Genocide is the deliberate elimination of a people.
Yes.
There are plans on the books (and actively in development in two of them) to commit genocide.
RE: Israel
What percentage of the Palestinians has Israel killed or even planned to kill? How about if we discount the various wars and security needs?
In terms of planning Genocide, one of the big movers for the Palestinians expressly calls for the death of every Jew in their Charter.
RE: Japan
The laws permitting forced sterilization were eliminated in 1996. Before that... the only numbers I found was that "from 1940 to 1945, sterilization was done to 454".
So less than 100 a year by Nazi era (and Nazi style) government. If they've been doing that emass since then or are planning to, I didn't find it.
RE: Australia
Opposing open borders is not "genocide". They've managed to kill... 19(?) people (wiki goes back to 1992 but I gather it's gotten worse recently but this is counting every suicide as murder).
To put that into perspective, the Trail of Tears killed a quarter or third of it's people.
Unless you're looking at different numbers, you're misusing the word "genocide". Not all bad ideas are "genocide" and deliberately devaluing the word makes it harder for the world to deal with actual genocide when it comes up.
The question comes down to this: Can the federal gov pronounce a state guilty and strip it of various authorities, simply because it can without any supporting facts or even suggestion of data? Even if it's letting all other states continue with business as normal and even if there are no federal interests or funds involved?
What constitutional principle or provision does that violate?
Given that it's a bad idea easily abused, it seems that it should be on you to explain why the Supremes are wrong and it's Constitutional to do this.
It is not the case that Congress is allowed to do anything except for what is carefully banned. What Constitutional principle lets them take multigenerational data long since stale and misapply it to assume guilt?
I’m not seeing an argument on your part for why the “grandfather did it” complaint about the VRA makes section 4(b) unconstitutional.
If we're allowed to use totally out of date irrelevant data to determine who should be punished, then why bother have data at all?
Texas has a problem, so in the name of that problem, let's change the rules for California, even though they don't? Surely I can find some point in history that will support what I want to do if I go back enough decades or centuries.
This is an abuse of power. There's a total disconnect between the claimed problem and the proposed solution. If the courts allow that as a general operating principle then it's hard to see how it doesn't get abused.
IMHO assuming, without data or any attempt at proof, that a group of people are guilty because of the area they live in breaks basic concepts of equality under the law.
Again, this sounds to me like you’re saying that the pre-Shelby County VRA was constitutional but should have been reformed...
Yes.
...not that the ruling was correct or even defensible.
The Supreme Court upheld all of the VRA except for section 4(b), and only axed that part because of the entire "your grandfather did it" issue.
So yes, the law needed to be "reformed" so the coverage area has some relationship to the present day. The next issue is, "reformed" by whom? My view is Congress didn't do their job and the Supremes refused to do it for them.
Oh, preclearance is certainly permissible (although yes, from a policy standpoint IMHO there are larger problems now-days and better uses for scarce resources... even if we want to focus on voter suppression).
The problem comes from the idea that we're going to let problem states go (because their grandparents didn't have a problem) while we crack down on states that don't have a problem (because their grandparents did have a problem).
At least you are admitting two entire states deliberately tried to suppress minority voting.
Of course I'm admitting it, it's a fact. Those two states? Having proven it's still a problem, they deserve preclearance. The others on that list? Not so much.
It’s clear you are making the argument protecting the rights of minority voters are less important.
I'm saying there are Constitutional problems with assuming guilt based on what previous generations did. Apply pre-clearance to everyone uniformly or base it off of behavior of the current generation, not the behavior of dead people.
And note you're trying to create a situation where my own state could do that sort of thing without problems because I picked my grandparents well. That list deserves to be a lot more flexible in terms of getting put on it and in terms of getting off, but it's not the job of the Supremes to rewrite the law.
Think about what things were like when this law was passed. A third of the country was openly and constantly suppressing minority vote, and doing so on a scale that attempted to be total.
If current day was still like that then we'd have a hundred judges needing to get involved. Instead we have two, and even with those it's nowhere near the scale or degree of yesterday.
The sort of thing that’s called legislating from the bench when the other side does it.
"Legislating from the bench" is when you claim everything other than your opinion is unconstitutional and/or when you rewrite laws.
For example if the Court had said that the legislature can't use 40+ year old data, so the Court would update it with the most recent data and the law would apply to states ABC instead of XYZ.
Striking down part of a law and handing it back to the Legislature for rewrite is the opposite of "legislating from the bench".
My expectation is that either...
