June 24, 2022 will go down in history as one of the most important days in American history. I have longed for the day when I would read the headline, “Roe v. Wade Overturned.” That day has arrived, and much sooner than I ever imagined! It was made possible by God, Trump, and SCOTUS justices who care more about interpreting the Constitution than legislating from the bench.This is not the end of the fight, but just the beginning. The reversal of Roe simply returns the issue of abortion back to the states. Now we need to work at the state level to outlaw abortion in every state of the union. It will happen, eventually. There is coming a day in this country when kids will be just as shocked to learn that we permitted mothers to murder their own children as they are to learn that we permitted people to own other people.
I published a podcast episode on the overturning of Roe after the initial leak. If you want to hear more about the implications of the decision, check it out.
Thinking to Believe 
June 24, 2022 at 4:06 pm
Jason, I agree with everything you said.
You expressed the hearts of tens & tens of millions of Americans who consider the life of an unborn baby girl and baby boy precious & valuable.
THANK YOU JESUS FOR THIS RULING to protect the life of the unborn!!
In my opinion, the next SCOTUS ruling should be over-turning same-sex marriages.
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June 24, 2022 at 7:50 pm
Gotta get a covid shot so I dont kill anyone but others want to be able to just kill a child
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June 25, 2022 at 6:46 am
This is not the moral victory you seem to think. Criminalizing abortion doesn’t reduce the number of abortions, it just turns tens of millions of women into criminals, treating them as second-class citizens to fetuses, and puts many of their lives in danger (https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/sexual-and-reproductive-rights/abortion-facts/).
70% of women who get abortions in the US are Christians (https://research.lifeway.com/2021/12/03/7-in-10-women-who-have-had-an-abortion-identify-as-a-christian/), and evangelicals and Catholics—the two most outspoken Christian groups against abortion rights—together account for 43% of all abortions. So you’re essentially cheering on the misery and even deaths of millions of fellow Christians. “Pro-life” indeed.
It gets worse. Clarence Thomas said that now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, it’s time to apply the same for marriage equality, same sex relationships and even birth control. Birth control! Never mind that 61% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/), and that 63% believe same sex relationships are moral, but 92% of Americans see birth control as moral (https://news.gallup.com/poll/257858/birth-control-tops-list-morally-acceptable-issues.aspx). I think this religious overreach is going to come back and bite religious conservatives in the butt.
Jesus was very clearly against divorce, but you virtually never hear Christians arguing to abolish the right to divorce. And Jesus said NOTHING against abortion (in fact, the Bible’s only mention of abortion is in support of it!). In fact, evangelicals originally SUPPORTED abortion rights (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480). Several times during the 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention passed and reaffirmed resolutions calling for abortion. SBC president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, W. A. Criswell, officially supported it by saying, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
It wasn’t until later Republicans seized on the abortion issue as a political wedge issue that Christians started turning against it. And now we’re living with the consequences of conservative Christians being used as a tool to score political points, rather than advance any moral good.
The fact is, a single cell is not a person. It has none of the characteristics associated with personhood. It has no heart, it can’t breathe, it can’t touch or feel or think…yet you seem to think it has more right to live than a woman has the right to bodily autonomy. I find that deeply disturbing.
I suspect Americans won’t stand for this miscarriage of justice (wordplay unintentional), and that the backlash against this Christian nationalism overreach will be strong. Considering how rapidly Christianity is shrinking, I’m certain your stated desire to see abortion illegal throughout the US will never come to pass. Christianity is losing the youngest generations because of the constant attacks on gay rights, women’s rights, minorities, etc., and I’m not seeing Christians do anything about being on the wrong side of history.
I’m pretty sure my post will fall on deaf ears, but I think it needed to be said.
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June 25, 2022 at 8:34 am
With this comment.
“It will happen, eventually. There is coming a day in this country when kids will be just as shocked to learn that we permitted mothers to murder their own children as they are to learn that we permitted people to own other people.”
What makes you think it will get better?
Despite this ruling it seems that the USA is getting worse by the day especially, since COVID.
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June 25, 2022 at 11:28 am
Yesterday was a great day in American history. I’m old enough to remember when Roe was issued. As Alito’s masterful opinion demonstrates, Roe was an egregious error that satisfied every precedent for reversal.
