryantivaxxer.com
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Re: Re: Re:
"Also not in the Constitution are laws such as vehicular homicide; it changes"
Well,it just changed again. I don't know what to tell you. Get some preparation H for your butthurt,I guess.
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Re: Re:
Sorry, Anti-vaxxer.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Please stop feeding the troll.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Doesn't surprise me that someone who sucks blood out of a mutilated baby penis is also in favor of doing medical experiments on people against their will.
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Two things.
Nice dodge.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh god, you really just quote mine, do you? Not that talking to you would do any good. You won't listen to logic or reason.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh ok. So just some of you suck the blood out of a baby's penis while the rest of you shrug your shoulders and allow it to happen and for babies to get herpes from the ones who do. I gotcha now.
That makes a huge difference.
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That’s not true—they will listen to logic and reason.
It just has to agree with their Nazi worldview first.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Why? I'm having fun! He's a whiny little pathetic baby. He's not riling me up!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You can have fun in ways other than giving your time and attention to a troll.
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Re: 5-4 or 6-3, Same outcome?
Not that I necessarily support our various foreign wars, but how is that in anyway an indicator of the death of US democracy?
If a majority of people vote to violently oppress someone or declare an unjust war, then that's still democracy. After all, Democracy is "the worst form of government except for all of the others." The vote featured in Derrick Bell's "The Space Traders" is simultaneously heinous and democratic.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'll let Mike Masnick and the other commenters be the ultimate arbiters of that.
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To be fair, people here give me their time and attention on a regular basis, so… 👀
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well said. Just like how, in a state of nature, the right to trial by jury shall be preserved in common law Suits where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.
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Hold on there, Jethro!
You’re getting yourself all tangled up. It’s against the law to kill babies. However, fertilized eggs, blastocysts and embryos in the first trimester are not babies, not by any stretch of a rational imagination.
If they were, then my pigs would be eating ‘unsprouted oak trees’ instead of acorns. Breakfast would consist of two ‘unhatched chickens’ over easy. And you would be an ‘undead corpse.’
I think it’s time to stop torturing language with nonsense like ‘unborn babies.’ I realize you use such contorted phrases to stir up emotions in those who never learned to think and speak clearly, and to cut off rational discourse, but it simply proves that you lack any rational argument for your stated position. Unless, of course, you identify as an undead corpse.
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Re: I bite!
"There is a difference between 'laws I dislike' and 'laws that raise serious constitutional issues'. The Texas abortion law is one of the latter."
Absolutely this! Even the most violent pro-lifer/anti-choicer should be terrified of this law. It's the blueprint for the erosion of any civil right that the government decides that it wants to get rid of.
Freedom of the press no longer useful? Write a law letting anyone sue without standing over any potential liability from published material and immunize the plaintiff from potential damages even if they lose.
Want to get rid of gun rights? Let anyone sue a gun manufacturer or gun store for any connection to any violent shooting and immunize the plaintiff from potential damages.
Want to crack down on anti-vaccers? Write a law letting anyone sue without standing if they ever transmit the disease they refuse to be vaccinated against, and, you guessed, immunize the plaintiff from potential damages even if they lose.
Want to get rid of freedom of religion? Let anyone sue over any crime committed by someone who professes to have the same religion. Without standing and immunized against potential damages, of course!
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Re:
Like its refreshing to see someone so willing to out their White supremacy and that the abortion law isn't about life, its about punishing non-whites. Its the Ron burgundy meme level of refreshing. Its somewhat strange to try to see you justify a moral high ground around fetal rights when you are advocating for stripping away rights on the basis of skin tone and region of birth, but at least you are honest about how shit a person you are.
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That they effectively gutted Roe was bad enough but the fact that they were too cowardly to do it outright really shows how low they've sank, willing to do whatever it takes to 'win' but too gutless to do so directly.
At this point unless they're fine with a compromised Supreme Court for the next few decades democrats need to push to expand the court size and stuff more than a few of their own on that bench(turnabout is fair play after all), because anything less than that and it's not going to matter much what laws they might try to pass or how well they do in the state or national poles the republicans will always have a veto in the form of the supreme court.
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Re: Re:
Among the many, many things you are apparently confused about, one is appropriate and effective use of the /s tag.
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In law, fine points matter.
There has been much discussion of Texas SB-8 in law blogs of late. Personally, I read Simple Justice and Volokh Conspiracy (and I'll let you good folks do your own googling for articles thereon, if you care to).
It is difficult to answer Ms Gellis' proposition: The Supreme Court was handed a request for an emergency injunction. Ms Gellis herself points out, "shadow docket" is "a heavy hand on legal questions without any meaningful opportunity for briefing or substantive argument by anyone affected." "Emergency" presumably means "we need this right now". Should the court have - hastily, without briefing - granted the injunction? Should it have turned the request away silently?
So what did they do? They said "send us a test case".
Yes, Texas crafted a law the enforcement of which -by anyone- would seem unconstitutional on the face of it, given current precedent. Not being a lawyer myself, I am not sure why the district, appellate, or supreme court could not simply say "since the enforcement of this by //anyone// is unconstitutional, the law is unconstitutional". I have to assume there are reasons, though.
