US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8706

On September 11 2017 07:05 xDaunt wrote:


I'm trying to decide what is worse. That you are admitting that you made your pronouncement without even understanding the issue or the arguments that the other side makes, or that you are completely missing that I already provided the education that you need when I referred to this.

On September 11 2017 06:20 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I don't know what he's said about that and I don't know enough about what his opinion would entail, but I also don't like dismissing people because of singular statements or positions. If he's honestly debated 100 different issues and then twice he held a different position for political reasons, that's fine by me tbh. I've written more than 1000 posts in this thread and opined on lots of different things, I'm sure some conservatives could arrest me on something I said that was stupid and wrong, and maybe I even doubled down on it afterwards. A healthy political climate includes giving some degree of slack imo.

On September 11 2017 07:14 Danglars wrote:

Since you bring up singular statements or positions, how do you feel about the 'hate group' designation from quotes snipped from within legal briefs? The Alliance Defending Freedom ran afoul of the SPLC, but defends religious liberties successfully before the Supreme Court (7-2 win this year).

Original clash
Al Franken compares ADF to Pol Pot

On September 11 2017 06:44 xDaunt wrote:

This kind of sentiment needs to be singled out and condemned for its utter stupidity. Only a moron would conclude that a position that has been affirmed by the US Supreme Court cannot be held honestly.

1. Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857): Hands down the worst Supreme Court decision ever, Dred Scott held that African Americans, whether free men or slaves, could not be considered American citizens. The ruling undid the Missouri Compromise, barred laws that would free slaves, and all but guaranteed that there would be no political solution to slavery. The opinion even included a ridiculous "parade of horribles" that would appear if Scott were recognized as a citizen, unspeakable scenarios like African Americans being able to vacation, hold public meetings, and exercise their free speech rights.

2. Buck v. Bell (1927): "Eugenics? Yes, please!" the Court declared in this terrible decision which still stands as good law. In an 8-1 decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court upheld the forced sterilization of those with intellectual disabilities "for the protection and health of the state." Justice Holmes ruled that "society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind" and ended the opinion by declaring that "three generations of imbeciles are enough."

3. Korematsu v. United States (1944): Here, the Supreme Court upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, finding that the need to protect against espionage outweighed the individual rights of American citizens. In a cruel and ironic twist, this was also the first time the Court applied strict scrutiny to racial discrimination by the U.S. government, belying the idea that strict scrutiny is "strict in theory, fatal in fact."

4. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): The Court's famous "separate but equal" ruling upheld state segregation laws. In doing so, the Court made sure that the gains of the post-Civil War reconstruction era were quickly replaced by decades of Jim Crow laws.

On September 11 2017 07:14 Danglars wrote:

Since you bring up singular statements or positions, how do you feel about the 'hate group' designation from quotes snipped from within legal briefs? The Alliance Defending Freedom ran afoul of the SPLC, but defends religious liberties successfully before the Supreme Court (7-2 win this year).

Original clash
Al Franken compares ADF to Pol Pot

On September 11 2017 08:08 LegalLord wrote:
I honestly would say that each of those positions (GH's four court cases and Citizens United) could be held honestly - though both the position and the court decision are highly dubious.

Dred Scott is the worst of the bunch, and the one I least agree with - but I think the rationale was something something put an end to the issue?

Eugenics as laid out by Francis Galton's work of the same name did have a significant humanitarian argument in its favor; however it is worth mentioning that many prominent individuals of the time did have some strong criticism for those motivators (my favorite was by author HG Wells, who has the now-prescient commentary of "try to realize the dangers of your methods especially if your conclusions are wrong"), and only after WWII did that philosophy start to be associated almost exclusively with groups like the Nazis. Before then, it was popular in high-brow social circles and the like as well.

Korematsu was a wartime decision. There were talks of straight-up suspending the Constitution mid-war. Folks fearing the worst could easily support that decision in all honesty.

"Separate but equal" seems, on its face, a reasonable proposition. Only when it didn't work out that way in reality (separate and far from equal) could you say that it was straight up absurd.

Citizens United seems to be very well in line with capitalism worship, which is all too common in the US.

So I could definitely see how people could support these decisions honestly. No, the Supreme Court isn't an end-all be-all authority on moral correctness (though very close to that on matters of legality), but the positions that it upheld I could definitely see having been supported with an honest belief that it was for the best rather than out of some auxiliary evil motive.

On September 11 2017 08:08 LegalLord wrote:
Citizens United seems to be very well in line with capitalism worship, which is all too common in the US.

On September 11 2017 06:44 xDaunt wrote:

This kind of sentiment needs to be singled out and condemned for its utter stupidity. Only a moron would conclude that a position that has been affirmed by the US Supreme Court cannot be held honestly.

On September 11 2017 08:22 Nebuchad wrote:


The direction of Citizens United isn't surprising in the context of the US, I agree. The fact that it was treated as an issue of freedom of speech is comical and should be treated as comical.

Look at McConnell: "For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process. With today’s monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day. By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers. Our democracy depends upon free speech, not just for some but for all."

I refuse to believe anyone is honestly fooled by this shit.

“They put a target on my head. The kind of work that I do, if you tell the wrong kind of Muslims that I’m an extremist, then that means I’m an target,” he said. “They don’t have to deal with any of this. I don’t have any protection. I don’t have any state protection. These people are putting me on what I believe is a hit list.”

Not that he took well to his inclusion on its merits, either.

“I’m the one who’s a Muslim in this!” he said. “I’m listed there with people such as Pam Geller? It’s unbelievable.”

According to a Jan. 24, 2014, report in The Guardian, Nawaz tweeted out a cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad — despite the fact that many Muslims see it as blasphemous to draw Muhammad. He said that he wanted “to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge.”

In a March 23, 2015, opinion piece in The New York Times, Nawaz claimed that British academia was thick with Islamist radicals. “In fact,” he wrote, “academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them.”