This has nothing to do with where one stands on the issue of abortion itself. As a matter of law, there is no rational justification for Roe or Casey. As a legal matter, the issue of abortion belongs to the American people through their elected representatives. In 1973, the Supreme Court arrogated to itself a right it did not have: determining American abortion policy. Yesterday, the same Court rectified that error. Kudos to the Court and to President Trump for nominating constitutionalist judges.
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July 12, 2022 at 10:01 am
“As Alito’s masterful opinion demonstrates, Roe was an egregious error that satisfied every precedent for reversal.”
Alito’s opinion was “masterful”? In what universe? He made several claims that were demonstrably false or irrelevant. Like saying “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” So what? The Constitution makes no reference to women voting or abolishing slavery, yet both have since happened. The founding fathers weren’t omniscient, and the Constitution was made to accommodate changes.
Additionally, Alito’s claim that “the court has regularly observed that the clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and used that to reject abortion rights. But that ignores the many laws upheld by SCOTUS that weren’t based on that, such as the right to interracial marriage and (again) the right for women to vote, making that an irrelevant argument.
Furthermore, abortion actually IS an integral part of the earliest history of the US: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-complex-early-history-of-abortion-in-the-united-states and https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-commentary/an-important-study-of-the-history-and-law-of-the-abortion-rights-controversy.html. Keep in mind, abortion was considered an acceptable remedy for pregnancy from adultery.
So I don’t know how anyone can call Alito’s opinion “masterful.” Misinformed, perhaps, but not masterful.
And what a messy can of worms this is opening. In effect, this gives women fewer rights than dead people. Should men liable for child support as soon as a woman is pregnant? Should zygotes be issued Social Security numbers? Should a sperm donor be required to provide blood if the fetus needs it to survive? Should we compel mandatory kidney donations if it’s the only way to save a life? Should a 16 y.o. who can’t give consent to donate blood because she is considered below the age of consent be forced to donate her entire body’s resources to a fetus? Should a 10 y.o. who was impregnated by a rapist be forced to carry the unborn to term and potentially ruin her likelihood of getting a good education and job prospects? If abortion is murder, and there is no statute of limitations on murder, should every woman who has ever had an abortion be tried for murder? Should every miscarriage be required to be investigated as a potential crime scene and autopsied? And this only touches the surface of the problem!
“Kudos to the Court and to President Trump for nominating constitutionalist judges.”
The Constitution is NOT a static document. It’s MEANT to be updated as times change. If judges only upheld what the Constitution says, slavery would be legal and women wouldn’t have the right to vote.
If the objective is to reduce abortions–which BOTH sides can agree on–you don’t do it through allowing abortions to be banned. Again, banning doesn’t prevent women from getting abortions, it just makes abortions illegal, guaranteeing more women will die in back-alley abortions (how is THAT pro-life?). The solution is age-appropriate sex education BEFORE children become sexually active, and to provide easy access to contraceptives. It’s the only method that’s been shown to work. The only conservative solution–abstinence–has been shown to be a failure (https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/abstinence-only-education-failure). Nine of the top ten states for teen pregnancy rates are red states (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teen-pregnancy-rates-by-state), which should be a clue that conservative solutions don’t work for preventing sex. The lack of education and birth control doesn’t stop teens from having sex…it just increases the likelihood of getting pregnant and needing an abortion.
Anyway, at the very least it should be clear that SCOTUS repealing Roe v. Wade isn’t going to accomplish much good, but instead will only widen the divide in America.
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July 12, 2022 at 5:45 pm
Dingbat writes:
The Opinion of the Court is correct in that the Constitution does not mention abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. Thus, said claim isn’t “demonstrably false.” And it isn’t “irrelevant” either because the Court has long taken the position that unenumerated rights are not protected unless woven within the fabric of the nation’s history.
However, it IS “demonstrably false” that the Constitution “makes no reference to women voting or abolishing slavery.” The 13th Amendment is in the Constitution and it abolished slavery. The 19th Amendment is also in the Constitution, and it granted women the right to vote. Thus, prior to said amendments, the federal government could not ban slavery and women could not vote. That’s why the Constitution was amended! Judges were not authorized to make up rights in accordance with their political preferences.
