Commenter Archive

Comments by Cascadian*

On “Meanwhile, at True/Slant…

Republicans should regain their fiscal bonafides by advocating and working toward a repeal of Medicare D.

On “Weekend Open Thread

Well, you got me. I initially thought of Allan Bloom. Different, very different.

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I was hoping for a truly lurid sex scandal. I was kind of embarrassed for Will this morning.

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I'm not sure about an "American order", not being a "real American" and all. I'm sure the Palins plan on taking care of the tyke themselves and won't be taking any of those socialist handouts that burden society. Then again Alaska is the greatest welfare recipient we have.

On “Investment advice: put your money into prisons

Hows about making sure there's sex ed and condoms so we don't get children we don't want. Maybe provide social supports and protections for professionals that actually want to spend time with their families. Heck, we could get crazy and give a year parental leave like they do in Canuckistan. Maybe even financial incentives such as tax breaks for families that keep a parent home with adequate benefit to the child. Or we could just do the czar thing. Maybe unionize child care workers.

On “Investment advice: put your money into prisons

True. What could be more efficient and effective than a czar? Maybe we could get Bill Bennett.

On “Same Sex Marriage, the Courts, and Religious Liberty: How Much of a Conflict?

If religious freedom and the establishment clause were truly taken seriously, I could finally open that little Rastafarian temple to Dionysus and Aphrodite I've always dreamed of.

On “Investment advice: put your money into prisons

I'm not sure if my position would be considered lib or con on this (as if it mattered). Education reform starts at home. You're not going to get much improvement without changing the way people look at their young. We don't need education reform as much as we need parental reform.

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You're preaching to the choir here of course. Setting a profit motive for incarceration has a foreseeable conclusion: more incarceration. I recently dealt with part of the legal system in Colorado which appears to be privatized. I had to send a $1.50 check to get a form by mail that I then had to resend. The form should have been printable. It was nothing special. Privatizing isn't necessarily more efficient....

On the broader point, we're saddling the next generations with amazing amounts of debt to pay for past generations while taking away their ability to compete. This, likewise, has a foreseeable conclusion.

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Somthing seems broken

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Is there a troll about? I keep seeing comments on the side bar of the main page and then nothing in the thread.

On “More Blawgging

They're already enumerated aren't they? Citizens have a responsibility for their own governance. Abrogating civic duty to the wisdom of a court or legislature is lazy and short sighted.

I certainly don't think Carhart was correctly decided. Medical issues are not Federal.

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I reject the validity of the fourteenth amendment which they rely on. I don't think that qualifies as a misread as much as hoodwink.

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For what it's worth, I disagree with the decision limiting ex post facto to criminal cases but I prefer Iredell to Chase.

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I got that. To me the slight of hand comes when we don't differentiate between academic usage and common usage. Let's look at a term like Federalist (not to mention liberal or conservative). I usually use the term to mean it's exact opposite... anti-federalist. I don't think ant-federalist is even used in common speak and would tend to confuse the debate. If I were in the ivory tower where everyone agreed to use more precise terms, I would use the more precise terms . Insisting that we use the same level of discourse inside and outside of academia is blowing smoke. So academic legal minds use more nuanced terms. Great for them. Maybe someday those terms will filter down. The fact that Scalia judgements are often results based regardless of his protestations shouldn't impugn the good faith of others.

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That's a fairly liberal view.

So misreading is a new phenomena? Boy the old guys had it right. When did the misreading start? I'd say Marbury v Madison if not earlier.

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I was thoroughly unimpressed with the piece. We use words all the time that are imprecise. If the way in which the use of the word is questioned we can be more precise. The fact that an "academic constitutional lawyers" shouldn't use the term means nothing for the general usage. The fact that we may be better served using textualist rather than strict construction is quibbling.

Why shouldn't activism be construed as non-abstention? Because judges have to judge? Come on now. Sometimes it's better to just send legislation back to get fixed rather than taking it upon oneself to provide the missing wisdom. Canadian courts do a great job of this.

All in all, this is a fluff piece.

On “Gay marriage and religious liberty ctd.

Sam, what is extra beyond the rights? I'm married. My partner can't have children. I want all the rights associated with marriage. But, I feel there's this extra cultural/religious baggage that I'd rather do with out. Why must I be forced to endorse what is ultimately religious to get all the rights the religious or those that are willing to play along get?

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Here's a fascinating case: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/world/europe/08britain.html?_r=2&emc=eta1 (ht Douglas Todd), about a court ruling in Britain on whether Jewish religious schools can descriminate based on the mothers native ethnicity. I think it reflects on this debate.

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You're right. I don't think a frontal assault would be helpful. It's much better to be all the things you advocate: patient, understanding, accommodating. Let the religious be the unreasonable. They're perfectly capable of hanging themselves. All they need is a bit more rope.

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I'm not so sure. SSM isn't as scary to the young who are already moving away from religion. I'd say that the SSM fight will lead to churches losing more young not less. Of course, as we discussed the other day civil unions might actually help this process more than SSM.

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There have been some interesting cases in Canada on this recently. If you're Muslim can you refuse to service the blind with aid-dogs? If you're a Christian in public school, can you act in a way to stigmatize gays? The courts have said basically, you can believe anything you want but you must act with toleration in a secular society. Perhaps disallowing some behavior is a religious infringement but religion isn't a superior freedom.

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