And now, there is a test case. ... and while it wends its way through the courts, the next several years are going to be fairly horrible for anyone living in Texas and needing abortion services. Thanks, Texas Government! (It's labeled a Senate bill, but the Texas House and Governor both had hands in passing it.)
And: Several large employers have been speaking out against SB8, saying that it used to be no problem getting people to move to Texas, to work for them. But now, SB8 has become a blocking issue for them. The Texas government may have thought, "this is a keen chance to stick it in the eye of the Democrats", but may find the blowback from this somewhat greater than they anticipated. Hopefully they find themselves ... remembered well but not fondly, come election time.
Myself, I want SB8 torn down, burned, the ashes scattered to the winds and the political grounds it sprang from salted so that nothing grows from it again. But more than wanting the law gone, more than wanting the Supreme Court to enjoin it immediately, I want the Supreme Court to NOT make an ill considered ruling that could affect us 50 years in the future. (Yes: neither of those was 'hasty'. But they were still 'wrong'.)
Because few things are more permanent in law than a Supreme Court precedent.
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Re: Re: Re: What's next?
You may have little choice about violent revolutions, as the US extreme right is heavily armed, and increasingly desperate to impose their will on society.
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Re: Re:
Bullshit analogy, but pretty much what's to be expected from a voluntary moron who sacrificed all reasoning skills at the altar of Trump.
Why B.S.? Well, for a start, how many people does a pregnant 13 year old endanger? I guarantee you it is many, many less that a 13 year old with transmissible covid 19. Next, how much damage will a covid 19 vaccine do to a 13 year old's life? Again, far, far less than an unwanted pregnancy, far less birth, will do. How much trauma will being forced to have two vaccine shots cause a 13 year old girl? Far, far less than being forced to bear a child after being raped.
The truly sad thing is you probably think yourself morally superior to those you oppose. You aren't, in truth you are morally inferior to a rabid dog, because a rabid dog can't help it's behavior.
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Re: In law, fine points matter.
Yeah, it sounds like it was a poor choice of defendants in the initial case, that made it not "ripe", or not a "current controversy" as that term of art is used in the judicial system, and while I hate this bill, and am cheering on the DOJ's lawsuit, I'm not sure that setting a precedent of "the Supreme Court should just yoink a case out of order because we hate it" would be a good idea either.
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Re:
Trumps still not gonna touch your dick.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I wonder just how many government watch lists you are currently on.
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I don't get complaining about wielding a heavy hand on the shadow docket in one breath and complaining that SCOTUS declined to use the shadow docket to issue an injunction in the next. Doing nothing is not heavy-handed, and it's also the norm. The Supreme Court hears only a minority of cases people try to appeal to it anyway.
But if you want to talk about the court being heavy-handed, maybe inventing a "right" to abortion out of thin air in the first place would better qualify.
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Re: Re:
Last I checked, she has a Constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
I do enjoy how you seem to think that women can get knocked up without the assistance of another party, why is there no demand that men always use contraception?
You seem to think it is ONLY the womans responsibility & her inability to use it means she is incapable of voting.
You might be shocked to know that contraception isn't 100%.
You might be shocked to learn that a womans 'right' to get those 16 forms of birth control can be limited if some asshat has a 'religious' reason to deny her access to it.
You might be shocked that only these 'religious' types get to demand how their tax dollars can not be spent, pretty sure Quakers would LOVE the right to deny their tax dollars be spent buying the tools of war but they don't have that right.
You might be shocked to learn that Planned Parenthood is often the only source of contraception & women's health services in many areas but these 'religious' types often stand outside and harass them as baby killers because PP offers among ALL of the services they offer abortion.
You might be shocked to learn to learn that allegedly educated people believe that an ectopic pregnancy can be "relocated" when there is not way do do that.
You might be shocked to learn more money is poured into making sure a woman can't make her own decisions than into making sure that a man actually has to take responsibility for the child he helped create.
When was the last time a religious' group showed up to picket a man for not taking care of his responsibility in bringing a child into the world?
You are not very good at the whole trolling thing, springing to the whole we should kill wives and girlfriends comparing their worth to a bundle of cells.
They are not killing babies. They are killing a parasitic growth that they do not want. Its not a person, its not a baby, its a bundle of cells. You attempt to frame it this way really suggests you shouldn't be taken seriously on any topic.
Millions of children in this nation went to bed hungry last night, and you care more about adding more children to suffer to the world than lifting a finger to help them once they are "born".
Actual children are dying as state agencies fail them, but you're to busy demanding a woman pop out a child for the sin of daring to have had sex outside of wedlock than holding the people who failed children who ended up missing/dead responsible.
In closing... GFY.
I'd worry about children you might bring into the world but your personality makes it clear you won't be reproducing without the use of chemical inducements to make the women miss your sparkling personality.
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Re: Re: In law, fine points matter.
If a state decided to pass a law that would effectively make it impossible for women to vote should the Supreme Court wait until the next election rolls around before deciding that yeah, they probably should do something about that?
