It snowed yesterday in Seattle, apparently for the first time ever! A dusting of frozen water fell from the sky in the form of fluffy, white flakes, making the roads slippery! Who the hell can drive in that?!
And in breaking news, today it is going to rain! A lot. Expect flooding. Again, something apparently that has never, ever happened here before.
Will wonders never cease?
Goldy,
Sure can tell you ain’t from these parts…
As anyone who’s lived here more than 15-minutes will tell you, snow here isn’t snow in the East or Midwest. That we’re not only allowed the use of chains and studded tires, but must, at times, use them or face ticketing to cross the passes isn’t something someone whose first solid food was Gerber Pureed Philly Cheesesteak would understand.
Snow will always be a big story around here. Welcome to the PNW. Snow, melt, freeze, ice, rain, freeze, more ice, a few more flakes, freeze, black ice, hills, hills, hills, hills…Hello, Geico, we have a problem here…
Try going out on I-5 or 405 during a snow storm and watch the bumper cars…Yeah…it’s a big story all right.
The Piper
Piper,
You think sand and salt instantly sprouts on East Coast streets every time it snows? People here have to learn how to drive in the fucking the snow.
Here’s a hint. Drive slowly. Here’s another hint, when you’re going down a steep hill, shift into first (and yes, you can even do that on an automatic) so that your engine slows you down, not your brakes. It’s hard to skid when you don’t hit the breaks. And when you do skid, turn into it.
David Hardy, Contra Costa Times on DC v. Heller:
“In law school, we were told to be careful what we ask for, because the fates may give us just that. If the Supreme Court upholds a broad Second Amendment right, tens of millions of gun-owning Americans will be reminded of the high court’s role as protector of their Constitution.
If it goes the other way, those millions will be asking how arms ownership, expressly mentioned in that document, is unprotected while abortion (no where mentioned) is broadly protected.
They will come to believe that the Constitution is merely a paper covering for arbitrary judicial rule. This is not a lesson we want taught in a democracy.”
I blame Bush.
(It’s a joke, Puddybud.)
Yes there are no other places outside these-here parts y’all with our unique combination of snow and elevation — not in Canada, New York, Vermont, NH, Quebec, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Russia, Italy, NZ, India, or Pakistan. No sirre Bob, nowhere else is ther that combination of less than 32 degrees, precipitation, and hills. And there ain’t any such combination with interstates either outside these-hyear parts, nope, there are no interstates in Pennsylvania where you will find hills and snow.
So Goldy and evrybody, please y’all shutup now & stop tellin’ us these ol’ tall tales ’bout other places. We ain’t a gonna listen. Snow and hills outside these parts, y’all are a bunch a liars. We are unique, y’hear now? and we ain’t gonna larn nutin’ from any y’all outsiders.
Delbert, the 2d provision you refer to protects all “arms,” no? So then possibly the court ruling will lead the way to allowing all citizens to own any arms, such as explosives, nuclear weapons, anthrax or mustard gas!
These are assuredly good protections against the Nazi takeover by the government, no?
The dime is dropped on Larry Craig.
Hey PWhacks, is this evidence of “librul MSM bias” in the Idaho Statesman?
Damn that global warming.
Damn that global warming.
Indeed.
The consensus now emerging is that oceans will rise by a metre this century and perhaps even two. A two-metre rise would have enormous effects on coastal areas of Canada — on places where people live in Victoria and Vancouver (especially on Delta and Richmond in the Lower Mainland) and on the ports of Vancouver, St John’s and Halifax. With such a rise, concerns about rebuilding infrastructure and moving people inland will — in a few decades — become real, even urgent.
Remain smug in your ignorance Stamn.
Hey Delbert:
You and the rest of the “second amendment” crowd need to write out (and read) the whole second amendment:
” a well-regulated militia, being necessary……the right of the people to keep and bear arms….”
so – what well regulated militia do we have for people to keep and bear arms? Oh yeah, the national guard that we have sent to Iraq…
Of course if you want to be a strict constructionist of the constitution – the only arms available then were muskets and small pistols – so that is what they were talking about. If y’all want to have those – fine – learn how to load wet gunpowder. You can get off about one shot every 10 seconds.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say the right to keep and bear in your house the following:
automatic weapons
ability to outgun the police
submachine guns
nuclear weapons
Uzis
Bottom line: the murder rate in the US is much higher than in comparable countries (GB and most of Europe) that have gun control.
People kill people by using guns. Virginia tech happened because sickos get automatic weapons and use them.
goldy: I agree there are many people in Seattle that can’t drive in the snow and go into a total panic. However, many of them are from California or never go up to the mountains.
Here are some examples from the last two inch snowstorm (it was pretty icy):
1. Person wanted to be pushed back on the road but had their front wheels perpendicular to where they wanted to go and the rear wheels (RWD) were spinning out.
2. Person put on a single chain on one wheel and couldn’t figure out why they were going in circles.
3. Person tried to put chains on the rear wheels – until I asked if they front or rear wheel drive – turns out it was FWD.
4. Person braked going uphill at a stop sign and then couldn’t start again….even though no one was at the corner of the stop sign.
All of these elemental driving errors were because of inexperienced drivers.
The current snow crisis in Seattle with the pending flooding is an outrage! This is obviously the result the Bush administration’s lack of attention to Global Warming.
