Politics: A new beginning

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
I can't help but wonder if, in two hundred years, the verdict is again going to be "it was monstrous, and wrong", and our heirs will be learning in school about the evils that our generations inflicted

In 50 years, our heirs (well not mine 'cuz I am not one of the breeders and think I am better than the rest of you for that reason) will definitely think that of us, but it won't be because of abortion. It will be because of how we warehouse the mentally ill in our jails and because of the way we shit on the environment.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Not Me
That would be the same one under which the Civil Rights Act was enacted.

I say once again: an interesting combination of ignorance and arrogance.

S_A_M

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by bilmore
I understand exactly what you're saying, as this has historically been my outlook too.

But, more and more, I think it's a tenuous line we draw with such imprecise and value-laden explanations. I can't help but wonder if, in two hundred years, the verdict is again going to be "it was monstrous, and wrong", and our heirs will be learning in school about the evils that our generations inflicted, and speaking of NARAL the way we speak of the Klan.

I think this is entirely possible, but if it comes to pass the focus won't just be on NARAL but also on the truly wretched support system for young families and single mothers and our incredible tolerance for poverty in this country at this time.

Frankly, I am already horified at a couple of things: (1) the way people on both sides have moved to the extreme, so that many anti-choice people can't tolerate abortion under any circumstance while many pro-choice people can advocate for late term partial birth abortions in almost any circumstance -- the good part of Roe v. Wade was that it acknowledged that their are differences, from differences in timing on, that must be dealt with in some way; but it is now almost impossible to say this in public without being attacked from both sides; and (2) the number of people who do seem to think of abortion as just another form of birth control; it's not, it is qualitatively different from a little pill that prevents growth beyond an embryo.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I say once again: an interesting combination of ignorance and arrogance.

S_A_M

Boot that, that's my corner!

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
I just feel trapped amongst all of you irrational idiots. Go into your own fucking corners and think dark thoughts and burn, and stop with the high and mighty constitutional shit until you can stop picking and choosing.

You know that can never happen. Picking and choosing is inevitable.

In my view it is just about as undesirable to: (a) operate strictly and only according to a pre-defined principle in every case -- and to take that principle to its logical conclusion in every case, as to (b) operate without any principles on a purely results-based analysis in each case.

S_A_M

P.S. to AG -- I agree that Steve Chabot (R-Oh.) is a moron -- and I should know. It is, however, unfair to tar him as a hypocrite on states rights issues. The GOP is not a monolith, and social conservatives don't pretend to care about "states rights".

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
ATLANTA MOTEL v. UNITED STATES, 379 U.S. 241 (1964) Holding that Congress had the power to enact Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the Commerce Clause.

Interesting. Justice Douglas, concurring, says:

• Though I join the Court's opinions, I am somewhat reluctant here to rest solely on the Commerce Clause. My reluctance is not due to any conviction that Congress lacks power to regulate commerce in the interests of human rights. It is rather my belief that the right of people to be free of state action that discriminates against them because of race, like the "right of persons to move freely from State to State occupies a more protected position in our constitutional system than does the movement of cattle, fruit, steel and coal across state lines...." Hence I would prefer to rest on the assertion of legislative power contained in 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment which states: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article" - a power which the Court concedes was exercised at least in part in this Act.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Why? What is your basis for concluding this? Please walk me through your analysis that caused you to arrive at this conclusion.

No thanks. Read around, or take my word for it.

You need to mingle with the common folk more. There are people who view abortion as another means of birth control and are only bothered by the cost of the procedure.

To be sure, and it is unfortunate.

And babies don't "physically depend" on "another"? Try throwing one in a dumpster and see how long it can live without "another."

Many of us depend on others, but not on one particular person.

I agree, but I still don't understand how you arrived at your conclusion that reasonable people can differ about whether feti are people.

You misread me.

[Hank Chinaski]

As much time as we waste here, we are apparently not the edge of time wasting. here's a page full of remixes of the Dean speech.



http://home.comcast.net/~cozdemir226/index.html

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Interesting. Justice Douglas, concurring, says:

• Though I join the Court's opinions, I am somewhat reluctant here to rest solely on the Commerce Clause. My reluctance is not due to any conviction that Congress lacks power to regulate commerce in the interests of human rights. It is rather my belief that the right of people to be free of state action that discriminates against them because of race, like the "right of persons to move freely from State to State occupies a more protected position in our constitutional system than does the movement of cattle, fruit, steel and coal across state lines...." Hence I would prefer to rest on the assertion of legislative power contained in 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment which states: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article" - a power which the Court concedes was exercised at least in part in this Act.

Some context, from 107 Am. Hist. Rev No. 1 (Feb. 2002):

• Richard C. Cortner. Civil Rights and Public Accommodations: The Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung Cases. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2001. Pp. xi, 225. $29.95.
  