This isn't just a case of 'this law should have been shot down now because people hate it' but 'it needed to be shot down now because punting it will have serious consequences for those affected by it, potentially to the point of irreparable harm by the time it makes it back to the Supreme Court'.
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"You don't actually give a shit about people's individual rights to bodily integrity in any kind of principled or abstract way."
You mean like when a woman makes a choice to abort?
I love the anti-vaxxers carrying the my body my choice signs & then showing up to demand the right to deny others the choice they make for their body.
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"You know the government is forcing people to disclose their vaccination status and have medical procedures done on them against their will right now,right?"
Neither of those things are actually happening but a majority of people agree with vaccination requirements so how about you quit whinging like a baby and participate constructively in society. Controlling contagious diseases is not something you can just opt out of because you're a selfish asshole.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
Heh - the common people have jack and shit to do with Civil Wars. They are first and foremost power struggles from various existing factions in power.
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Re: Re: 5-4 or 6-3, Same outcome?
Simple - it lead to acceptance of suppression of civil rights because they were angry and afraid. We aren't just going to be handed them back.
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Re: Re: In law, fine points matter.
Yeah, it sounds like it was a poor choice of defendants in the initial case,
Nah. Texas made the law so they could make this argument, but it was nonsensical. The Court basically punted by saying that since the enforcement mechanism was any random numbskull who sued someone else, that there was no standing. But there clearly was standing against the government agents who would enforce this law: in this case judges. That's why the defendant in the case was a judge. There was no reason why, as the minority noted, SCOTUS couldn't live up to its belief in the status quo until there was a full briefing on the manner, and therefore issue an injunction for such purpose.
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How long will they be able to stay operational in Texas now that their opponents have a means of bringing hundreds of cases against then.
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Re: Re: I bite!
That actually sounds really good, though.
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This is the best thing I've read on TechDirt since the last time I read something by Cathy Gellis on TechDirt. Will be sharing widely.
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Re: Re: Re: I bite!
Hmm... okay - but let's try it out just for police and military weapons first, as a test run
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Re: Re: Re:
'My body my choice! Your body also my choice!'
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Re:
Thanks for asking this. I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't have a firm grasp on the exact substance of the article. Don't take what I'm saying here as a political statement, I'm not on the side of Texas on this at all, but this article seems to do a whole lot of saying what the court did, without actually saying much what they did, if you get me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
You are kidding right? It's the left trying to impose their will on everyone. Republicans want LESS GOVERNMENT!!! We have Biden in office who flat-out ignores the Supreme Court and is acting like a Dictator and Mandating things he has no power to do.
It's you leftist trying to impose your will onto everyone.
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That’s a lot of words to say you support killing babies
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On the upside winter is coming and when the power goes out the vents stop running...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Come on now, surely the side in favor of enslaving women can come up with a new line rather than always breaking out that old one...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
You are kidding right? It's the left trying to impose their will on everyone. Republicans want LESS GOVERNMENT!!!
You say on a post in which the GOP is imposing their will on everyone in Texas, with a law that will massively increase government control over lives.
Dude. Get a grip on reality.
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"That’s a lot of words to say you support killing babies"
And, eating them with toast and bacon.
I assume we're talking about chicken babies? Human babies taste terrible.
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[Hallucinates facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
With the level of projection you are capable of you should be renting yourself out to stadiums and concert halls.
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Re: We got ourselves a genuine Murican hero
Gotdamn son, I thought you were just a slightly below average, anti-Semite shitposter. And now we come to find out you've won gold in the Olympics for Goalpost Moving!
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Re:
Another biology class dropout, I see.
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Re: Bewst to remain silent...
Do you want to know, how I know, you don't know what Roe V. Wade was actually about?
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Re: Re: Re:
A timely reminder to read the heavily annotated version German Academia published, then.
If I have to read that racist drivel, I deserve to have learned minds help me dissect that filth then.
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Re: Re: Re: What's next?
"Even with all the evidence around me, as an aging white centrist liberal, I can’t bring myself to accept that we have to fight back."
You probably think that was sarcasm. I hold that it's the genuine mindset of the 70% of the US population not stark raving mad.
"If we resort to the logic of beasts, then we lose."
I keep saying that this is what will bring the downfall of the last vestiges of civilization in the US - because that argument of yours is what liberals there actually believe.
I keep harping about Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance because what I see in the US is exactly that; a nation where the tolerant keep trying to tolerate the intolerant, as a result of which bigots and racists are taking over simply because unlike the peaceful sheep the person who hates the other is highly motivated to seek office and power.
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"In a state of nature,if a woman gets pregnant,it's tough luck."
In a "state of nature" surgery, medication, electricity, computers, and the concept of law does not exist. I hereby cordially invite you to put your money where your mouth is and toddle off to join the nearest amish community.
Or you can shut your hypocritical alt-right piehole right up until you start being self-aware that your real argument is that you feel compelled to own another person's womb.
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"It's obvious you have."
Not really. A lot of Mein Kampf is just Hitler incoherently trying to formulate arguments around why he hates certain people.
It's almost obvious that anyone sharing the inclinations of Mr. Shicklgruber will come to the exact same conclusion and grasp for the exact same arguments.