1) The racial situation has greatly improved in the last 4 decades and the main parties are "only" attempting to suppress each other's vote, as opposed to doing it on skin color (which admittedly is a fine point to dance on if 90%+ of one color is going Dem); Or...
2) We've lowered the bar so much on what "racist" means that pretty much all states' voting rules should be covered.
And if I had to pick one of those, I lean towards #2. Detroit probably has a history of suppressing the white vote. Even my local area carefully picks school tax vote days for when turnout will be very low and only parents are likely to show up (so probably everyone does it).
Appealing to the Supreme Court’s judgement when it’s the Supreme Court’s judgement that’s being criticized is… weird.
I'm making an appeal to authority, but you claiming there is no legal case for this is easily countered by pointing out that the Supremes thought differently. Further, I strongly suspect they're better than either of us at this.
Congress made that determination, which is in line with its Constitutional power.
Are you admitting this determination was based on data two generations old?
Are you claiming the civil rights situation is unchanged from then... or just that it doesn't matter? If the later, then how stale can the data be for this sort of thing? If two generations is fine, then how about 3? 10?
Dark Matter: Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems
Mike Schilling: All the states gloating about how they were going to suppress votes as soon as the VRA was gutted, and all the states that have done just that.
This is akin to pointing to one grandchild who looks like his grandpa and claim that because of that, all of them must.
"All the states who are gloating" is not the same as "the same states and them-only have the same problems". Some of them have gotten better and (what I'd hope is more concerning for you is) some other states have gotten worse. The Civil Rights situation in 2017 is in no way comparable to what existed in the civil rights era.
The law that you're thumping for has become a Symbol of civil rights, which is why the left is all outraged about the Supreme's ruling, no matter how removed from common sense the facts are and how stale the data that law tries to apply.
As far as I can tell, stripped of emotion you have no case. The amazing thing isn't that a majority of the Supremes ruled this way but rather that a minority didn't.
The 2nd was always interpreted as allowing widespread gun control at the state level until the originalists got hold of it.
So we should allow widespread state level control over speech & assembly? Should the 1st AM be interpreted in the narrowest way possible so it can be made meaningless?
It seems reasonable to bring the 2nd AM in line with the others.
Your actual claim is grandchildren can legally be assumed to be guilty of the same crimes as their grandparents. That is a bad idea and muttering "racism" doesn't change that.
Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems or apply your nifty laws to everyone. Those are both great options.
Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism. So is not discriminating on the basis of national origin.
All this legal dancing to make the 2nd AM allow gun control and disallow individual gun ownership may convince the public that the other amendments have no value either.
80+% of the population supports the process of the gov’t taking stuff from other people to give to someone else, they are just in disagreement over who gets what and how much.
There was a time when most everyone supported the state having a religion, but because they couldn't agree on who should be oppressed by the church state, the 13 colonies decided to separate church and state.
If we could settle on the underlying reasons, then we could see to what extent they apply to fetuses at various points during gestation.
Jump to the absurd extreme and give *all* of the rights of an adult to a single cell fertilized egg.
We have a vast body of medical ethics with laws backing them up. Not only did Terri Schiavo not have a right to life, or to some else's organs, I don't either. I have no right to force someone to give me their blood, even if they're my parent, even if they've agreed to it, even if they've done it before, even if I'm going to die without it. We let many thousands of people die every year for want of an organ donor.
And after we're done looking at medical ethics, we could examine the 13th amendment to the Constitution. Then we could examine separation of church and state. Then we could examine the level of interference we want to let the state put on people's sex lives and their reproduction.
It's possible to build a society compatible with where the pro-life movement wants to go, but it's amazingly ugly and we've moved away from that for good reason.
To their credit they don't seem to want that, to their discredit they don't seem to understand it. IMHO the pro-life movement doesn't want to restructure society so it's compatible with preventing abortion, it just wants everyone to voluntarily choose to not have one... and for that it really shouldn't be trying to change laws.
Do we care more about this being an abortion than if we had a magic birth control that would allow only girls to get made?
It exists, google "Microsort". And "no" because Microsort got kicked out of the country (the other methods of sperm sorting don't work).
This technology only exists to gender select, we can ban it without too many side effects. But trying to prevent gender selection abortions if we're going to allow "choice" requires... what? Lie detectors?
Then we're faced with what to do with a woman who wants an abortion for a reason we're trying to prevent... do we strap her to a bed and make her stay pregnant? Didn't we outlaw slavery?
Government doesn't care about morality, especially it's own. Government cares about having enough votes to swing elections.