Moreover, nobody has ever claimed that the Founding Fathers were omniscient, and every textualist is on record as recognizing that the Constitution was made to accommodate change (e.g., television did not exist, but the First Amendment’s free speech protection extends to speech over it). What the Constitution does not do is allow judges to legislate from the bench. Though of course a judge may have the power to legislate (e.g., Roe v. Wade), said judge does not have the warrant to do so because that would be an illegitimate exercise of judicial responsibility.
Again, Alito’s claim is not “demonstrably false” because he proved that that’s what the Court has done on a repeated basis. And Alito also never claimed that the Court never made mistakes in other areas. The Warren Court was notorious for making up rights against the right of the People to make their own laws in matters not addressed by the Constitution. Liberals couldn’t get their way democratically, so they imposed their will on the country through the courts.
Alito more than adequately addressed the matter of history in his opinion.
Dingbats wouldn’t know a masterful opinion if it hit them in the face.
And this statement is irrelevant in its entirety when it comes to the law. It is not up to the Supreme Court to decide for the American people what laws they make, unless said laws violate the Constitution. The Constitution does not address abortion. It is therefore up to the People to regulate it as they see fit. Dobbs does not outlaw abortion; it simply returns the matter where it was until 1973—in the People’s hands.
If you and those who think like you are convinced that a can of worms is so foolish, you can make that case to your fellow citizens. You don’t get to ram your views down the throats of the entire nation by making up a right and getting a majority of nine lawyers in DC to agree with you.
Again, nobody said that it is a “static document.” And to add stupidity to your dingbatness, you repeat the claim that the Constitution does not address slavery and female suffrage. It specifically and directly addresses both.
Another irrelevant comment because I’m referring to the Dobbs case. Whether or not abortion should be banned or restricted is a case to be made in the political arena. Judges are not and should not be politicians. For somebody who bellyaches about irrelevant comments, you sure have a penchant for them.
And yet another utterly stupid comment. The country was already divided via Roe and Casey. The Court unbelievably lectured the nation to accept what it had settled. Well, all the good that finger-wagging did. So, the divide will continue, and the People finally have the say that was taken away from them for 49 years. My guess is if polling is correct, abortion will be legal throughout much of the country somewhere within the first trimester and will be substantially banned thereafter. I don’t like the fact that it is legal anywhere, but that’s political reality.
Kudos to the Court for its MASTERFUL opinion, and Kudos to President Trump for nominating constitutionalist judges!
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July 13, 2022 at 8:32 am
“The Opinion of the Court is correct in that the Constitution does not mention abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. Thus, said claim isn’t “demonstrably false.” And it isn’t “irrelevant” either because the Court has long taken the position that unenumerated rights are not protected unless woven within the fabric of the nation’s history.”
Again, SO WHAT? The Constitution also doesn’t implicitly give Hispanics, gays or amputees the right to vote, nor give Internet companies to run businesses online, nor whether Americans are allowed to visit other countries, but the courts still rightly ASSUME these rights unless and until implicitly forbidden. Bodily autonomy is ALSO an assumed right, which is why striking down Roe v. Wade is so egregious. Allowing states to ban abortion in effect forces women to become gestation and tissue donation machines, whether they want it or not, giving them fewer rights than a corpse.
“However, it IS “demonstrably false” that the Constitution “makes no reference to women voting or abolishing slavery.” The 13th Amendment is in the Constitution and it abolished slavery. The 19th Amendment is also in the Constitution, and it granted women the right to vote. Thus, prior to said amendments, the federal government could not ban slavery and women could not vote. That’s why the Constitution was amended! Judges were not authorized to make up rights in accordance with their political preferences.”
EXACTLY. Which is why I said, “The Constitution makes [MADE, pardon the typo] no reference to women voting or abolishing slavery, YET BOTH HAVE SINCE HAPPENED.” That last part is specifically in reference to the amendments. Those rights weren’t mentioned in the original Bill of Rights, but that doesn’t mean the courts couldn’t find slavery and vote prohibition based on sex illegal. In fact, by the time the 19th Amendment was actually passed, dozens of states had guaranteed women the right to vote. It was PRECEDENT that eventually helped the amendment pass.