Much like his speeches, the rhetoric is designed to cater to everyone who is governed primarily by bigotry.
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Re:
Pretty easy if they want to work that way: they can still instruct court officials not to allow the filing of civil cases based on this law, or judges to handle such cases. Pretty easy. They are probably trying to save both the cabbage and the goat, and in the process let the wolf run wild.
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"Yeah,no,I'm just like Nazi Trump with my 6 million jewish grandchildren."
Not really. More like one of the mouthbreathing knucklewalkers Ernst Röhm used to tell -in very simple words - to go off and scream racist one-liners at people.
You bringing up a small sect of ultra-orthodox fanatics as representative of a religion and culture is the same argument I could use to demonstrate that every american is a sub-80 IQ inbred moron because I once saw a documentary about clannish burghs in the ass-end of Pennsylvania.
So tell me. I heard american christians like to feed their children potassium-laced kool-aid. I'm sure I read about the good reverend Jim Jones and his merry congregation. How come the christians get a pass for their fanatics but you crack down on the poor jews for the same?
Oh, wait, I know the answer. Because you don't give two shits about factual reality when it conflicts with your assertion that jew man bad, right?
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Re:
"To be fair, people here give me their time and attention on a regular basis, so… 👀"
Yeah, but Stephen, I hate to break it to you but...you're not exactly a troll. A bit too enamored in principles the founders might have done better to not make absolute, but not a troll.
I'm almost completely certain this will once again be demonstrated by you not responding to my comment with a tearing rant about anti-americanist commie pinko <ethnic slur> <gender identity slur> propaganda posed only by <gender slur> and <religious slur>.
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"It just has to agree with their Nazi worldview first."
Much like saying that any pig is capable of astonishing aeronautics...as long as it gets wings first.
I consider myself fairly well learned about the nazi world view and it's pretty telling that said dystopian fairy tale falls pretty flat from the first word. To date I have found only one nazi assertion factual reality didn't immediately contradict; "The SS-uniforms are stylish as hell". That's basically it.
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Re: Re:
"Like its refreshing to see someone so willing to out their White supremacy and that the abortion law isn't about life, its about punishing non-whites."
Right? Very refreshing, after oh so very many neo-nazis keep proving they didn't have the spunk of the old guard in 1933, hemming and hawing and whining about how "they weren't racist, but...".
I'll give the AC this; A malicious bigot he may be but at least he has the courage to own up to the shit he's spewing. Not too common among the "saviors of racial purity" in the US these days.
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The supreme Court now has a majority of right wing Conservative judges who will push a right wing agenda, this is a disaster in that it does not reflect the views of the average American, the average American is non religious or protestant or moderate,
Meanwhile the last judge elected is a female Catholic who was brought up as member of an extreme right wing Catholic sect
The result the rights of the average American will be limited especially women's rights to be in line with the extreme beliefs of the religious right
This will bring the reputation of the supreme Court to a new low as it no longer be seen the reflect the views of most American citizens
This was predictable as it all recent judges selected are on the right wing Conservative side
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Re: Re:
Not even chicken babies; chicken eggs that weren't even fertilized.
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I know more than a few people who would probably disagree. (Me being among them.)
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No, he(she?)'s not got any courage. If they used their real name, it might be different, but they're just as much a coward as the rest of the racist, bigoted scum out there.
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It was. And it was aimed at me. (Hint: Look at their name.)
They’re mad that I’m apparently not willing to think of violence as anything but an actual last resort for protecting human rights. And they’re right—which is to say I believe violence should be a last resort instead of the first.
I once brought up a saying I read on Tumblr that goes like this: “Violence for violence is the rule of beasts.” I don’t take that saying to mean “violence committed to match violence is inhuman”; I take it to mean “violence committed for its own sake is inhuman”. Violence in defense of self and others, including in defense of bodily autonomy and/or civil rights, is justifiable and even commendable. And I’m willing to condone such violence, albeit situationally. (I’d have to know details and whatnot to personally sign off on it.)
But in regards to the Texas law: I don’t believe violence is the solution to that particular problem…yet. And I would generally like to avoid seeing this country fall into another civil war. But if violence becomes the only way to protect a woman’s right to obtain an abortion if she wants one, I would be willing to condone that violence.
When I was a kid, I was a violent shithead. I know how it feels to want to solve every problem by punching people in the face. But I went a bit too far with that thinking one day; after I got in a lot of trouble for that, I swore not to be that kind of violent shithead again. Violence is not something I’m going to condemn outright—but it also won’t be something I condone as a reflex.
(Unless it’s punching Nazis. That shit always gets a pass from me. Fuck Nazis.)
One of the issues I have with Democrats is that they’re unwilling to metaphorically throw elbows when they’re in office. They’re not willing to go on the offense and pass laws that get shit done—e.g., protecting voting rights, fighting climate change, even legislating abortion rights—then dare Republicans to take it all back when the GOP is in power again. They do just enough to seem like “the good guys” and win elections, but in reality, they’re mostly feckless cowards. And yes, that includes Joe Biden, who could absolutely be ripping into Manchin and Sinema for their refusal to sacrifice the filibuster in the name of getting shit done.