If Only Al Gore were president, we could pick what temperature the globe should be……
Impeachment!!!!!
In other news.
“CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – President Hugo Chavez would take on expanded powers and have a shot at being president for life under constitutional changes being considered by Venezuelans Sunday in a vote that raised tensions in South America’s top oil exporter.”
And the fringe netroots/nutroots love him!!!!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/25/1253/0778
Here are some posts by resident HA fan of Chavez
Roger Rabbit says:
Not a few Republiconvicts want to kill Hugo Chavez because he thinks Venezuela’s oil belongs to Venezuela and the profits from that oil should go for the benefit of the Venezuelan people instead of Exxon’s profits.
11/24/2007 at 2:30 pm
Roger Rabbit says:
@4 Wingnuts never met a champion of social and economic justice they didn’t want to kill. Why should Mark care what Chavez does in his own country? How Venezuelans govern Venezuela is none of his business.
07/29/2007 at 1:44 pm
I’ve always been amused by the Seattle media’s need to snatch an interview with the season’s first snow flake to hit a Seattle sidewalk. “Was it cold up there in the stratosphere?” “How long are you planning on staying in town?”
goldy……you are expecting the idiots in seattle to learn how to drive????
now that’s funny……….
And people are going to drive CARS — something they’ve never, ever done before — and slip-and-slide into each other!
And everywhere there’s a wreck — and there’ll be plenty of ’em — everyone else will slow down to gawk and rubberneck, and the whole train will move at about 10 feet per hour.
This town is as predictable as its winter weather. As a famous anti-capitalist once said, the masses are asses.
@1 The problem in the passes isn’t chains or slick pavement, it’s people who think they can drive 80 mph on white stuff. On any given weekend between Nov. 15 and March 31, I guarantee you’ll see at least one car resting on its roof in the median strip if you cross the mountains on I-90.
@3 The superficiality of your (and his) analysis is awesome!
So tell me how your righty strict constructionists derive an INDIVIDUAL right from a sentence that talks about “militias”?
When it comes to the weather and driving around these parts, all I can say is that many times, over 21 years, without chains, without 4-wheel or all-wheel drive, I made it through both ice and snow on these roads to various destinations before friends did (sometimes they never even made it).
How did I perform these miracles?
I just did what I learned from driving in the Midwest:
1) Leave a little early.
2) Drive at what the conditions will allow, and no faster. (If you can’t judge those conditions, then you should stay home.)
3) Stay on the right – let the speedsters pass by you.
4) Patience.
Every area has their bad drivers that are most noticed when the weather turns bad. But nowhere seems to beat this region, sadly, when it comes to total road amnesia among so many people when we get a good rain after a dry spell, or the first snowflake of the season touches the ground.
And I have no idea why.
ROGER RABBIT QUIZ
Roe v. Wade is based on
[ ] 1. the 5th amendment due process clause
[ ] 2. the 1st amendment separation of church and state clause
[ ] 3. the 5th amendment search and seizure clause
[ ] 4. the 14th amendment due process clause
[ ] 5. the 10th amendment reserve rights clause
[ ] 6. the 14th amendment privileges and immunities clause
[ ] 7. the 9th amendment non-enumerated rights clause
No peeking!
@20 Just to make it more interesting, I put one of the clauses in the wrong amendment … anyone know which one?
@4 It’s not.
8, 9 – You can’t expect Stamm to understand something as complicated as OCEAN CURRENTS.
Stamm, after all, is the kind of guy who would tell you that if every stock on Wall Street went down, except one he happens to own, the market was “up” that day.
@10 “Bottom line: the murder rate in the US is much higher than in comparable countries (GB and most of Europe) that have gun control.”
That’s irrelevant.
“People kill people by using guns. Virginia tech happened because sickos get automatic weapons and use them.”
So is that.
Geez, cnr, your grasp of law isn’t much better than delbert’s. Facts got nuthin’ to do with it.
Remember what Mr. Magoo said: “The law, sir, is an ass.”
How To Convert Rear-Wheel-Drive To Front-Wheel-Drive In 5 Seconds Without Tools
Turn the vehicle around and back up the goddam hill in reverse.
@26 Trust me, this works. For two reasons. First, not only is it easier for front wheels to pull the vehicle up than for rear wheels to push it up, but second, reverse is the lowest gear ratio in the car which gives you a lot more torque. It might help to have some sandbags in the trunk, though.
@26 This method also has the advantage that if you don’t make it, you slide back down the hill facing forward instead of backwards, which will assist you in not hitting things on the way down.
@12 Why do you care if Chavez is a dictator? Are you planning to move to Venezuela? (If you are, I’ll help you pack … )
@ 20 #4 under the rubric of “substantive due process”
@21 #3 search and seizure is the IVth Amendment
ROGER RABBIT PERSONALITY TEST
I prefer that Venezuelans live under a:
(Check only 1 box)
[ ] 1. Rightwing dictator
[ ] 2. Leftwing dictator
@31 I didn’t invent this test. It’s used by major corporations to screen employment candidates.
@14 Defensive driving is easy in Seattle. If it rains or snows, stay home.
In all fairness to Seattle drivers, the midwest and northeast drivers who laugh at us don’t get our black ice (and wouldn’t do any better if they had to drive on it), and their drivers are just as idiotic as ours.
