JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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yabits
It appears very hypocritical for members of the Catholic church to, on the one hand, take advantage of the freedom of religion offered by our secular, democratic society made up of many more non-Catholics than Catholics, while on the other hand chastising a non-Catholic for upholding the separation of church and state. Is there any evidence that Mr. Obama has ever endorsed abortion on a personal level for his immediate family members?
Posted in: Notre Dame's Obama invitation riles Catholic bishops
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yabits
Yes, it takes a great deal of guts and wisdom to face reality with empathy and understanding. Especially when much of the reality we confront is the result of so much mindless self-centeredness. And so, some decide to take the fork in the road where they harden themselves, which only ends up feeding the beast.
Souter's words at his confirmation are worth recalling: "The first lesson, simple as it is, is that whatever court we're in, whatever we are doing, at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected. Some human life is going to be changed by what we do. And so we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get those rulings right."
Note that his first worry is about the life of human beings, and not some arrogant attempt to believe he is channeling the mind of a founding father in interpreting the law. President Obama would do very well to find another David Souter.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Since misguided merciless is the opposite to empathy and understanding, it relates to the topic. I would invite you to examine any of the SCOTUS decisions with 7-2 margins where Thomas and Scalia are the dissenters -- their views often go beyond the pale of staunch conservatives like Rehnquist, Alito and Roberts. One such decision is given in the following link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/21/opinion/courtwatch/main3958407.shtml
I do not see how this pertains to the topic. What you appear to want to do is to define "empathy" according to your own narrow terms, via a gun control issue. This is disingenuous. Nobody would deny a person's right to defend themselves if their life is truly being threatened. But since breaking and entering is not a crime that warrants the death penalty, I also believe that a society based on understanding and wisdom would want to be careful about allowing a citizen to act as judge, jury and executioner solely to protect personal property.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Yes, learning and growing appears to stop for conservatives when they reach the age of 12 or 13.
Spoken by someone who admits to having stopped learning years ago.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Yes, a majority that consisted of: White, a JFK appointee; Stevens, a Ford (R) appointee; Blackmun, a Nixon (R) appointee; Rehnquist, another Nixon appointee; O'Connor, a Reagan appointee; Scalia, a Reagan appointee; Kennedy, a Reagan appointee; and finally Thomas, a Bush appointee who joined the Court in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall.
Nevertheless, in the first three years, Souter dissented with those considered the "liberal" members of the Court more than he did the conservatives. With all those Republican appointees, that is saying a lot.
LOL!! Souter never claimed to be a strict constructionist.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Brilliant choice!
Posted in: Resistance to Obama high court pick may be modest
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yabits
The problem with your certainty is that you obviously have not done any research to support it.
Go back and look at the Supreme Court decisions from 1990-1993 -- Souter's first years on the court. By mid-1992, Souter had racked up enough decisions to put him squarely on the center-conservative side of a conservative Court. This is prior to the Clinton appointees of Breyer and Ginsberg.
As the supporting link will show, Souter came out on the majority side in 100 out of 108 decisions. He dissented with the most conservative members (Thomas and Rehnquist) around 20 times and dissented with the most liberal members (Blackmun and Stevens) over 30 times.
I fully understand that agreeing with conservatives on more issues than he did with liberals means that Souter is on the far left ("obviously a liberal") according to conservative diatribe, but there you have it.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/03/news/souter-anchoring-the-court-s-new-center.html
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
LOL, Molenir....
You are obviously forgetting that when the US was born, it borrowed heavily from the legal philosophy and traditions of other nations, primarily Britain's.
That, above all, is really basic.
Posted in: U.S. Justice Souter planning to retire
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yabits
This is an egregious fallacy. It is like saying that a company in a foreign nation that came up with a new invention or improved process for producing a quality product would not apply anywhere beyond its borders. Informed, intelligent people will recognize your objections as the "not-invented-here syndrome" and know how to deal with it.
At the bottom line, we are dealing with ideas -- something that transcends national boundaries. We understand why this frightens those who are easily frightened.
Posted in: U.S. Justice Souter planning to retire
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yabits
Therein lies the conceit of both conservatives and Democrats who fancy themselves as liberals.
In Souter's case, then-Senator Rudman's endorsements of him put the risks all on the Democrat's side. Indeed, in his first few years, Souter voted with hardline conservatives on the Court more than 80% of the time.