  In 1964, Congress passed the first major civil rights statute enacted since Reconstruction. Its effort was the result of multiplying public protests, changing attitudes toward race, the growing political power of African Americans, the Warren Court's commitment to racial equality, a political upsurge that followed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the determined leadership of his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. The act's centerpiece was a prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in places providing "public accommodations," a term defined broadly to include hotels and motels, places of public exhibition, and facilities that sold food for on-premises consumption. The provision was not only socially divisive but constitutionally questionable. 1
  Richard C. Cortner tells the important story of the litigations that established the constitutionality of the act's public accommodations section and thereby secured one of the great triumphs of the civil rights movement. Cortner lays out the constitutional issues lucidly, highlighting the differences between the two principal grounds advanced to support the legislation, the Commerce Clause and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. While the latter was clearly designed to allow Congress to combat racial discrimination, prior decisions of the Supreme Court rendered in the racist climate of the late nineteenth century presented grave obstacles. Indeed, in the ill-named Civil Rights Cases (1883) the Court had invalidated a similar "public accommodations" provision that Congress had adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Section 5, the Court had there ruled, did not grant Congress power to ban discrimination by "private"—that is, nongovernmental—actors, regardless of the "public" nature of the facilities involved. Thus, in 1964 the Commerce Clause seemed the more promising basis on which to defend the new statute. Though hardly intended as a tool to combat racial discrimination, the clause had been expanded so broadly since the 1930s that it seemed capable of providing a logic that could be used to serve the cause of racial justice. That, at least, was the position Solicitor General Archibald Cox took in shaping the government's litigation strategy, and in two dispositive decisions in 1964—Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States and Katzenbach vs. McClung—the Supreme Court proved him right. Only two justices, William O. Douglas and Arthur J. Goldberg, urged the Court to rely on Section 5. The others upheld the act under the commerce power. 2
  Cortner devotes the bulk of this study to detailed discussions of the social origins of the two cases and to the constitutional positions the adversaries developed, including particularly thorough accounts of the various oral arguments. His book has many virtues. It is especially good in explaining the critical factual and legal differences between the two cases, highlighting the added difficulties the Court confronted in McClung, where it dealt with a restaurant relatively far removed from "interstate commerce." Similarly, it illuminates the role and character of Justice John M. Harlan, a "conservative" wary of centralization and committed to traditional values. Sensitive to both the practical needs of the nation and the cause of racial justice, Harlan responded to the social and legal issues the cases presented with care, integrity, and wisdom. After extensive reflection and much tinkering with the majority's opinion, he ultimately voted to uphold the act in both cases. Further, Cortner reminds us forcefully of both the vast gulf that exists between 1964 and the present as well as the vaulting capacity of the legal mind to render words, history, and even reality meaningless. Among the arguments that segregationists advanced, he notes, was the claim that—by denying owners of public accommodations the right to exclude blacks from their premises—the act subjected those owners to "involuntary servitude" in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Finally, in a brief concluding section the book documents the surprisingly widespread and relatively swift compliance with the act that followed the Court's definitive rulings. 3
  A relatively short book intended for a general audience, this is a thoughtful and thorough account of a key episode in twentieth-century American legal history. 4
  
  Edward A. Purcell, Jr.
  New York Law School

[Hank Chinaski]

So, Friday Morning, driving to work- hung over. You want to get a cuppa from the dunkin Donuts, and there's a photo opp going on so it turns into an ordeal. It must piss these people off to have to put up with the crap. Its been going on for months, then once the primary is over no one gives a shit about NH, even when they're president.

Wesley Clark works the drive-through at a Dunkin' Donuts in Derry, N.H., today.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
So, Friday Morning, driving to work- hung over. You want to get a cuppa from the dunkin Donuts, and there's a photo opp going on so it turns into an ordeal. It must piss these people off to have to put up with the crap. Its been going on for months, then once the primary is over no one gives a shit about NH, even when they're president.

Wesley Clark works the drive-through at a Dunkin' Donuts in Derry, N.H., today.

PS: if he's so concerned about people, what is he doing selling a fat woman donuts?

[bilmore]

A better caption would be:



Clark began exploring the idea of a presidential
campaign shortly after realizing that the careers
open to retired generals were lacking in challenges.

[Hank Chinaski]

I am now over 1000 posts. When I look back at my body of work, I realize I could have culled a good number of them; but I am proud of some.
Most notably, yesterday, I penned my best post, to little acclaim.

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...4197#post64197

Sometimes, i know the pain Van Gogh felt......

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
PS: if he's so concerned about people, what is he doing selling a fat woman donuts?

I think in New Hampshire, she is considered thin. Or maybe that is New Mexico.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Most notably, yesterday, I penned my best post, to little acclaim.

I thought about showering you with a little acclaim, but I couldn't figure out what the hell you were talking about.