@30 I said NO PEEKING!!! Cripes, some people just won’t follow instructions.
@ 27
Actually, in slippery conditions, you want the highest gear you can possibly hold will still keeping the motor turning. When I had a manual gearbox, I would often select at least third gear when going up hill.
One of the more difficult skills to master is feathering the throttle to maintain maximum traction. You have to sense when the driven wheels are about to lose traction, and ease off the gas just a touch. Once you regain full traction, you want to slowly add more throttle to keep your momentum going.
Selecting a higher gear makes the feathering process easier, because it reduces the throttle response at the driven wheels.
OMG The Pelletizer (TM) SPAM in this thread. What tripe!
Regarding idiots from Seattle driving in snow. If you watched Fox News 13 last night the state trooper made an interesting comment: “Oh Man I can’t believe their tires”
The wife and I smiled at each other. We see King County based baldies all the time!
@ 31
What makes you think I peeked? Con Law II, UWM. I remember studying Roe v Wade during the portion of the course that covered “substantive due process” and the XIVth Amendment.
ROGER RABBIT QUIZ
Okay, now let’s do a constitutional law question. Privacy is
[ ] 1. a 5th amendment right
[ ] 2. not mentioned in the constitution at all
[ ] 3. a necessarily implied constitutional right
[ ] 4. a right that was implied unnecessarily
[ ] 5. not a constitutional right
(You can check more than one answer.)
@38 UWM?
@37 OK, drive up the hill front-first, suit yourself.
Just let me know when you’re gonna do it, so I won’t be standing around at the bottom of the hill when you try it.
@ 38
I’d check #’s 2 and 3.
@ 40
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
@42 What law school did you go to? Does UWM have a law school? Are the old Milwaukee Downer College buildings still there?
@ 41
During last year’s winter storm, we had a neighbor who just couldn’t get his car up the hill leading out of our cul-de-sac. He’d start at the bottom, try to get a good run at the hill and get about half-way up before his tires would start spinning and he’d have to come back down for another run.
Having a high-speed internet connection, I chose to work from home rather than try to drive around the idiots. My den looks out at the hill, so I had a good view of his antics. I’d give him three tries at it before I’d take pity on the poor guy, and offer to help him out. Every time I tried, I got his car up to the top of the hill on the first effort.
Two more pieces of advice: turn the heater fan off and roll down your window. You’ll hear the tires start to spin a lot sooner that way.
If you take a bus from the ‘burbs to campus, and transfer at North Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue, that is one fucking cold bus stop in January! The wind chill there can be 100 below zero.
@ 43
Those were undergraduate, political science courses. I’d considered going to law school, but decided against it after spending a summer interning in the Washington DC Corporation Council’s office. I figured I would enjoy the study of the law, but not the practice all that much.
And, yes, the old Downer College buildings are still there. At least they were when I graduated more than 20 years ago.
@44 The old VW Beetles worked great for going up backwards, because you had the weight of the engine over the rear wheels. They were shitty cars in every other respect, though.
@46 Well, you figured right. Unless your dad owns a law firm, practicing law is a crappy way to make a living. One of my law school professors called it “a fine hobby, if you can afford it.”
@ 46
I stayed in the dorms–the three tallest buildings on Milwaukee’s northeast shore. When the prevailing winds were from just the right direction, the dorm buildings would channel a good amount of that wind down and then outward from the base of the dorms, creating what we commonly referred to as the Sandburg Wind Tunnel. That could get quite cold.
@46 20 years? I go back farther than that. One of my cousins, a couple years older than me, was a Downer student. That tells you how far back I go.
Back in those days, a “C” was the highest grade you could get in most of the first-year UWM courses.
@49 What dorms? I don’t remember no dorms. There were no dorms. It was a commuter school for guys who worked in factories at nights and slept on weekends.
And had last names ending in “ski”.
@34:
I’ll grant that in the Midwest, you needed to live near a river or immediately inland from a lake to worry about black ice (as opposed to around here, where it can almost show up anywhere), but living next to Lake Michigan, I assure you that we did get some, and we did have to deal with it. (I also lived near the Mississippi at one time too (Quad Cities), and it was always weird to me that it was a bigger problem there than off one of the great Lakes.)
@47
I learned to drive in the snow with a 1971 Toyota Corolla station wagon–rear-wheel drive. Every winter, I had two things in the back: a shovel, and 200 lbs of sand. The sand added weight over the driven wheels, and I could sprinkle some of it on any ice that proved difficult to traverse.
@52
These dorms:
http://www.december.com/places.....uwmsh.html
@53
Did anyone ever refer to the college as “UCLA”? (University of Cudahy by the Lake, Almost or University Close to the Lake, Almost).
@ 54
Where I grew up, we called it “glare ice” rather than “black ice,” which should tell you something about how often we encountered it.
@25…RR…
It wasn’t Mr. Magoo…The correct quote is:
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
It’s from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
That you attribute it to a cartoon proves your cartoonish nature.
The Piper
@18…RR…
Because it also talks about the “right of the people to keep and bear arms…”
The people…that’s us…individual citizens…ergo an individual right to own firearms.
The Piper
@39…RR…
An allegedly necessarily implied right coming out of the 14th Amendment and the “penumbras emanating” (cf., Griswold v. Connecticutt) from it.