However, Roe v. Wade was MORE than that, since the SCOTUS said it WAS based on the Constitution–specifically the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. So regardless of whether or not you agree with the ruling, judges weren’t just “making up rights.” Its passage then served as continued precedent for some 50 years (and, in fact, the new SCOTUS justices who overturned RvW convinced the Senate during their confirmation hearings that RvW was settled precedent and that they wouldn’t change it).
“Dingbats wouldn’t know a masterful opinion if it hit them in the face.”
Ah, and here you go again, resorting to insults. Why do you always end up acting childish and petty, rather than relying on the strength of your arguments? Do I throw insults at you? Do I call you names? No, I provide arguments as I see them, and I invite disagreement. I have nothing against that, but you can’t seem to handle disagreement, and so you become petulant and churlish. Honestly, what is it with the people on this forum? With the exception of Jason (with whom I disagree, but can still argue civilly), it seems you all devolve to name-calling. Your arguments are generally pretty good, but you undercut them when you can’t control your temper.
“If you and those who think like you are convinced that a can of worms is so foolish, you can make that case to your fellow citizens. You don’t get to ram your views down the throats of the entire nation by making up a right and getting a majority of nine lawyers in DC to agree with you.”
I’m sorry, but you have that exactly backwards. Not only do 61% of Americans believe in the right to an abortion (either fully or mostly), but this is a case of a RIGHT being taken away from women for primarily religious reasons. TAKING AWAY a right and forcing women to become birthing machines against their will is a perfect example of ramming views down the throats of the entire nation. Continuing to allow women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion is NOT ramming views down the throats of the entire nation.
“Whether or not abortion should be banned or restricted is a case to be made in the political arena. Judges are not and should not be politicians.”
As I pointed out, abortion was a right guaranteed to us based on an interpretation of the Constitution and upheld by multiple justices for 50 years. That’s hardly irrelevant to this issue.
“And yet another utterly stupid comment.”
And there you go AGAIN. Can you really not just stick to the argument?
“My guess is if polling is correct, abortion will be legal throughout much of the country somewhere within the first trimester and will be substantially banned thereafter.”
I sincerely hope you are right. Although the right to an abortion through the second trimester makes more sense, since before that the fetus isn’t able to survive without the mother. But since 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester, and only 1% during the third trimester (largely due to health problems for the fetus or mother), there is room for compromise, I think.
“I don’t like the fact that it is legal anywhere, but that’s political reality.”
Well, that’s the nice thing about the pro-choice position. Unlike the forced-birth position, nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything against their will.
“Kudos to the Court for its MASTERFUL opinion, and Kudos to President Trump for nominating constitutionalist judges!”
I find it disturbing that anyone can support a narcissistic authoritarian who tried to overthrow our democracy, but a lot of people are willing to overlook all the damage done by Trump just because he nominated activist judges. Personally, I blame the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which paved the way for Fox News and other propaganda mouthpieces (on both the left and right) to misinform citizens and cause the ever-increasing divide in the US. But that’s another topic….
I’m going into another major project, so I may or may not find time to read and respond to your reply, but I’ll try.
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July 13, 2022 at 8:09 pm
Dingbat writes:
And the stupidity never stops. Do you know anything about the Constitution? Have you ever bothered to read it? The 15th Amendment states:
Of course the Constitution doesn’t give the “implicit” right to vote to racial minorities; it rather gives an EXPLICIT right to do so.
The 10th Amendment states:
The federal government’s authority to function in certain ways is grounded in the Constitution. If said document does not authorize the government to act, then the government does not have the authority to act. Thus, whatever “powers” the federal government was not granted was reserved to the States. The original Constitution said nothing whatsoever about who could or couldn’t vote. It was up to the States to make that decision. And since the federal government had no authority to regulate elections, it could neither grant nor prohibit anybody from voting. When the 15th Amendment was ratified, the power of the states to regulate who could vote with respect to race was removed. It wasn’t as if the Supreme Court decided for the country who could or couldn’t vote. Man alive, why does this have to be explained?