As for other "moral issues", get enough people to vote on it and government will pay attention; Get a workable platform and it will probably be implemented. That last is what the Pro-life movement is really missing.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The Tomiknockers”
Yes.
RE: Israel
What percentage of the Palestinians has Israel killed or even planned to kill? How about if we discount the various wars and security needs?
In terms of planning Genocide, one of the big movers for the Palestinians expressly calls for the death of every Jew in their Charter.
RE: Japan
The laws permitting forced sterilization were eliminated in 1996. Before that... the only numbers I found was that "from 1940 to 1945, sterilization was done to 454".
So less than 100 a year by Nazi era (and Nazi style) government. If they've been doing that emass since then or are planning to, I didn't find it.
RE: Australia
Opposing open borders is not "genocide". They've managed to kill... 19(?) people (wiki goes back to 1992 but I gather it's gotten worse recently but this is counting every suicide as murder).
To put that into perspective, the Trail of Tears killed a quarter or third of it's people.
Unless you're looking at different numbers, you're misusing the word "genocide". Not all bad ideas are "genocide" and deliberately devaluing the word makes it harder for the world to deal with actual genocide when it comes up.
"
@don-zeko
After thinking about it some more...
The question comes down to this: Can the federal gov pronounce a state guilty and strip it of various authorities, simply because it can without any supporting facts or even suggestion of data? Even if it's letting all other states continue with business as normal and even if there are no federal interests or funds involved?
"
Given that it's a bad idea easily abused, it seems that it should be on you to explain why the Supremes are wrong and it's Constitutional to do this.
It is not the case that Congress is allowed to do anything except for what is carefully banned. What Constitutional principle lets them take multigenerational data long since stale and misapply it to assume guilt?
"
If we're allowed to use totally out of date irrelevant data to determine who should be punished, then why bother have data at all?
Texas has a problem, so in the name of that problem, let's change the rules for California, even though they don't? Surely I can find some point in history that will support what I want to do if I go back enough decades or centuries.
This is an abuse of power. There's a total disconnect between the claimed problem and the proposed solution. If the courts allow that as a general operating principle then it's hard to see how it doesn't get abused.
IMHO assuming, without data or any attempt at proof, that a group of people are guilty because of the area they live in breaks basic concepts of equality under the law.
"
Yes.
The Supreme Court upheld all of the VRA except for section 4(b), and only axed that part because of the entire "your grandfather did it" issue.
So yes, the law needed to be "reformed" so the coverage area has some relationship to the present day. The next issue is, "reformed" by whom? My view is Congress didn't do their job and the Supremes refused to do it for them.
"
Oh, preclearance is certainly permissible (although yes, from a policy standpoint IMHO there are larger problems now-days and better uses for scarce resources... even if we want to focus on voter suppression).
The problem comes from the idea that we're going to let problem states go (because their grandparents didn't have a problem) while we crack down on states that don't have a problem (because their grandparents did have a problem).
"
If you have a better answer you should try posting it. You can't beat something with nothing.
"
Of course I'm admitting it, it's a fact. Those two states? Having proven it's still a problem, they deserve preclearance. The others on that list? Not so much.
I'm saying there are Constitutional problems with assuming guilt based on what previous generations did. Apply pre-clearance to everyone uniformly or base it off of behavior of the current generation, not the behavior of dead people.
And note you're trying to create a situation where my own state could do that sort of thing without problems because I picked my grandparents well. That list deserves to be a lot more flexible in terms of getting put on it and in terms of getting off, but it's not the job of the Supremes to rewrite the law.
"
Think about what things were like when this law was passed. A third of the country was openly and constantly suppressing minority vote, and doing so on a scale that attempted to be total.
If current day was still like that then we'd have a hundred judges needing to get involved. Instead we have two, and even with those it's nowhere near the scale or degree of yesterday.
Two is a victory.
"
"Legislating from the bench" is when you claim everything other than your opinion is unconstitutional and/or when you rewrite laws.
For example if the Court had said that the legislature can't use 40+ year old data, so the Court would update it with the most recent data and the law would apply to states ABC instead of XYZ.
Striking down part of a law and handing it back to the Legislature for rewrite is the opposite of "legislating from the bench".
"
My expectation is that either...
1) The racial situation has greatly improved in the last 4 decades and the main parties are "only" attempting to suppress each other's vote, as opposed to doing it on skin color (which admittedly is a fine point to dance on if 90%+ of one color is going Dem); Or...
2) We've lowered the bar so much on what "racist" means that pretty much all states' voting rules should be covered.