Blackman’s Roe opinion, and Douglas’ Griswold opinion are two of the goofiest SCOTUS opinions ever writtent. Conclusion oriented, textually weak, and without foundation in the Constitution.
The Piper
Now for something completely out of the blue…
Last week Bill Clinton flipped on Iraq. Sunday, NBC’s David Gregory said, “It’s a reminder of what some people who don’t like Hillary Clinton don’t like.”
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah Baby! Looks like Bill is hurting Hilary.
Good!
Is NBC pulling for Obama?
You decide.
Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this story?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....1130170521
I realize it may be tough! Let’s see how many single celled brain organisms can figure this out.
Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this story?
It doesn’t point out the simple fact that Bush is the worst and most reviled President in this nation’s history.
That should be in the first paragraph. Like so:
US President George W. Bush, the worst and most reviled President in U.S. history, who rejected the Kyoto protocol, remains opposed to international constraints on curbing carbon emissions despite growing isolation ahead of a world climate summit.
Simple omission of a salient fact.
@57 A mere technicality of no consequence.
@57 (continued) The fact you’d split hairs over an unimportant attribute demonstrates that you’re an ass, too.
attribution
258 Feel free to exercise your constitutional right to enlist in the National Guard whenever you’re up to it.
@59 You would prosper in a legal system under Mussolini.
59 PS
So you think that married ouples ahve no right to use contraception?
I see that Republican obstructions are blocking AMT tax relief in Congress.
obstructionists
@69 Not only that, he thinks cops have authority to peek in his bedroom window to make sure he’s not.
@ 59
The name is spelled “Blackmun,” he was a Nixon appointee, and “Conclusion oriented, textually weak, and without foundation” describes 99% of the comments to this blog from folks who share your political persuasion.
Hey crackpiper, can you explain to us mere proles why government should have any fucking right to police citizens’ sexual behavior?
60 Pud
Yeah, everyone sure hates Hillary.
Except for the majority of Americans who would vote for her over any of the GOP candidates. (http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08gen.htm)
Boy, is that a bad way to be hated. ow.
Oh, nd Bill Clinton, who left office at about 66-68% job approval rating. Yeah, if only he could be loved like GW bush. Uh-huh.
@64…RR…
Mere technicality? Oh, really! You not only can’t get the quote right, you misattribute it, don’t even have the right genre from which it comes, and just generally embarress yourself since probably the only literature you’ve “read” is that seen by you in cartoon form.
You did understand what I said? Or were my words too difficult or too long?
Details matter, Rabbit, as you delight in pointing out to others when they make mistakes.
The Piper
@73…DJ…
Thank you for the correction. My bad for the mispelling. Harry Blackmun was one of the Minnesotta Twins (along with Warren Berger) appointed by Richard Nixon, and, after Watergate, perhaps his single biggest mistake as President.
Berger turned out OK, but Harry screwed the pooch…
The Piper
76 PS
I agree with you on this. Attributing to Mr. Magoo what righfully belongs to Charles Dickes in incorrect.
However, it is absolutely trivial.
If you thin that Grisowold was wrongly decided, do you think that married couples have no right to use contraception, and that the State can tell them not to under our Constitution?
Fucking forced birthers.
@69…DL…
Never said that. What I did say was that Griswold v. Connecticut was poorly reasoned and covered an issue best left to the people of the State of Connecticut. Talk about judge-made law! “Penumbras?” Where are they in the Constitution? More like wanting a specific result and making it up as you go along, which was W.O. Douglas’ modus operandi anyway.
That and chasing young girls three decades his junior.
The Piper
Crap.
Attributing to Mr. Magoo what rightfully belongs to Charles Dickens is incorrect.
Gosh, I guess we shoud only allow things from the 18th century in our country, because clearly the Founders had nothing to say abotu cell phones, Internet porn, international currency trading, national mortgage brokering companies, and campaign finance. As well as 95% of our current lives.
Sell your car and buy a horse, because the Cosntitution doesn’t mention them.
@74…RR…
There’s a difference between something being a matter of philosophy as oppossed to a matter of law.
Personally, I don’t think government should be able to tell you that you cannot use your property for a given use unless it compensates you for the lose of your right to use your property as you see fit. There’s more Constitutional textual commitment for my property rights contention than there is for a judicial holding striking down a state’s prohibition against birth control.
Where in the U.S. Constitution is there a prohibition against a state regulating the morality of its citizens? If the people of that state, through their legislature, decide that a certain practice shocks the conscience or is injurious to the public safety and health, what in the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits such a legislative determination.
Too many judges act as super-legislatures substituting their judgment for that of the people.
Do I think government should regulate intimate conduct? NO. But I don’t think it’s a matter of judicial determination; the legislature is entitled to make that decision.
The Piper
@67…RR…
I’m too old (58 come Saturday) to enlist in the National Guard, but I do own firearms, which I have a Constitutional right to do.
Again…more textual commitment in favor of an individual’s right to own a firearm than there is for a court to strike down a state’s laws against birth control.
Remember…it’s not the role of a court to second guess a legislature’s wisdom…That’s Tim Eyman’s job!