“Bodily autonomy” was never assumed to include abortion because abortion was illegal in every state when the 14th Amendment was ratified. The Constitution was originally a restriction on the federal government. It thus had no power to do anything about abortion. When the 13th and 14th Amendments were ratified, it was understood to restrict the states from interfering with the rights of the freed slaves. Indeed, the Supreme Court held in Cruikshank (1876) that the 1st and 2nd Amendments did not apply to state governments. It was only in the 1920s that the Court began to assert the incorporation doctrine against the States via the 14th Amendment. Thereafter, incorporation involved enumerated rights and unenumerated rights “woven into the fabric of our nation’s history.” That’s why Roe was so egregious. It had no basis in any state law or jurisprudence until very shortly before Roe was decided.
You cannot have it both ways, Bozo. Judges are authorized to rule against laws which violate the 14th and 19th Amendments precisely because they are added to the Constitution. They do not have the authority to rule against a law when the Constitution is silent on the matter. You would have a majority of nine lawyers in DC decide for the country what laws we should have. We would rather have all lawyers who are judges be faithful to the Constitution.
Yes, it COULD mean that courts were unauthorized to find those prohibitions illegal. When the 10th Amendment specifically reserved unenumerated powers to the States, there is nothing a federal court could do without said amendments. Indeed, the Supreme Court itself said so in 1833 (Barron v. Baltimore). You know diddly squat about constitutional jurisprudence. Indeed, the word “precedent” in legal analysis refers to previous court decisions, which is where we get the term stare decisis. State practices are not “precedent”; they are rather indicators of public sentiment. It wouldn’t have mattered a hill of beans which states granted women the right to vote if the 19th Amendment had failed to be ratified. No federal court would have been authorized to overturn a State’s males-only law without the 19th Amendment. We would have rather had a checkerboard of pro and anti-women’s suffrage until public opinion swayed against the males-only states. No doubt, if the 19th Amendment had failed, all women in every state would have eventually been granted the right to vote. It just would have taken longer. Regardless, both sides recognized that an Amendment was needed to make it illegal to ban women from voting, and that’s what was done. They, as a whole, DID NOT advocate judges to ignore the law and take it upon themselves to dictate their political will upon America.
It is obvious that you never read Roe, and it is equally obvious that you didn’t read Dobbs. If you had bothered to inform yourself before popping off, you would understand why we say that Roe was egregiously wrong. You just don’t like the political result, and that is enough for you to ridicule the decision (because it’s obvious that you know nothing about the law). But liberal scholars have also been severe in their criticism of Roe for the same reasons that Alito delineated. Nobody ever imagined that the passage of the 14th Amendment was banning the abortion laws on every State’s books until shortly before 1973. And that’s because, as stated, incorporation related primarily enumerated rights and those clearly recognized and embraced by the American people since before during and after the founding. Roe’s reasoning was anchored to nothing but Blackman’s and the majority’s personal opinions.
Oh, it isn’t childish at all. It’s exactly what you deserve, especially due to your making a stupid comment like that. You merit disdain because you opine on matters you know nothing about (e.g., that Christians make up their definition of “good”) and act as if you know what you’re talking about.
In this thread, you commented before I did. When I commented, I left you completely alone. I didn’t challenge anything you said. All I did was state my admiration for Alito’s opinion and gave praise to President Trump for nominating textualist judges to the Supreme Court. But you couldn’t let me have my say, could you? None of this back-and-forth would have occurred had you respected my space to offer an opinion, but you just had to take a jab at me and attack my characterization of Alito’s opinion as “masterful,” that we somehow believe that the Founders were omniscient, and that we believe in a “static” Constitution. Running your mouth on something you know nothing about is more childish than my slapping the punk who runs his mouth. Did you read Alito’s opinion? And please don’t read it now so you can say that you did. Did you read it before you gave your opinion on it? I’m perhaps making a mistake in asking you because you’ll probably lie about it anyway. However, you most certainly didn’t read it because of your comments above. And even if you did read it, you weren’t paying attention, again due to your above comments. If you had paid attention, your disagreement would have been on a much different level than your pedestrian comments here.