And if I had to pick one of those, I lean towards #2. Detroit probably has a history of suppressing the white vote. Even my local area carefully picks school tax vote days for when turnout will be very low and only parents are likely to show up (so probably everyone does it).
But yes, we need data.
"
I'm making an appeal to authority, but you claiming there is no legal case for this is easily countered by pointing out that the Supremes thought differently. Further, I strongly suspect they're better than either of us at this.
Are you admitting this determination was based on data two generations old?
Are you claiming the civil rights situation is unchanged from then... or just that it doesn't matter? If the later, then how stale can the data be for this sort of thing? If two generations is fine, then how about 3? 10?
"
This is akin to pointing to one grandchild who looks like his grandpa and claim that because of that, all of them must.
"All the states who are gloating" is not the same as "the same states and them-only have the same problems". Some of them have gotten better and (what I'd hope is more concerning for you is) some other states have gotten worse. The Civil Rights situation in 2017 is in no way comparable to what existed in the civil rights era.
The law that you're thumping for has become a Symbol of civil rights, which is why the left is all outraged about the Supreme's ruling, no matter how removed from common sense the facts are and how stale the data that law tries to apply.
As far as I can tell, stripped of emotion you have no case. The amazing thing isn't that a majority of the Supremes ruled this way but rather that a minority didn't.
"
The Supreme Court disagrees with you, and points to data taken from two generations ago which needs to be updated.
So if I live in a Northern state, my chosen representatives have the authority to carry out my will, free from federal oversight.
But if I live in a Southern state, I don't, because of what my grandparents did?
"
So we should allow widespread state level control over speech & assembly? Should the 1st AM be interpreted in the narrowest way possible so it can be made meaningless?
It seems reasonable to bring the 2nd AM in line with the others.
"
Your actual claim is grandchildren can legally be assumed to be guilty of the same crimes as their grandparents. That is a bad idea and muttering "racism" doesn't change that.
Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems or apply your nifty laws to everyone. Those are both great options.
Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism. So is not discriminating on the basis of national origin.
"
All this legal dancing to make the 2nd AM allow gun control and disallow individual gun ownership may convince the public that the other amendments have no value either.
"
There was a time when most everyone supported the state having a religion, but because they couldn't agree on who should be oppressed by the church state, the 13 colonies decided to separate church and state.
"
Eh? How are those countries engaged in "genocide" without dumbing that word seriously down or reaching way back into the past?
"
Jump to the absurd extreme and give *all* of the rights of an adult to a single cell fertilized egg.
We have a vast body of medical ethics with laws backing them up. Not only did Terri Schiavo not have a right to life, or to some else's organs, I don't either. I have no right to force someone to give me their blood, even if they're my parent, even if they've agreed to it, even if they've done it before, even if I'm going to die without it. We let many thousands of people die every year for want of an organ donor.
And after we're done looking at medical ethics, we could examine the 13th amendment to the Constitution. Then we could examine separation of church and state. Then we could examine the level of interference we want to let the state put on people's sex lives and their reproduction.
It's possible to build a society compatible with where the pro-life movement wants to go, but it's amazingly ugly and we've moved away from that for good reason.
To their credit they don't seem to want that, to their discredit they don't seem to understand it. IMHO the pro-life movement doesn't want to restructure society so it's compatible with preventing abortion, it just wants everyone to voluntarily choose to not have one... and for that it really shouldn't be trying to change laws.
"
So was Terri Schiavo, who had far more brain function than the typical zygote.
Terri didn't have a right to life, much less a right to enslave others.
On “Corrupted College”
True, but that's also burning more and more of my time, and it's also assuming "remedial classes" will be usefully labeled from a place like that.
On “The Tomiknockers”
No, this is incorrect. No living woman has any right to my (or anyone else's) body, even if it's lack will kill her.
"Exact same rights" is very, VERY far away from where they want to be.
"
It exists, google "Microsort". And "no" because Microsort got kicked out of the country (the other methods of sperm sorting don't work).
This technology only exists to gender select, we can ban it without too many side effects. But trying to prevent gender selection abortions if we're going to allow "choice" requires... what? Lie detectors?
Then we're faced with what to do with a woman who wants an abortion for a reason we're trying to prevent... do we strap her to a bed and make her stay pregnant? Didn't we outlaw slavery?
"
Government doesn't care about morality, especially it's own. Government cares about having enough votes to swing elections.
As for other "moral issues", get enough people to vote on it and government will pay attention; Get a workable platform and it will probably be implemented. That last is what the Pro-life movement is really missing.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.