The Piper
correctnotright says:
Hey Delbert:
You and the rest of the “second amendment” crowd need to write out (and read) the whole second amendment:
” a well-regulated militia, being necessary……the right of the people to keep and bear arms….”
so – what well regulated militia do we have for people to keep and bear arms? Oh yeah, the national guard that we have sent to Iraq…
Of course if you want to be a strict constructionist of the constitution – the only arms available then were muskets and small pistols – so that is what they were talking about. If y’all want to have those – fine – learn how to load wet gunpowder. You can get off about one shot every 10 seconds.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say the right to keep and bear in your house the following:
automatic weapons
ability to outgun the police
submachine guns
nuclear weapons
Uzis
Bottom line: the murder rate in the US is much higher than in comparable countries (GB and most of Europe) that have gun control.
People kill people by using guns. Virginia tech happened because sickos get automatic weapons and use them.
12/02/2007 at 12:23 pm
Correctnotright Man where did you come up with that silly name? Back in General Washington time everybody had a weapon and the type did not matter. But today young whimper snappers like you want to rewrite the Constitution and claim it is a living and changing document what a crock of shit sunny.
Today this country is providing less than 50% of the National Guard to fight the War on terrorism. Those that are left at home can do quite well defending the home front from nuts like you. When other states need additional troops (Guard) other states provides the necessary support.
Funny little man have you ever used a fully automatic weapon? You are the reason the Police are out gunned. What do you really know about a submachine, Bonnie and Clyde, or what Hollywood show on the screen.
Uzis man that is what the Secret Service use to protect the President, but I bet you can’t buy a fully automatic one legally today.
The bottom line Europe is now disarmed and the crime rate is quite high just asked the French as their cities burn. England has a high rate of knife homicides that replace the use of a gun. People are not real happy about that they now become the victims. The Bobbie’s is also force to carry weapons because the locals can’t defend themselves or the Police.
Now for your Sick friends they need to be sent to an insane asylum not dump on the streets. Without them on the streets the lawyers would be in the unemployment lines and not defending murders.
Funny little man everybody meets their fate but let’s make sure those who prey on weak little gays like you don’t walk this nation streets.
Maybe you should buy a weapon, gets some training, buy a gun case to lock the weapon up, and don’t forget to get a permit to carry. Maybe not you might shoot yourself thinking the boogie man was after you.
@82…DL…
The Constitution doesn’t mention a lot of stuff, but it gives Congress the authority to legislate in any number of areas such that modern issues can then be encompassed.
And so far as I understand, no federal court has held that there’s a Constitutional right to own a cell phone. It’s conceivable that a state may outlaw them as a health and safety hazard.
When it comes to Internet porn, I’m convinced the Founders didn’t have Katie Morgan or Isabella Soprano in mind when they crafted the First Amendment. We have lost our way on this issue.
The Piper
I’m thinking, Grisold me no Grisowlds. Whether or not you agree with the specifics of Griswold, do you or do you not think that citizens have a reasonable right to privacy from the State, or that the State should have inlimited rights to regulate to the citizens’ private, consensual behavior?
Anyone who votes for a democrat should not be able to buy gas or have electicity since they are against everything.
Traffic problem solved. Gas prices solved. Global warming
solved. Me for president.
@87…DL…
If I was a sitting judge, my personal opinion would be completely irrelevent.
As a thinking human being, I don’t want the government dictating to me on the most intimate of matters. As a matter of political philosophy and belief, I think citizens should place as many restrictions on government interference in both private matters and property matters as possible. Just as I think government should stay out of the bedroom, it should also stay out of the boardroom. No second-guessing business decisions or whether this CEO is overpaid or that worker is underpaid. Absent the violation of a law applicable generally to everyone, it’s none of the government’s business.
Constitutions exist not to empower government, but to limit government power. Yet, where the Constitution is silent, what then? Can the state act even though what it does isn’t to your liking?
Too often the answer to that is dumped in the lap of the courts on trumped up grounds when it should be handled via the legislative process, which, in this state, includes the people’s right to an initiative.
There are lots of areas in which I find common ground with Libertarians, one of which is in our common distrust of big and intrusive government.
The Piper
#15 Roger Rabbit says:
Wasn’t it you that ran that race against a tortoise. Didn’t that loss teach you anything?
@ 89
“If I was a sitting judge, my personal opinion would be completely irrelevent.”
A popular, though quite delusional, sentiment often expressed by proponents of so-called strict constructionism–as if strict constructionism were, itself, not a philosophical question that can only be answered by appeal to axiomatic principles for which there is no objective basis.
“Constitutions exist not to empower government, but to limit government power. Yet, where the Constitution is silent, what then?”
The answer to that ought to be incredibly simple: where the Constitution is silent, the Courts have an obligation to err on the side of individual rights and liberties, because, as the Constitution itself attests, the very purpose of government is to secure these rights and liberties to the people. By this line of reasoning, those same “penumbras” emanating from the 14th Amendment that secure a woman’s right to reproductive privacy also secure our rights to privacy in our telephone conversations.
One could argue that, where the Constitution is silent on such matters of liberty, the people should amend the Constitution where it is silent, but that creates two problems. The first is that the people then have the onus to establish their rights and liberties rather than placing the onus on the government to establish a legitimate interest that would allow for situational restrictions on individual rights and liberties.
The second, and probably more serious issue, is, in the absence of this presumption of liberties, it becomes all too easy for the majority to deny rights and liberties to minorities by mere force of their majority status. In other words, to say that individual rights and liberties ought to be subject to democratic processes is to tacitly deny those rights and liberties to any minority who lacks sufficient power to protect themselves from the whims of the majority. I’m sure you are quite familiar with the phrase “tyranny of the majority.”