Way back in jr. high, we were taught in debate class to strengthen our arguments by fully investigating our opponents. We were instructed to actually adopt their position, find out why they believe what they do, and marshal their very best arguments in defense of their views (arguments that they would fully endorse). We were taught that because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. You don’t defeat your opponent by attacking straw men; you attack their strongest argument. Moreover, you may find that their arguments are stronger than yours, and if you’re interested in the truth, integrity will lead you to change your mind. That’s clearly what you DON’T do. You attack a caricature of your opponent’s views and proceed to denounce it as if you’ve said something clever. And when your logical errors are shown to you, you fight tooth-and-nail to deny it while attacking your opponent in the process. So, when you pull that kind of bovine excrement, you shouldn’t expect to be treated with respect. If I were you, I’d shut my trap and learn something about why textualists believe what they do. If you end up disagreeing, then attack it on an intelligent level. This retarded “the Founders were not omniscient,” or “the Constitution is static,” is clearly the prattle of a swamp-fevered mind.
And the beat goes on. If your numbers are correct, and I don’t challenge them because it’s irrelevant, then the laws of the country will proportionately reflect that. Dobbs doesn’t outlaw abortion, so nothing was rammed down anybody’s throats. When you take away from the People their right of self-governance when there is no basis for that in the Constitution, that is the very definition of ramming your views down everybody’s throats. And opposition to abortion isn’t solely based on religion. Indeed, I’ve opposed abortion for years and have never invoked religion.
The overwhelming majority of women are not raped. Your “birthing machines” is nothing but retarded hyperbole. Women don’t have to get pregnant if they don’t want to. Responsible sex is the mark of a mature mind, so unless you want to call most women immature, then quit with this fatuous rhetoric. So, if you want to make exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the physical life of the mother, you’ll find common ground with much of the pro-life community. But if you’re pushing for abortion on demand on the basis of rape, you need to find a better argument.
You must have just swam out of the swamp with that one. I said nothing about the Trump presidency or his conduct (or misconduct) in other areas. If a Nazi saved your son’s life, would you not at least thank him? If you’re a decent human being you would. That doesn’t mean that you’re endorsing his politics or admiring him as a person. It simply means that you’re grateful he was there to save your child’s life. All I said was Trump did a good thing when he nominated good judges, but true to form, you’ve got to throw an insult while pretending that I’m the only one doing it.
I couldn’t care less whether or not you reply. I have no respect for you whatsoever. I’m only replying to refute the lies you’ve spoken about the law. And I will continue to do so as long as you spew that garbage here.
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July 13, 2022 at 8:12 pm
For some reason, my link doesn’t work. Here it is again:
Roe v. Wade called into question by many Democrats, liberal scholars over the years
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July 13, 2022 at 10:44 pm
WHOAAA and AMEN Brother Scalia, you said it all, you nailed it down, wrapped it up and put a beautiful bow on it.
GOD BLESS YOU for having a conscience, good sense and for your righteous conviction!!!
And thank you for RESPECTING LIFE!!!
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July 14, 2022 at 12:23 am
I failed to address something in Post 9. Dingbat wrote:
This is a bald-faced lie. It was not a typo. You mean exactly what you originally typed. How do I know that? Because later in the same post, you wrote:
Your verbiage is in the present tense, so your earlier comment was not a slip of the tongue. You got caught in a typical ignoramus moment and decided to lie your way out of it rather than have the integrity to admit that you overlooked something. The king can do no wrong, right??
Thus, your “yet both have since happened” refers to what you think are Court decisions reading those rights into the Constitution (or, seeing them in the “emanations” and “penumbras” of certain amendments). You were clearly trying to justify text manipulation by judges who agree with you. Mind you, you only advocate text manipulation when it comes from a liberal judge. If a conservative judge did it, you’d be outraged. Only liberals can legislate from the bench.
However, conservative activism is just as abhorrent to a textualist as liberal activism. I tell my students to imagine a 1790s law which prohibited “gay” activities during government funerals. If conservative activists today cite said law to prohibit gay couples from holding hands or kissing in the process of mourning during a government funeral and basing that on “evolving standards of decency,” a textualist judge would throw out any penalty or conviction based on said law. The word “gay” in the law was understood to mean “celebratory” and that was the effect of the law when it was enacted. It would thus be illegitimate to read a different meaning into that word because that is not what the People were prohibiting. However, if we adopt liberal reasoning, since the method of the conservative activists is identical with liberal ones, legitimacy would then depend on one’s politics, and that is just rotten law. Just ignore the history and understanding of the text and twist it to align with your politics. Whether coming from the Left or the Right, it is illegitimate root and branch.