Too many elected Democrats these days still believe in “bipartisanship”—in the idea that Republicans could still be willing to bargain and compromise, to give a little and get a little in return. Those days are done. Democrats who refuse to see that are fools; Democrats who see it but refuse to act on it are cowards.
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Well, if the law was passed in a state without a heavily used death penalty that routinely kills adults, I might think you really give a shit.
But you don't.
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Yes or No,would you force a 13 year old girl to have an mRNA vaccine injected into her body regardless of whatever side effects that might cause to safeguard what you view as the public health?
Sure would. Shouldn't the right to life also apply to those that are already here? Seems like a pretty open & shut case, given losing one or two 13-year old girls for the sake of the larger population is a risk that anyone would accept.
Shit, I'd even go so far as to require vaccinations for children younger than 13 as a requirement to attend school. And boy, you're going to shit yourself when I say I'd actually require vaccinations for adults who want to attend college, not that you mouthbreathing simpletons would care about college, amirite?
You fucking morons are trying to make it seem like vaccines are new. Get the fuck out of your inbred hick circles and catch up with the rest of us, you fucking fool. Stop focusing on what you think Jews are doing to kids - religion in general really doesn't have a good track record when it comes to children. Arguing that one is more barbaric than the other is tantamount to trying to be the smartest retard in the room.
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Re: Re:
I am not aware of any circumstance when judges have ordered other judges to disallow the filing of litigation.
Even the act of disallowing that would require some minimal judicial review of the case, just to determine that it's the sort that can't be filed. So instead, it's more like they'd be ordering them to dismiss such cases, rather than to disallow them.
Again, I'm not aware of any circumstances in which anything like that has ever happened. Even before this law went into effect, some yahoo or another might have filed a lawsuit much like this, and a judge would have had to at least looked at it long enough to dismiss it for some lack of merit or another.
Something like this runs the very real risk of them coming to the correct decision for the wrong reasons, and setting precedents we'd all rather they might not have set. And everyone seems to be screaming for them to do that. It's really quite bizarre.
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Re: Re: Re:
Plunged into chaos is not a phrase I’d use with a 5 year old. I specifically choose simple, slightly inaccurate on the details language like I think would have the maximum impact on me as a five year old.
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Re:
"But in regards to the Texas law: I don’t believe violence is the solution to that particular problem…yet."
I hate to have to say this, Stephen, and this is written in some affect but...You know how I can tell you aren't a woman, bro? 🤬
Let me know if you'd be as sanguine about that particular problem if it happened to refer to, say...homosexuality or masturbation? I seem to recall you being rather vocal an advocate about LGBTQ-rights in the past.
Because even as a straight, middle-aged white male dead center in privilege paradise I for one can see there's an ample case to be made for violent self-defense in Texas where the ownership of a womb has now become fairly conditional. Because we both know that if that shit flies, it won't stay at that.
"...after I got in a lot of trouble for that, I swore not to be that kind of violent shithead again."
To your credit. However, as much as it pains me to have to say it, Gandhi is lucky to have lived in India and South Africa at a time where it was still possible to shame the authorities into caving. The republicans, religious fanatics, bigots, misogynists and racists behind that law won't quit, can't be shamed away, and can't be convinced to back down - and neither can their base. Because by now they know full well that they can intimidate and bully whoever they like however they like and liberals will stand to the side blowing hot air and polemics.
You've got 30% of the citizenry inured to being the bully which never gets sanctioned. The stalker and abuser always walking away with a smug laugh and a "Fuck You!". The cheering crowd howling in glee over every disgraceful step closer to abolishing a woman's right over her own body. There's no schoolyard monitor to take the bad guy away, no teacher to call on, and no police able or willing to protect a citizenry from the excesses of power-drunk bigots who've found a way to circumvent even the most basic of constitutional protections. It's all up to people like you - and against those people turning the other cheek only means letting yourself in for another beating.
There have been a lot of Niedermöller moments in american politics lately and every damn time I wonder if this is fuckin' finally the time liberals will rise and put a physical end to the alt-right expectation that they can always take it one step further. And it never happens. The alt-right keeps pushing because they know they aren't going to get beatdowns or ostracized en másse by society as a whole. At most they get tossed out of a few bars and banned from FB. And have the leisure to mount a large campaign against even that token resistance by the saner majority.
Make no mistake, Stephen. Jan 6 was a beginning, not an end. A beer hall coup is just the point where the levee gives way. Texas painstakingly making a woman a second class citizen no longer fully owning her own body, a beginning, not an end.
More words won't help. Either sane people start running these misfits out of town in tar and feathers en masse now...or the time will come when simply bullying those assholes right back won't be enough. Because they'll keep pushing. All the time. As Trump showed they only have to get lucky once to leapfrog ahead. Liberals can't afford to slack even for a single minute in their persistent method of passive resistance.
Europe is, bluntly put, less free in the US when it comes to personal freedom. Yet what I keep seeing is horrible shit our more regulated society prevents happening in places like Germany, Sweden, or Norway.