Lastly, since you appear to be such a strict constructionist, do you agree or disagree with the notion that corporations are “persons” within the meaning of the immunities and privileges and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment?
@91…DJ…
I’ve had essentially this same discussion here before.
My philosophy is pretty much originalist: what was the intent of those who wrote the law, not how is it read today.
“A popular, though quite delusional, sentiment often expressed by proponents of so-called strict constructionism–as if strict constructionism were, itself, not a philosophical question that can only be answered by appeal to axiomatic principles for which there is no objective basis.”
Clever…dismiss a POV with which you disagree by immediately labeling it “delusional…” Sorry, but I do believe judges should be narrow in their rulings, restrained in the exercise of their power, rule no broader than is necessary to cover the issue and facts at hand, and be faithful to the original intent of the law or constitutional provision at issue.
“The answer to that ought to be incredibly simple: where the Constitution is silent, the Courts have an obligation to err on the side of individual rights and liberties, because, as the Constitution itself attests, the very purpose of government is to secure these rights and liberties to the people. By this line of reasoning, those same “penumbras” emanating from the 14th Amendment that secure a woman’s right to reproductive privacy also secure our rights to privacy in our telephone conversations.”
The phony “penumbras” have nothing to do with phone conversations, which, through lines of reasoning traceable throughout the Common Law, can, at the federal level, be grounded in the Bill of Rights.
Abortion and reproductive privacy are nowhere to be found in the Constitution or Common Law. Because the federal Constitution is silent on the matter, what’s to prevent the states from regulating it?
The Constitution is silent on the subject of divorce, hence it’s left exclusively to the states to regulate it.
The whole Griswold “penumbra” stuff is basically making it up as you go along, which is how Douglas wrote most opinions anyway. I find that a terrible judicial philosophy since it opens things up to some guy later on going in any number of crazy directions.
BTW…where are the “penumbras” protecting property rights? And again…there’s more solid Constitutional language in favor of the right of individuals to own firearms than there is for abortion, yet many liberals are willing to essentially erase the Second Amendment because they find it untidy even as they fight to the death for the principle that the ultimate Constitutional right is that to suck a child into and then down a sink.
Corporations are “juristic persons” – just like non-profits like the Sierra Club or NARAL – under the 14th Amendment, and that stupid Santa Clara Railroad decision doesn’t hold to the contrary.
The 10th-Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
For a time, there was hope that the literal language of that amendment would be taken seriously to restrain the federal government from its continual erosion of federalism and individual rights.
It’s difficult to amend the Constitution, and that’s as it should be. But if one takes the 10th-Amendment at face value, there isn’t a need to amend it in order to secure unspecificied individual rights. Per its terms, they are “…reserved to the…people.”
Conservatives in the Seattle-area are most certainly familiar with the term, “tyranny of the majority.” However, with the levels of checks and balances we have at the federal and state level, a mere “majority vote” will never be sufficient to eviscerate the rights of a minority.
Of course, there will always be abuse of power, but those only last for a time. FDR and Earl Warren wrongfully imprisoned Japanese-Americans during WW II, but it was under the administration of Ronaldus Magnus Reaganus that apologized to them and paid those still alive compensation.
The Piper
When I left Florida for Seattle 20 years ago, the 11 o’clock news (even back then) was 10 minutes of murders, 10 minutes of weather and 10 minutes of sports.
I’m thankful everyday that I instead had rasied my family in a place that can devote 15 minutes of the 11 o’clock news to show us that its wet & cold outside by having some poor reporter standing out in the (was it was snow, but now its turned back into just) cold rain.
Ahhhhhh yes YLB – The Clueless One (TM) is truly clueless. Fell right into the trap.
The Kyoto Protocol Treaty has never been ratified by the US Senate in 1997. This all happened under Bill Clinton. I posted this to prove the left-wing liberal bias of the MSM.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSenate.html
” Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that–
(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would–
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or
(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States; and
(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United States which would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or other agreement.
SEC. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy of this resolution to the President.”
http://www.senate.gov/legislat.....vote=00205
You see for all you ASSWipers (TM), YLB – The Clueless One (TM) has one of those malleable minds, one that doesn’t think, can’t remember facts and has trouble processing anything not from the left-wing kool-aid sites.
YLB – The Clueless One (TM) look at the vote date. Who was presnit then dumbASS YLB – The Clueless One (TM) ?
Are you dumb or dumber? Wait… you played both parts.
@ 92
I don’t recall dismissing the point of view. It’s the pretense at objectivity that I’m dismissing, and with just cause. Yours is a point of view no more objectively valid than any other judicial philosophy. Or, do you wish we should pretend that judicial philosophy is not a matter of personal opinion?
Yours, on the other hand, is the dismissive attitude regarding other points of view, and it’s not even clever. When you say that people are “making it up as they go along,” you completely fail to actually engage the argument that’s been put forth, and merely reassert your own point of view as the only view that’s reasonably viable.
Gosh. I guess that means Chief Justice Taft never delivered the opinion of the Court in the Olmstead case, or that Olmstead was not collectively overturned by Burger v New York and Katz v United States.
