I am assuming that you used the word "you" in that sentence as you would use the word "one" as in "Putting all one's chips....," because I am not assuming either outcome. But in a sense, we have to bet our chips on Romney, or bet against him (by not voting at all -- I assume nobody here is voting for O). I am saying that the possibility that Scalia and Kennedy will not be able to serve is real, not certain. They really do get old.
My earlier post in this dialogue discussed cases in which they could serve longer than 2016. I noted that in some of those cases, a Romney presidency could result in worse justices than an Obama presidency.
It may come to pass that both of them do fine and live to the age of 100. I hope they do. But nobody knows.
That life expectancy curve you shown is completely meaningless to this discussion showing 76/81 as the (Average ???) life expectance without knowing how it was generated or who the samples were.
I don't think it is "completely meaningless." In any case, it is based on real numbers, but I put it there to illustrate that men near the age of 80 are more likely to have health problems than 50 year olds. That is why all the justices in the last 30 years except Ginsburg were in their 50s when they were appointed. I think you really do understand that the probability that either of the two justices either dies or becomes incapacitated is greater than the probability of one dying.
Try a life expectancy curve based on actual SCOTUS justices, not a sample that includes those on welfare with high blood pressure and diabetes.
I think you know that the sample would be too small, and extremely inaccurate, including 18th century justices. But maybe there is a more accurate way to estimate what their odds are. I do not pretend to know what the exact numbers are, but I know they are not zero, and they could be greater than you think.
In my opinion, Obama appointing a replacement for Scalia or Kennedy would be a defilement of this nation. But a failed Romney presidency, followed by a new leftist swine POTUS replacing those justices, would be just as painful and shameful. And our votes make one or the other of those outcomes possible.
I believe that electing Romney is such a gamble, at least at this point, that I don't know whether it is possible to make a rational decision to vote for him or not vote for him in the general election.
Exactly ! And those comments are not personally directed at you.
I suggest we all follow our conscience in this terrible decision but those that pretend to know with absolute certainty that this country will be better off after 4 years of a Romney POTUS (considering the next election after that) , or that know that Kennedy or Scalia will retire in the next 4 years, or that Romney would appoint a justice that we will find acceptable, or that they even know what a Romney POTUS would really do, are just making it up.
Let's watch the race develop.
BTW : If Romney is really our last hope then maybe Newt and RS should not have spent so much time attacking him, Newt used the OWS ‘envy the rich’ attacks against him, and RS just said Obama would be a better POTUS than Romney, I didn't find those helpful. Romney's polling way below Obama now.
theres NO guarantee that any of em live or die, nor any of us beyond the next keystroke...
that said, even with a marginally 'conservative' court [cough, spit], we only got a 5-4 on Heller and mcDonald, two cases directly bearing on a simple phrase "Shall NOT be infringed"...
the court, even when/if it gets a correct 'interpretation' then diminishes the Rights further by watering down the upheld Right with drivel that becomes future weighted opinion...
even further, whats [who] to stop bambam from simply EOing anything, or even doubling the number of justices and appointing them whenever he decides he needs to ???
SCOTUS *should* be an important factor...but its hit or miss how any 'conservative' justice acts once tenuured for life...
again, our issues come back to how our *reps* have acted the last 40+ yrs in allowing socialists to be rubberstamped into SCOTUS while simultaneously cowing to pressure in support of decent jurists...
NOT my fault/problem now...