Politics: A new beginning

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
Someone needs a drinky. Or perhaps, someone has had too many drinkies. NTTAWWT.

Someone needs a sense of history of posts before speaking.

Sincerely,

Someone who doesn't give a shit about religious underpinnings of the antiabortion crowd, but values the concept of states' rights and proper constitutional interpretation and application.

[SlaveNoMore]

Not Me
Ok, well, I went back and read through part of it, and all I have to say to everyone involved is lighten up, Francis. And by Francis, I mean AG.

Part of the beauty of this board and others like it on the internet is that you get to say to others those thoughts in your head that you would never get the chance to say to others in real life because we are fucking silenced by political correctness. If I have to be as polite and PC on this board as I am expected to be IRL, what's the point of being here?

Attendance here is not mandatory.

Jesus Fucking Christ/Muhummad/Allah/Yaweh/Joseph Smith/cow.

I take it back. Patentgreedy was more entertaining.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
Someone needs a sense of history of posts before speaking.

Sincerely,

Someone who doesn't give a shit about religious underpinnings of the antiabortion crowd, but values the concept of states' rights and proper constitutional interpretation and application.

I wasn't commenting on the substance of what you said; I was commenting on the form. Sounded like you were quite irritated.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
They want to punish me harder if I beat her and kill or injure her unborn child. You want to punish me harder if I beat her while thinking, to myself, "I HATE these fucking Swedes!"

To the extent you're talking about the Violence Against Women Act, you assume too much. Whether it's constitutional or not, I don't think it was an issue appropriate for federal legislation. I'm opposed to the federalization of crime. So point that pronoun elsewhere, friend.

To the extent you're talking about state hate crime statutes, you're barking up the wrong tree. Their existence, and my support of them, has nothing to do with enumerated powers. You are in favor of states being able to legislate, right? I thought that was the difference between federalism and anarchy.

Now, are you willing to admit that your anger at me is motivated by your fear that I'm correct --- i.e., that the libertarian wing of the GOP will be unable to ride the religious reactionary lemmings right up to the precipice of theocracy, and then jete back to Coolsville at the last moment?

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.

I don't know why you assume intellectual dishonesty in all your opponents here. Again, you have either no real life liberal friends where you live, or the ones you have aren't worthy of your friendship, because of your prodigious brain and all.

Personally, I think it's more likely that you sit in your rumpus room popping Demerol and lobbing empty bottles at a cardboard cutout of Tom Hayden. Which would be fine, if you didn't brag on this board about all the direct hits you landed.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
WHAT?!?!? Slave's CANADIAN?!?!?!?

Toothless? Check.
Ruggedly individualistic? Check.
Hairy?

Uh oh.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
Ok, well, I went back and read through part of it, and all I have to say to everyone involved is lighten up, Francis. And by Francis, I mean AG.

Consistent with my belief that it's intolerable to talk about someone while you have them on ignore, I have removed Club from my list.

But my anger has not subsided. Suffice it to say, while I cannot get specific without outing myself, he pissed on some people very close to me, and then was unrepentant about it. I think this is different from a simplistic "there is no PC here" carte blanche. Thurgreed's momma jokes aside, there are some things you do not seriously say about a person's family and still expect to be accepted in decent society.

I doubt Club has left. I suspect he is pouting, like me. I want the record to reflect that I grew up first. And that when it comes to snaps, he has a weak-sauce game.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
No, I didn't. I said the interstate commerce clause had been used to uphold civil rights laws and that the 14th amendment was used in the badge of slavery cases. However, as you correctly pointed out to me, I was thinking of the 13th amendment, which I was. And as I told you, my bad, I will try to do better in the future. I wasn't talking about equal protection and I do recognize that equal protection is used in race cases. It is just that I got the number 13 confused with the number 14.

I thought you were talking about a different amendment (13th), but as I have now stated several times, it is because I confused the numbering of the amendments.

If you look at Katzenbach, you will see that Brennan spent lots of time discussing the Fourteenth Amendment, but there is nary a peep about the Commerce Clause. I am curious about this notion that there are cases applying the Commerce Clause to uphold civil rights statutes, and invite you to post more if you can figure out what you are remembering. I suspect that what you are thinking of is RFK's move, as AG, to send federal marshals to protect Freedom Riders, on the theory that the bus lines were in interstate commerce and so there was federal jurisdiction. But I am not at all sure that I have the facts right, or that a court was involved, or that this was anything but a pretext for the federal government to get involved at a time when a state government obviously was not interested in upholding the Constitution.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
But my anger has not subsided. Suffice it to say, while I cannot get specific without outing myself, he pissed on some people very close to me, and then was unrepentant about it. I think this is different from a simplistic "there is no PC here" carte blanche. Thurgreed's momma jokes aside, there are some things you do not seriously say about a person's family and still expect to be accepted in decent society.

Did he know of your personal connection to the tragedy when he said that? Even if he did, why would you spend even 1 second of the paltry number of seconds you have left on this earth stewing over what someone on an anonymous internet chat board who has never even met those people said about them?

I have suffered terrible tragedy in my life and perhaps the anger that I sometimes direct at my imaginary friends is born of this. Us ladies aren't allowed to express our anger IRL, ya know? While I would never claim that any silver lining came of that event, it did change my perspective and free me from ever being harmed by another's words. I know what it means to be harmed. No mere words can ever do that to me. And I won't spend one single precious second of whatever time I have left on this earth fretting over something someone else says.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. The lesson wasn't worth the price it cost, but I learned it nonetheless.

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I doubt Club has left. I suspect he is pouting, like me.

Truth be told, I peek in here sometimes even when I am not posting. It's such a warm and comfy place for me.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
To the extent you're talking about the Violence Against Women Act, you assume too much. Whether it's constitutional or not, I don't think it was an issue appropriate for federal legislation. I'm opposed to the federalization of crime. So point that pronoun elsewhere, friend.