Either there is a right to privacy that covers circumstances not mentioned in the Constitution, or there is no such “penumbral” right. You can’t have it both ways. You might call this search for “penumbral” rights “making it up as you go along,” but others seem equally justified in calling it a principled approach to Constitutional interpretation.
Now you’ve gone off the deep end. Regarding the 2nd Amendment, not even the most strident strict constructionist would argue that it secures the right of individuals to own, say, thermonuclear weapons. It might be cute to have a bumper sticker on your Humvee that reads, “My other car is a cruise missile,” but, as for actual ownership, lots of luck.
As for your colorful turn of a phrase for abortion, again, you completely misstate the opposing position. I know of no one who considers reproductive rights the “ultimate” constitutional right, and we’re clearly not talking about “children” in the normal meaning of the word. I suggest you try to make the point without using straw men, hyperbole and equivocation.
Lastly, I find it fascinating that you would, simultaneously, argue for a broad reading of the 10th Amendment yet decry people who find rights not enumerated in the Constitution as “making it up as they go along.”
No, Piper, the one very real threat to our liberties is the prospect that strict constructionists like you should find themselves appointed to high courts in this land.
But, that’s already happened, hasn’t it? And, how many of those were recess appointments?
Terrorist @ 94
Except that your example of liberal media bias makes no mention of the Senate having ratified the Kyoto protocols. Once again, you see media bias where none exists.
By the way, the Senate in 1997 was controlled by the Republicans. I’m not sure what that has to do with Clinton, but I’m sure you’ll endeavor to explain it to us.
@96…
@96…
PS
“Katie Morgan?” I had to look her up. Now you think that the first amendment does not protect pornography?
First, how is it not speech?
Second, what’s wrong with porn? If you don’t want any, don’t go get it. But you don’t have the right to tell me I can’t have it.
@96…DJ…
You’re not seriously contending the Senate ratified the Kyoto treat, are you?
Bill Clinton never bothered to send it to them for ratification. And wasn’t there a sense of the Senate resolution passed 95 – 0 demanding that the U.S. shouldn’t be signatory to any accord that (1) didn’t put the same greenhouse gase reduction requirements on developing countries as it did the U.S., and (2) might result in injury to the U.S. economy?
And didn’t Sen. John Kerry make some kind of remark at the time that Kyoto was unratifiable?
I’m pretty sure that a lot of Democratic senators are glad they didn’t have to take a stand in favor of supporting its job loss provisions. Great to expend hot air platitudes in favor of the environment when you don’t actually have to go on the record about it.
BTW…Sorry for the double post with just @96…It’s early, and the coffee hasn’t fully kicked in…
The Piper
The
escalation“surrrge” is “working.”Yes, now that Baghdad’s neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed, walls have beden built between them toimpede free passage, and all the Christians are dead, have left, or are in hiding, kilings in Baghdad have dropped somewhat.
Of course the government will not “reconcile” and they have told us so, and the Sunnis just withdrew from the government again, so the results that the
escalation“surrrge” was supposed to achieve are unrealistic, improbable, and not happening.It doesn’t really matter, though, because the administration was just talking shit anyway to put off any serious opposition to their continuation of the war and give Republicans in Congress a talking point.
Here’s the story on the disappearing Christians in Iraq, courtesy of 60 Minutes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....3612.shtml
60 Minutes also helped CBS’ viewers make the connection between sectarian cleansing and the lower levels of reported violence since last year. While overall violence is down in neighborhoods like Dora, which used to have over a dozen operating Christian churches, that is because the “cleansing” is complete. Everyone the militias wanted out is dead, fled as displaced persons/refugees, or in hiding.
During the show, a woman Pelley interviewed explained how her small sons would be kidnapped and disappear if they went out. Another man shows pictures of his children, all shot. A US Colonel explains that the remaining Christians don’t want overt US protection because they would quickly become targeted as collaborators. Pelley reads a letter one family received, threatening everyone with death. He follows story after story, all the same.
Meanwhile, the Brits pull out of Basra in early September — and violence immediately drops by 90% and stays dropped. Hello?
@99…DL…
My personal opinion is that the First Amendment was intended to cover political and socially unpopular speech, not “speech” about how well Debbie does Dallas. However, my opinion isn’t shared by enough judges such that it would prevail anywhere.
Yet there are legally sustainable laws against certain forms of and practices in pornography. Also, I never contended that my opinion should govern; it’s up to the people to decide these things.
The Piper
@ 100
“You’re not seriously contending the Senate ratified the Kyoto treat, are you?”
No. I’m not a Republican, so I have no disposition toward believing something happened when it clearly never did.
As for Sen. Kerry’s statement, was that a statement of his personal beliefs about the likely effects of implementing the Kyoto protocols, or was he merely making a statement about the political realities of a Republican-controlled Senate?
@95…DJ…
W.O. Douglas was famous for “making it up as you go along” in his opinion writing. He had a result in mind, and he wasn’t about to let reason, law, or precedent stand in his way to get there.
The Katz decision dealt specifically with “unreasonable search and seizure,” not a vague personal expectation of privacy. Whether someone has an expectation that a private telephone conversation will not essentially be “seized” by the government without due process is vastly different than finding a right to abortion in the Constitution.
BTW…Hugo Black dissented in Katz as he did in Griswold, yet Hugo was a quintessential FDR-appointed liberal jurist who, for example, wrote the majority opinion in the Pentagon Papers case.