At first glance, no Democrat could have hoped or predicted that Souter would have come so far against the tide that swept him to the highest court in the land. On the other hand, there is always hope that someone will gain enough intelligence and wisdom to see through the gross error of hardline conservatism. It happened to Barry Goldwater, and it certainly happened with David Souter.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Yes, it's called "learning and growing." I understand why conservatives are so opposed to that. When Souter was appointed, he was then the sitting Attorney General for the very independently-minded state of New "Live-Free-or-Die" Hampshire. He was sold to Republicans as a slam-dunk conservative -- in short, someone who would always adhere to the party ideology. Ah, but learning and growing are always a threat to that mindset.
Empathy and understanding are not required qualifications for the SC. It is just so interesting to me that conservatives appear to be particularly proud of misguided mercilessness. Lord knows we seen so much of it from them.
That is just an opinion, and one that many will totally disagree with. The law has a letter, and a spirit which underlies the letter. (A spirit that can't be fully grasped by trying to muddle through the minds of men long dead, and who are no longer around to debate the fine points.) A saying that has stuck with me over the years goes as follows: "There are two types of people who never contribute much of anything good: Those who can't follow directions and those who can do nothing else." Scalia and Thomas fall into the latter category. They may produce an academic understanding of some aspects of the law, just as the scribes and Pharisees did, but they miss the entire boat.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Well, many of us do recognize the irrational fear and paranoia behind the hatred. Souter's sin was that he did not follow the hard-liners in their many weaknesses, and so he was able to make up his own mind -- which is always the biggest threat to many a modern-day conservative.
Posted in: U.S. Justice Souter planning to retire
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yabits
And during Hitler's time, there were Jews who preyed on other Jews in the camps and ghettos. And to imply that such a thing would absolve the Nazis is grossly foolish.
Posted in: U.S. professor's Holocaust-Gaza comparison stirs debate
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yabits
USNinJapan2:
Yes, there are no justices in recent history who weren't judges at the time of appointment. Farther back, there have been those who weren't judges but, for example, law professors.
I don't think Bill Clinton would ever be seriously considered for the position.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
There is a vast difference between the laws of other lands holding precedent and examining the logic of judicial actions in other democratic countries to learn what wisdom they contain. And, after careful study and reasoning, to cite a decision when it applies.
Many of my US compatriots appear to take the opinion that the US has a monopoly on wise decision-making and that there is nothing to be learned from others -- a position about as dumb as any I've run across. Or it could be that some Americans prefer to look at what other nations are doing and then incorporate those things all the while pretending that they originated in the USA.
Posted in: U.S. Justice Souter planning to retire
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yabits
I guess that means that a justice will need to vote with Thomas and Scalia better than 90% of the time to be considered an "independent" by a hard-line conservative.
Also, conservatives seem to be proud of the fact of being able to cite no examples when Scalia or Thomas ever acted with empathy or understanding. A judge without those qualities is about as far away from Solomon the wise as one can get.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
The basic problem conservatives have is their operational belief that the US was made for its constitution rather than the other way around.
If you believe that a constitution is made for a nation, then you don't have too much of a problem looking at how other courts resolve the real-life issues they are faced with, even if those courts happen to be foreign.
On the other hand, once certain people begin to regard a constitution as holy writ, like the Bible or Koran, then it's easy to understand why they would feel that looking to a foreign court is a form of heresy.
Since the US constitution doesn't even require a nominee for the Supreme Court to be an American citizen, one wonders what the big beef is for a justice to look at legal theory as expressed by others living in democratic societies. Those who believe in the natural law theory, on which the United States is based, should not have a problem with this.
Posted in: U.S. Justice Souter planning to retire
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yabits
Highly unlikely. As Souter has proven, it is far easier for ignorant people to overlook intelligence than it is for intelligent people to overlook ignorance.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
Article 3 of the constitution makes no provisions for the requirements of a supreme court justice. They are not even required to be citizens of the US (as opposed to Congressmen and the President/Vice-President). Bill Clinton is therefore eligible.
Posted in: Obama: New Justice will combine 'empathy and understanding'
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yabits
I never said that about Senator Specter, or any other US Senator.
Posted in: Pennsylvania's Specter switches parties, bolstering Senate Democrats