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July 14, 2022 at 9:43 am
Wow, how can you manage to completely miss my point, not once but TWICE? Am I being too subtle for you? I was talking about the LAWS AND PRECEDENCE, not that conservative talking point. And then you go off on claims about the Constitution that have nothing to do with what I was actually saying? You seem to get an idea into your head and run with it without actually reading all of what I said or paying attention (amusingly, when I add an aside commentary on the consequences of something you say, you get bent out of shape about it).
THEN you accuse me of lying, even though the context of what I was talking about makes it clear what I meant. The irony here is that you yourself frequently lie about the facts–or, if you’re unaware of the facts, you at least make false claims. For instance, you claimed there wasn’t Constitutional justification for RvW, when the 14th Amendment was exactly that. And the SCOTUS upheld that for 50 years.
Or when you claimed “abortion was illegal in every state when the 14th Amendment was ratified.” Abortion was illegal in 30 of the 37 (at the time) states, but still allowed by doctors for therapeutic reasons. But even that was a recent phenomenon, since prior to the 1860s abortion was legal in most states. Even the Catholic church–one of the biggest voices against abortion rights–considered abortion acceptable for hundreds of years (yeah, that’s an aside, but I think it’s interesting to mention anyway).
And you also claimed, “You merit disdain because you opine on matters you know nothing about (e.g., that Christians make up their definition of “good”) and act as if you know what you’re talking about.” But don’t tell me you aren’t aware of the fact that there are millions of Christians who claim that good is defined not by deliberate and unnecessary harmful behavior, but by whatever God does–from referencing Psalm 145:17 to repeating the mantra “God is good all the time”–even when he commits or condones nearly all the behaviors those same Christians agree are evil. If anyone doesn’t know what he’s talking about on this issue…it’s clearly you.
The thing is, I just assume your understanding of the topic is incomplete (or even that my own information is incomplete), or that we’re just talking past one another, whereas you go straight to assuming I’m lying. That smacks of projection, because people who are quick to make such accusations do so because they are guilty of it themselves and assume others commit the same behavior. Perhaps you should read Matthew 7:5: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
And you follow all that up by DOUBLING DOWN on childish name-calling. Wow. I’ve come to expect such immaturity from Paul, but you? You purport to be an good debater, but do you really expect anyone to take you seriously when you get so upset you can’t even show some basic civility? You didn’t learn in Debate 101 that name-calling is a red flag, because it’s what people resort to when they know they have a losing argument? And I suspect you know you have a losing argument, since you ignored all the practical or moral problems with repealing RvW I was talking about in my posts, and instead tried to argue only on legal grounds.
Anyway, it seems clear to me that we’re not getting anywhere in this discussion, so I’m done with it. However, in the future I would suggest you adopt a more civil tone. I fully admit to letting some snarkiness out myself, but that’s only in response to your unreasonable attitude. I think we could have a productive discussion if you didn’t let your emotions get away from you. Just keep that in mind for any future discussions.
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July 14, 2022 at 10:54 am
Dingbat writes:
I can hardly be missing your point when I quoted you directly. If I misquoted you or if I took you out of context (I didn’t), you are certainly free to point it out. You’ve not hesitated to do that before, but your appeal to context or misquotation is conspicuously absent here. I wonder why.
It’s exactly the context that kills you here. As anybody can verify, you bellyached about Alito’s truthful assertion that the Constitution does not mention abortion, and abortion was not an unenumerated right woven into the fabric of our nation’s history. You countered about other rights not explicitly mentioned as an endorsement of the more flexible method advocated by liberal justices, and that reading the Constitution for what it says would leave slavery in place and women without the right to vote. I pointed out that the alleged unenumerated rights were explicitly granted in the Constitution via amendment to which you replied that you had made a typo. You didn’t make a typo because you repeated the same claim in different words later in the same post. You got caught in your ignorance, but you can’t abide admitting a fundamental error, so you attempted to lie you way out of a pit of your own making. And it is obvious that you lied because by ex post facto appealing to the text as written via amendment, you are endorsing Alito’s method, but it is precisely Alito’s method that you object to! So, your claim that slavery and males-only voting would still be legal under “conservative” jurisprudence only makes sense if the Constitution said nothing directly about those matters. And you juxtaposed that with what you consider a superior approach in reading implicit rights against State laws encroaching on those rights. Since you’re oppose textualism, your comment clearly assumed that the Constitution was silent on the matters you raised. You thus clearly lied when you claimed to commit a typo.
