The Glade 4.0

As a lawyer, though, it's your job to make ridiculous arguments, if there's a chance they'll stick.

Just like arguing for dismissal based on standing; it's not the lawyer's fault (or even Obama's, really) for doing it. The client, nor either lawyer, is not responsible for the reasonability, sanity, nor Constitutionality of their arguments, or the jurisprudence precedent they'll set if the judge accepts them. It's the judge's job to eliminate arguments based on these factors, to ensure decisions with Constitutional integrity and reasonability.

If they lawyer's doing their job, their arguments shouldn't tell you anything about how they feel the ruling should have gone. And that's my problem with nominating lawyers.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

This. You need to be careful when judging a lawyer based on cases argued.

Starting to get some info:

As an illustration why, consider this quote dug up by the First Amendment Center's David L. Hudson, who found it in a government brief signed by Kagan in United States v Stevens: “Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0naS7RWtC

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That link doesn't work for me.

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The Dude abides.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

She'll never make it.

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The Dude abides.

She's golden, the pro-lifers will back her to the death. Despite the fact that she offered it up only as a compromise to prevent a veto-override.

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Actually, I think that having been a judge or a lawyer is a hindrance to a nominee's ability to do the primary ability of the Supreme Court. Why? Because lawyers and judges believe in jurisprudence.

That's fine for every court that isn't the USSC. But for that court, I believe they should look at each case individually as it compares to the constitution. Therefore, what matters more to me is critical thinking, moral and ethical character, and knowledge of the US Constitution, NOT the law.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

While I don't disagree with your suggestion that the USSC should look at cases on their individual merits compared to the Constitution, knowing the law is essential to do so, because the majority of the time, the arguments in the case at hand will reference previous decisions. Decisions that you must either uphold or invalidate by your rulings (and in your writings about the ruling; dissents, etc.), and should thus be familiar with the details and nuances of the cases and decisions that make up the jurisprudence the lawyers are founding their arguments upon.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Free speech absolutely is balanced against societal costs. Anyone who thinks otherwise is niave.

That said, we in America appear to be willing (most of the time) to pay a higher societal cost for that right. Which I wholeheartedly agree with.

[youtube]muHg86Mys7I[/youtube]Thanks to SG for the awesome video ...

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Well that video explains a lot about your Khross.

To quote you, "It's more complicated than that".

Except, it's really not anymore complicated than that video at all.

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This. The core of that video is treating others with the respect you want from others when it comes to things they don't agree with about what you do with your life.

If you think that its more complicated than that video than somewhere at your moral core - you do not respect others and you wish to rule them because you believe yourself to be better than others at running their lives.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Except that once it's reached the level of the USSC the only precedent that should be considered is the Constitution. Each party makes new oral arguments before the court, and therefore doesn't really "need" to refer to law or precedent at all. In fact, it would be ideal if they didn't.

Otherwise, growing hay on your own farm for your own personal use is Interstate Commerce in any modern court.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

That's a very continental European vision of law, DFK. It has some advantages, but it's completely contrary to the Common Law approach that US law (and the Constitution itself, for that matter) is based on.

Its not contrary to the Constitution itself RD. The Constitution is the highest law of the land and previous decisions of lesser courts are useful only in showing different courses of thought (and then only in areas where the Constitution itself does not give clear direction). The highest court's ultimate duty is to hold to the Constitution - not to obey stare decisis because not doing so would reverse X years of jurisprudence.

Even in history common law gets reversed and modified through review contrary to some past ruling. Thats kind of how common law came to accept jury nullification for example - a ruling that broke with tradition, then another that expanded this break.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That's sort of the thing about the Constitution: having never been anything like it, we immediately failed to live up to its ideal.

Why? Because we tried to use that which we knew, common law and stare decisis, on it. The Constitution's structure itself indicates that this isn't appropriate by explicitly laying out the only way in which it can be truly modified. Instead, we have 200+ years of "modification" through precedent.

In other words, while I believe that Judicial Review is actually a very important aspect of US law, I think that the USSC adhering to precedent to inform their opinion about the founding document is vaguely unconstitutional in itself. Unfortunately, as the arbiters of constitutionality, they cannot be challenged in that regard.

Kaffis' assertion makes total sense for every court up to the USSC, because those courts do not have the authority and responsibility to uphold the Constitution, but rather to uphold the contemporary interpretation of it. The USSC has no such responsibility to contemporary interpretations, instead their responsibility is to the document itself. We've never really followed that, though.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Only if the Court chooses to uphold the various precedents surrounding the Commerce Clause. But to decide whether or not to strike them down, they need to know the intricacies of the decisions upon which the precedents are based, at the very least so they can void them in a constructive and clear way to be the foundation of new jurisprudence.

Perhaps, for instance, the answer is "the argument supporting the application of the Interstate Commerce clause to agriculture was valid in XXXX v. YYYY, because it pertained to wheat crop being shipped to Florida, but does not apply here because the hay is consumed in the same state, and, in fact, by the individual who farmed it."

With your view that they needn't be aware or well versed in previous jurisprudence, your Court would say "that's ridiculous, we're throwing out your reference to Interstate Commerce applying to agriculture, that was a bad decision and is now invalidated." How, then, is a court supposed to rule on the next case in which butter is being shipped Maine? Wisconsin now gets to slap a tariff on it.

I'm not suggesting that the USSC doesn't have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution, nor even to hold precedent or past jurisprudence in a state of privilege in comparison to the Constitution. But they do need to know and understand jurisprudence in order to create a cohesive and clear jurisprudential record for the lower courts to follow with minimal need to interpret. My preference that they have experience dealing with jurisprudence and precedent isn't so their decisions can be influenced by it. It's so they know how to make their decisions in order to clearly and properly influence the rest of the court system.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It appears we're talking about different things. You're talking about the ability to craft a decision so that it is clear. I'm talking about knowledge of precedent and the desire to work within that precedent, usually evidenced by being a judge or an attorney.

They are not synonymous.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Khross that video is disturbing.

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Really? Liberty is disturbing?

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