Well, if that's the case, and since I can't abide generalizations made against me, I'll have to back off. But, we're going to have to be consistent - if one of us can make "you guyz" pronouncements and lump us in with our erstwhile continuum cohorts, we both can. Or we both can't. Either I eat seniors, or I don't.

To the extent you're talking about state hate crime statutes . . .

Nope. Fed.

Now, are you willing to admit that your anger at me is motivated by your fear that I'm correct --- i.e., that the libertarian wing of the GOP will be unable to ride the religious reactionary lemmings right up to the precipice of theocracy, and then jete back to Coolsville at the last moment?

Nope. My anger was motivated by being lumped in in your anger with the religious right. Surely the heat of your post wasn't aimed merely at my belief that rationalism will out? (Honestly, I'm missing how this new Act somehow trumps what I said earlier about the rise and fall of rational interpretation.)

I don't know why you assume intellectual dishonesty in all your opponents here.

Scarily, I never think of people here as opponents. And, I don't assume intellectual dishonesty - were I to actually assume such a thing, there would be no point in pointing to it when I think I DO see it. Might as well say "damn, you're breathing again!" if that were the case. But, look back - seems to me that intellectual dishonesty is exactly the accusation I was responding TO. At that point, I think justification is a bit simpler.

Again, you have either no real life liberal friends where you live, or the ones you have aren't worthy of your friendship, because of your prodigious brain and all.

I have no friends at all. I sit here in the wheelchair night after night scratching out words with the chin pointer, spitting at the night nurse and remembering when things were better. No, check that. It's always sucked.

Personally, I think it's more likely that you sit in your rumpus room popping Demerol and lobbing empty bottles at a cardboard cutout of Tom Hayden. Which would be fine, if you didn't brag on this board about all the direct hits you landed.

I think I'm laughing now, but I honestly lost your chain of thought right at Hayden. (It's the Demerol, you know.)

Interesting side note: for all of your outrage, has it occurred to you that the Pro-C argument is almost an exact duplicate of the argument advanced from the South for the preservation of the right to own slaves in the face of the Northern onslaught? Main point was the preservation of an explicit constitutional right to property, while the Pro-C one relies on a thin-air right to "privacy". Savings grace to you - slaves are people, can't be property. Took a while for that to become accepted, interfering as it did with another set of rights and all. Would you have been comfortable fighting for the South in that debate? Only difference I can see is, it's a lot less practical to make a status decision in this new fight than it was in the old. Not a tougher decision on the merits, but more complicated politically. Great basis, huh? Can you define a substantive difference in the two situations that doesn't necessarily devolve to "but feti ain't people"?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Can you define a substantive difference in the two situations that doesn't necessarily devolve to "but feti ain't people"?

Assume you can't. Reasonable people can, it seems to me, differ about abortion. Actually, I don't pro-choicers think that "feti ain't people" -- rather, they think that they are human but different, and sufficiently different from, e.g., babies, that they can be treated differently. I don't know anyone who isn't bothered by the idea of an abortion. If you aren't, something is wrong with you, IMHO.

There is a substantive difference in that feti physically depend on another, and slaves didn't. I don't really want to pursue this line of thinking right now, but I note.

I don't think reasonable people can differ about whether slaves were people. This was the great moral argument of the first half of the 18th century, and there were smart people on both sides, but the pro-slavery position could not hold up on its merits. When you look at, e.g., the jurisprudence that evolved in the South over the treatment of crimes against slaves, it's just monstrous. It was wrong.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Assume you can't. Reasonable people can, it seems to me, differ about abortion. Actually, I don't pro-choicers think that "feti ain't people" -- rather, they think that they are human but different, and sufficiently different from, e.g., babies, that they can be treated differently. I don't know anyone who isn't bothered by the idea of an abortion. If you aren't, something is wrong with you, IMHO.

There is a substantive difference in that feti physically depend on another, and slaves didn't. I don't really want to pursue this line of thinking right now, but I note.

I don't think reasonable people can differ about whether slaves were people. This was the great moral argument of the first half of the 18th century, and there were smart people on both sides, but the pro-slavery position could not hold up on its merits. When you look at, e.g., the jurisprudence that evolved in the South over the treatment of crimes against slaves, it's just monstrous. It was wrong.

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.

[bilmore]

One more post before my ventilator battery dies:

Just got around to reading the entire article about the judiciary committee hacking -

"From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics."

They had the Dems' files, papers, plans and tactics for a YEAR and still couldn't get those five or six people voted on?

Slackers.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
"From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics."

Is exploiting a computer glitch a crime if no money is stolen and no computer files are destroyed and all one does is look at the contents of the computer files?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I am curious about this notion that there are cases applying the Commerce Clause to uphold civil rights statutes, and invite you to post more if you can figure out what you are remembering.

By the time I got to law school, I had sworn off hallucinogens. I had gotten my fill in college (and let me tell you, it was a DAMN good time, DAMN good time).

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.

There is also the Ollie's BBQ case that someone else, I think it was AG but am too lazy to scroll back to find out who, mentioned.

God damn you, Ty for making me do legal research after 6 pm! You will pay for this buddy-boy. Oh yes you will! Bawwwaahahaha.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Assume you can't. Reasonable people can, it seems to me, differ about abortion.

Why? What is your basis for concluding this? Please walk me through your analysis that caused you to arrive at this conclusion.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I don't know anyone who isn't bothered by the idea of an abortion. If you aren't, something is wrong with you, IMHO.

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.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
There is a substantive difference in that feti physically depend on another, and slaves didn't.

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

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I don't think reasonable people can differ about whether slaves were people.

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