Yes, 3/4ths of the States had criminalized abortion when the 14th Amendment was ratified, and all of the States eventually criminalized abortion prior to the walk-back of some of those States preceding Roe’s decision. I had conflated “all states” with the pre-ratification ones. See? Unlike you, I will immediately and gladly acknowledge an error. Advocacy does not entail dishonesty. You would do well to incorporate that.
As to your history claims, I already told you that Alito more than adequately addressed that in his opinion. Since you didn’t read it, you continue to make fatuous claims about it.
You don’t have a sweet clue what “millions of Christians” believe because you’ve never interviewed them. And since you’re in love with hyperlinks, I notice that you didn’t back that claim with any evidence. You just pulled that out of your backside because it sounds good to you. Here’s some news for you, Sherlock: You don’t paint “Christianity” with the views of some Christians. The doctrinal positions of the various churches have been in the record for a very long time. True, some denominations have not developed systematic theology about fundamental matters, but Christianity as a whole has made it very clear how it defines good and evil. The fact that you never even tried to find out what that is, while commenting on the matter, discloses your unprincipled character. And add that to the fact that your diarrhea of the mouth regarding Dobbs occurred without your ever reading the decision to decide for yourself whether it was established on rational grounds. No, you made up your mind that it was wrong, and that justified your condemnation of it. That’s remarkable for intelligent persons, but par for the course for you.
What are you, a robot? That’s your reflexive answer to every criticism. Facts are put on the table: “You’re projecting!” I never accuse a person of lying unless I have proof. The thing is, it’s not hard to find in your case because you’re incapable of following your own argument. You leave evidence all over the place which means that your cover-up of one item leaves you exposed elsewhere (because you forgot about the other evidence).
I have had numerous debates with liberals over the range of politics, law, and religion. We are diametrically opposed on fundamental matters, yet the debates are devoid of rancor or accusations. Indeed, in my debates with you, I gave you the benefit of doubt and treated you with respect. You fired the first shot every time. It was never over the fact that you disagreed with me. It was over your deliberate manipulation of facts and your popping off about things you knew nothing about that earned my opprobrium and disdain.
Oh, I show “basic civility” to the people I interact with until I see that they’re arguing in bad faith. I don’t show you any civility because you’re not worthy of it. When you get around to acting honorably, I’ll be happy to rethink my position. And I couldn’t care less if you take me seriously or not. As I told you, I have no respect for you whatsoever, so I’m completely indifferent to what you think about me.
I kinda doubt you’re telling the truth about that, but in the slight chance that you are, good riddance!
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July 15, 2022 at 8:20 am
Well, more mea culpas. In Post 14, I quoted Dingbat thusly:
I actually intended to pull this one:
That is what I addressed above. It’s not hard to admit an error if you’re honest. Indeed, I have found that respect grows for a person who has the integrity to admit a mistake. But when a person digs in his heels against admitting an obvious falsehood, intentional or not, he only breeds contempt against himself.
Now, with respect to the alleged “false” claim that Roe was not justified via the 14th Amendment, there is nothing false about that claim. I can claim that the 14th Amendment grants me the right to kill puppies so that any State law prohibiting puppy killing is unconstitutional. But such a claim is illegitimate. The question is why is that claim illegitimate? Even though I claim “liberty” and “bodily autonomy” to do what I please if I’m not hurting another human being, or that the Due Process clause’s substantive content protects my unenumerated right to kill puppies, the Court’s longstanding practice makes the 14th Amendment applicable to State law with respect to the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights (mostly) and unenumerated rights intrinsic to the concept of ordered liberty as embraced by our nation since its founding. Liberty is not a blank check, and the Court itself has set the boundaries thereof. Roe was egregiously wrong, in part, because it departed from that standard. Thus, the claim that the 14th Amendment or the 4th Amendment, or any other amendment serves as justification for the ruling is false. There is no constitutional justification for asserting an abortion right against the right of the several States to legalize, regulate or ban it.
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