People generally don’t realize that originally the Bill of Rights was applicable only to the federal government. It wasn’t until a couple decades after the 14th-Amendment that “mission creep” of expansion of the due process and equal protection clauses from their originally intended purpose of protecting citizenship rights of newly enfranchised black Americans resulted in piece meal incorporation of bits of the Bill of Rights to the states.
I think you referenced the wrong Berger/Burger case. The one on point in re Katz is Berger. There’s another Burger v. New York case dealing with search and seizure (of a NYC auto wrecking yard…held, a warrantless search not a Fourth Amendment violation).
In the correct Berger in which SCOTUS overturned a New York statute allowing non-judicially issued search warrants, the Court still grounded it’s holding on a “search and seizure” reasoning.
Not so in Griswold, which ran amok with notions of privacy not textually specified in the Constitution. While it may be good policy not to restrict access to birth control, that doesn’t mean it’s up to non-elected SCOTUS justices to make it when the legislature of a state says otherwise.
As for the Second Amendment? You just had to go to extremes, didn’t you? We’re not talking private rights to own thermonuclear weapons. Instead, does a citizen have the right to own a firearm? I contend that the language of the Amendment requires answering the question in the affirmative. SCOTUS currently has under consideration a D.C. case on the subject where the city banned handgun ownership. I look forward to the late spring issuance of an opinion clarifying the issue.
No bones about it…I believe abortion to be a mostrous evil and the taking of life. Yet any effort to restrict it even in the slightest way is met with denunciations so bitter and extreme that you’d think the effort was genocidal in intent. To many, abortion is considered the ultimate Constitutional “right,” which evidences how perverted as a society we have become.
Take away gun rights and property rights and liberals barely bat an eye. Require parental notification before aborting a 13-year old’s child, and the roof caves in.
The 10th-Amendment, to me, calls for the federal government to butt out of matters not addressed in the Constitution and leave them to the states and the people. Not everything under the sun is or should be a federal case.
The Piper
@103…DJ…
Here’s something from an ultra-liberal website detailing Kerry’s Kyoto position –
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/.....so1102.htm :
“Kerry opposes the Kyoto Protocol, just as the Clinton administration did in its eight years in power (something that liberals and progressives have managed to ignore or forget). His official position is that ‘the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer. The near-term emission reductions it would require of the United States are infeasible, while the long-term obligations imposed on all nations are too little to solve the problem.'”
The internal links in the quote to the Kerry quote are no longer operative; it has been three years, after all.
The Piper
I seem to recall on this forum somebody whining about his power being our last year.
@ 104
I’m afraid you are missing the point about Olmstead, because it looks like you’re addressing a line of reasoning I haven’t put forth. I’m not trying to find some internal contradiction in the strict constructionist philosophy. Rather, I’m showing how, even within that philosophy, decisions are influenced by personal opinion. This is a fact that’s unavoidable.
There are two relevant points here:
1) Olmstead is the quintessential strict constructionist case. It is almost an extreme example, which probably has something to do with why it was overturned. Yet, it has been overturned, which means that, even within the strict constructionist philosophy, the concept itself is malleable and subject to the opinions of individual jurists.
2) There is a line of reasoning that goes from Justice Brandies’ dissent in Olmstead through Katz and Griswold to Roe. You can dismiss the existence of this line of reasoning with the “making it up as you go along” hand wave, but that doesn’t make the line of reasoning any less sound within the “living constitution” philosophy than the fact that Olmstead was overturned implies a breach in the strict constructionist philosophy.
Having dispatched the main point, there the 2nd Amendment that you’ve injected into this discussion:
“As for the Second Amendment? You just had to go to extremes, didn’t you?”
You showed up with the hyperbole about flushing children down drains, and now you want to complain about my taking the point to extremes? Motes and eyes, my friend.
Unlike the case of your hyperbole, there is, however, a valid point to be made with an extreme interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Many gun advocates suggest that an armed citizenry is a free citizenry, but that platitude becomes meaningless when there is a disparity between the armaments in the hands of the citizens and the armaments in the hands of the government.
I should also note how you’ve managed to preface the Constitution’s word “arms” with the word “fire”. Not a very strict constructionist thing to do at all.
Regarding the 10th Amendment, your reasoning misses the point. Rights don’t belong to states. They belong to individuals. If the people have reserved for themselves a right that’s not enumerated in the Constitution, to dismiss that right as being a non-Federal issue effectively eviscerates any protection that the 10th Amendment offers for the existence of that right.
As much as you might decry, on purely philosophical grounds, the concepts of substantive due process and the selective incorporation of the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment, it becomes pragmatically clear that a protection of individual liberties that fails to restrain the hand of state governments is a meaningless protection. We citizens might as well not have such a right at all.
When viewed in this light, many of us look askance at right-wing professions of strict constructionism is little more than philosophical sugar-coating for a determined effort to undermine the civil liberties that we lefties have fought so hard to obtain.
Which brings me to the last point. You have twice, now, asserted this belief that we leftys believe Roe establishes the most important freedom we have without a shred of evidence or argument to back up that claim. Your attempt at proof by repeated assertion stands as sufficient evidence that the claim is false, though I shouldn’t hesitate to say that, for the vast majority of leftys, the freedoms secured by the 1st Amendment are the dearest freedoms of all.