I nag a lot lately about Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. The US has become the textbook example.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
Sadly, I believe both major political parties are overly authoritarian. A civil war between the two would result in cementing the absolute authority of the winning party, destroying what's left of American freedom.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
There will never be a civil war between the establishment political parties, because they both have too much to lose. If there's a war, at least one side will be not only angry but desperate. The hungry vs the rich for example.
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Re: Re:
How many 13 year old rape victims forced to bear their rapists' babies would be too many?
And just yesterday I read a story from someone whose mother was forced to carry him to term after being raped by her brother at age 11. So yeah, it happens.
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Re: In law, fine points matter.
Yes. On one side is the possibility of imminent and severe harm, and on the other side is... maintaining the status quo. Clearly the right thing would be to put the law on hold (not strike it down) until its constitutionality could be determined.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
It's more like both sides are currently stuck at an Impasse. If the Dam breaks and one side gets real total power AND the other side feels its totally lost, you could see a Civil war as might makes right is the final solution to a situation when all other politics fail.
The issue is this is about "Feels" and not cold hard facts. So if the party of Trump starts challenging every election, Tells everyone Dems are inhuman, and predictably falls apart, then we could see the remaining loyalists (and this is like 15% to 20% of the country) vote for war on some scale, perhaps taking a state or 2 with them (Florida and Texas would be the likely targets)
It would not be a big war, it could get dragged out a bit if Republicans still have control of some part of congress or the president, but it's totally something that could happen.
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Question: how does providing alternative options to abortion and regulating it in any way somehow make a woman not own her own body? Step by step process, please, because none of you who've made that claim have given it. And keep in mind that the DNA of the unborn child is completely different from the mother's, which means it's NOT just another part of her body like you guys keep insisting. It's a baby and lives there until it's able to survive in the outside world. Even a former leader of the abortion industry acknowledges this:
https://www.pop.org/abortion-industry-leader-attacked-for-truthtelling/
Also, many of you seem to completely and conveniently ignore the fact that a lot of women (over 60%) feel pressured to get abortions and that it's not nearly always as voluntary as you think (because the industry's goal is to do as many abortions as possible, NOT to provide "choice"):
https://www.pop.org/many-american-women-felt-pressured-abortions-study-finds/
h ttps://thefederalist.com/2015/09/18/how-many-women-are-pressured-into-abortions/
https://clinicquote s.com/statistics-on-coerced-abortions/
Oh, and the excuse about carrying a rapist's baby is just that, and it ignores (just like those who push it) the very real fact that the baby is an innocent. The Star Trek Voyager episode "Basics Part 1" addressed this very issue:
Kolopak: Centuries ago, when the women of our tribe were raped by white conquerors, many gave birth to their children, and we did not reject them. They were accepted by the tribe. One was a direct ancestor of ours, Chakotay. His name... was Ce Acatl. He became a great leader of our people. Here is a man who was given life without his mother's consent. Are you so different from her? And is your child so different from Ce Acatl?
Commander Chakotay: No.
To be clear, I don't support the Texas law. It's the wrong approach to the issue. But it's also wrong to demonize and belittle anyone who feels that some form of regulation is in order, though not necessarily outright prohibition, as I know that would only make things worse. The issue is complex, and as such, the right solution won't be an easy one, either. But it needs to be one that respects the child as well as the woman, that addresses the needs of both.
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I hope the fact that I’ve admitted to being a cisgender male multiple times in the past would’ve been your first clue.
And who, exactly, would be on the other side of this violence? Would it be the people filing lawsuits under the bullshit law, or the people who passed that law, or someone else entirely? At what point does enforcement of this law, such as it is, become something that requires violence to counteract? How would you suggest preventing an escalation of violence between pro-choice activists and anti-choice activists?
I’m sympathetic to women in Texas who feel their rights are being attacked. I firmly believe they should have the right to decide whether they want an abortion—and the right to get an abortion if they want one. But I don’t know when I can condone violence as a means of protecting that right. (Yes, “when”, not “if”.) Violence should always be the absolute last resort; even when it is necessary, it is ground upon which we should still tread carefully.
That position doesn’t make me tolerant of intolerance. It makes me someone who doesn’t think violence is the only answer—or should even be the first answer—to intolerance.
Those “misfits” are the ones in charge, and they’re also the kind of people who—as you put it—“won't quit, can't be shamed away, and can't be convinced to back down”. Humiliating them by exposing their hypocrisy won’t work; that would require them to have the capacity for shame. Changing laws won’t work; they’ll either change them back or find ways of getting around those laws. Voting them out of office won’t work; they’ll come back in the next election, win, and take everyone right back to where they started.
Literally the only solution to the problem you yourself posed—how to stop people with no sense of shame or remorse and no capacity for compromise or empathy—seems to be violence. So what form of violence will be necessary to “run[ ]these misfits out of town in tar and feathers en masse”? How many people will this violence need to be inflicted upon before it solves the problem? How much collateral damage will be considered “acceptable”?
I am under no illusions that words alone will stop elected Republicans and their conservative brethren both in and out of office. That said: I fail to see how we can solve the problem you’ve posed without resorting to violence. If you can think of any other non-violent options that might actually work—and aren’t only “vote the bastards out of office” or a variant thereof—now would be a hell of a good time to share them. Otherwise, I only have one more question: When must the “problem-solving” violence begin?
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No it isn't.
"Respondents to a survey of women who had contacted crisis pregnancy centers for post-abortion care "
So out of women who contacted a crisis center after the abortion, many felt pressure beforehand. That isn't surprising. What percentage of women getting an abortion contacted a crisis center afterward?
So is the rape victim.
Nobody is doing that. It's perfectly fine to regulate abortion, just like any medical or surgical procedure. You know how you end up with unregulated abortions, performed out of the public eye with no oversight? Ban them (which is essentially what this Texas law does).
If your actual goal is to reduce the number of abortions, there are proven methods to do that, and they don't involve making abortions illegal or even harder to get. Anyone who claims to be pro life and anti abortion should be out there fighting for comprehensive sex ed and free contraception, because that is what actually works to cut down on abortions.
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The Texas law doesn’t provide an “alternative” to abortion. It sure as hell doesn’t provide any funding for either programs that help lower abortion rates (e.g., comprehensive sex education, free/affordable contraception) or post-birth childcare programs. All it does is make any abortion after six weeks of pregnancy illegal to perform in the state of Texas.
And a woman owns her body when she alone gets to make the decision about what she does with her body. The Texas law puts that control in the hands of basically everyone but the woman herself…well, after six weeks of pregnancy, anyway.
so what
Yes or no: If you believe all life is sacred regardless of the circumstances of its conception, do you believe a 13-year-old who was impregnated via rape should be forced by law to bear the child of her rapist?
Regulation is fine. (The Swedish model for abortion strikes me as the best possible compromise.) But by and large, anti-choice/anti-abortion advocates don’t want regulation—they want the abolishment of the legal right to abortion in the United States. That would mean more forced births, more back-alley/illegal/unsafe abortions, and God knows how many more maternal deaths from either the births or the abortions.
How many women would have to die from a lack of access to legal abortion before you graciously concede that they should have the absolute right to choose what they can do with their own bodies?
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They should also be fighting for anything that makes childcare less expensive and improves the foster care/adoption system. Y’know, if they were actually “pro-life” instead of “pro–forced birth”.
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If it's a baby, then aborting it is killing it. Which would be murder. Do you support charging the pregnant woman with murder if she chooses to abort? Do you support charging the doctor as though they were a contract killer (they were hired to kill the baby, after all)?
If it's a baby, it gets the same legal protection in the womb as it would out of the womb. Do you support the full police investigation of any miscarriage to determine if foul play was involved? Do you support charges of abuse, negligence, endangerment, or similar crimes against any pregnant woman who chooses to smoke, drink alcohol, or take any other action potentially harmful to the baby?
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Re: Re: 5-4 or 6-3, Same outcome?
When did a majority of people start voting in the US?
When did we start asking voters whether to go to war or not?
True that Democracy is the worst form of government...that's why the US was formed as a republic to promote only the best aspects of democracy while installing powerful anti-democratic checks to avoid the chaos of mob rule that predictably follows.
As we have dismantled those safety systems under the rallying cry that "we need more democracy," the pillars of our republic are crumbling under the weight of the mob. Just as political scientists reaching back to Plato predicted it would.
See Jonathan Rauch's 2016 article in The Atlantic for more.
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Really, as half of the chromosomes come from the mother, along with all the mitochondrial DNA.
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"Oh, and the excuse about carrying a rapist's baby is just that, and it ignores (just like those who push it) the very real fact that the baby is an innocent."
Willing to bet there were at least a couple innocents in the 675,000 people closed minded religious zealots helped kill by denying science, but y'all seem to have no problem with killing them.
"But it's also wrong to demonize and belittle anyone who feels that some form of regulation is in order, though not necessarily outright prohibition, as I know that would only make things worse."
Then write a law that is just as overbearing and controlling toward the men who create these magic lives & then walk the fsck away or admit you just want to make sure you can force women who dare to have sex carry babies to term so you can then ignore the child ending up in poverty & then tut tut tut about how she should try harder while screaming you will not pay a cent more in taxes to support her bastard child.
No matter how the fuck you feel about it, why the hell do you have the right to tell other people they can't make their own decisions?
All of the money wasted on bad laws & fake clinics... why the hell haven't y'all made something to replace abortion, beyond forcing a woman to have the child?
Y'all claim there are people ready to adopt blah blah blah, well how much research have you put in transferring an embryo to a new host as a win win option for both sides?
Because YOU believe it is a child and YOU do not want them to be aborted still does not mean you have a right to tell someone else how to live their life.
Put your money where your mouth is, develop an alternative to abortion that meets your requirements rather than keep screaming that you get to decide the fate of other people who are supposed to have the same fucking rights you have but try to deny them having at every turn.
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"bipartisanship"
You misspelled appeasement.
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Your biggest mistake was failing biology, civics, and history.
Your second biggest mistake was watching Voyager.
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'Time for your mandatory blood 'donation'.'
No it isn't.
Even if you grant that it is so what? To the best of my knowledge you cannot force someone to support or even save the life of another person using their body against their will outside of pregnancy so unless the pro-forced birth crowd want to change that so things like blood and organ donations are no longer optional then they are merely trying to give special rights to the unborn at the cost of womens' bodily autonomy.
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'But... but... socialism! Life is only sacred when I don't have to do or sacrifice anything to protect it, it's on it's own the second it requires me to actually pay any sort of cost.'
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Violent solutions are not as always needed as you may state. Your opponent "Won't Quit and Wont back down from his position" Thus the correct solution is dead by old age or removal of resources.
Going after the money in this situation is about as good as you can do in the short term. Consider simply enforcing IRS rules about politics and religion (cant tell people who to vote for, but EVERYONE does). Perhaps we could even provide a bounty system where people could record preachers breaking IRS rules and getting to sue Church's for breaking the rules. To make things more juicy removal of tax free status would do a good job at fracturing the powerbase that allows this kind of activity.
But what do I know, I am just someone who respects women's rights.
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In fairness, the Court gave up most pretenses of legitimacy in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), where it ruled that
The court said, id. at 109, that the decision should not be used as precedent, but was limited to ``present circumstances''. Those circumstances were that, absent a ruling against counting votes, a disfavored candidate would be elected.
There have been other decisions, e.g Korematsu, 323 U.S. 214, and Schenck, 249 U.S. 47, which have also prove to be embarrassing. But at least those had the excuse of the fever of war rather than the open humiliation of being results-driven.
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Perhaps we could even provide a bounty system where people could record preachers breaking IRS rules and getting to sue Church's for breaking the rules. To make things more juicy removal of tax free status would do a good job at fracturing the powerbase that allows this kind of activity.
While I doubt it would actually result in churches losing their tax-free status because the number of prosecutors and judges willing to go after a church could likely be counted on a single hand if nothing else such a plan of action would have the potential for creating some very awkward question for certain people and agencies as they were faced with open violations of the law and asked why they weren't doing anything about it.
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But it needs to be one that respects the child as well as the woman, that addresses the needs of both.
And in all that verbiage, just like the rest of those that say "but the childrens!" the one thing conspicuously absent is how this bill plans to hold MEN responsible. Because let's face, there's no 'immaculate conception' bullshit being discussed. Yet, holding the man responsible for the pre-natal care, let alone child support, forced DNA testing to determine relation, post-natal care, and the man's role in these poor, poor innocent things' lives is non-existent.
Care to speculate why the focus is the woman, and her choice with respect to abortion without a mention as to how the other fucking part of the clump of cells will also be forced to be responsible?
I'll give you a hint - it's fucking on purpose.
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Supreme Court undercutting itself
By trying to avoid procedure and precedent to begin with, the Conservative majority, in my mind are trying to destroy the Court's credibility via a loophole that when you get down to it, shouldn't exist.
"This refusal to defend the Court's own precedents was yet another way the majority's behavior was aberrant and destructive. Precedent is what gives the law stability, because once the Court has spoken we can all know where we stand."
Paradoxically, this means that this rulling should hold no weight.
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It probably would…if the IRS had the funding (and thus the staffing) necessary to fully enforce the Johnson Amendment.
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Fun Fact:
Right now, your body contains an entire ecosystem of microorganisms—some good, some bad, some neutral—whose DNA (or RNA) are completely different from yours. In fact, they’re even less similar to yours than a mother’s is to her fetus’s or whatever.
Not only that, but those sperm cells or unfertilized egg cells in your body? They also have different DNA from yours! In fact, they don’t even have the same amount of DNA as you!
And those cancer cells… Why, they also have different DNA that causes them to multiply to the point it’s dangerous!
And I guess transplanted organs and blood transfusions aren’t part of the recipients’ bodies, either. I mean, they also have completely different DNA.
And don’t get me started on chimerism! Why, those people are born with more than one set of distinct DNA in different cells in their body!
Do you see the problem yet?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's next?
The definition of civil war is merely "a conflict between two or more groups who are organized within the same state". It may a conflict between existing factions, it may be a conflict between the government and a shadow group supported by outsiders, it may be an uprising of the people into a new organization.
The Donbass conflict in Ukraine began under very similar circumstances to the January 6th insurrection, if the state capitols had been the primary target rather than the weak copycats. Unhappy with the results of the 2014 election, members of the populace stormed the regional capitals of several "states" and demanded a new vote. When that didn't come, they effectively took control of the states in a coup, with significant material support from Russia.
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But socialism
When John Oliver did a LWT segment about crisis pregnancy centers, there was a scary screed from the manager of one about how a post-natal mom needed to be cut off from the CPC's offering of diapers after six months because she needs to learn to stand up for herself or something to that effect. Blah, blah personal responsibility blah.
And that's when I thought, you may like the notion of protecting the unborn, but you like capitalism more.
The doctrine of personal responsibility doesn't work unless we actually give everyone the capability of being personally responsible, and that includes making their own health and reproductive choices. If we coerce someone to make a choice, that ends the personal responsibility argument. Even legally
Of course the far right were never about values that are consistent across all cases and for all people. Not in my lifetime anyway.
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