Posted on 06/26/2015 10:33:49 AM PDT by xzins
From Scalia's dissent on court conducting a putsch to overthrow the country:
"22 If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began:
“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,”
I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.
What was the price for the 5th vote and who paid it?
George Soros & Co.?
So, it’s common in an opinion for a judge to write about what a bribe on the case at hand would have to include before he would accept it?
Exactly... He was not suggesting actual payment. Much more subtle than that.
He is not making any inference that a vote was paid for, he is saying, regardless of the merits of the case, there is no possible way he could proudly support a decision that started with such a shite sentence.
Parsing the sentence, it seems he was saying if HIS had been the fifth vote, the price HE would be forced to pay would be in his appearing to agree with the opinion that began with those (awful) words.
Oh, for crying out loud. Stop eating those mushrooms.
Oh, brother.
He’s referring to justices promising to join in an opinion if the opinion includes certain language, or if the joiner gets to write all or parts of the opinion. He’s not talking about bribery with things of value.
If I were paid for my vote I would “hide my head in a bag”.
Hmmmm...
Sounds rhetorical (the usual “deal”) Then why didn’t he come right out & say it? (I like Scalia, but really…)
You know, I have to at least give that Snowden guy credit for trying to expose the truth. Our government’s policy of “snitches get stitches’ is just plain corrupt. It’s also cowardly.
The genius of it is that he leaves it up in the air for interpretation, doesn’t he?
“I’d hide my head, even if I’d been paid a price....”
Uh no, the decision will stand, just as vote in MS did even when it was proven illegal crossover vote decided the outcome.
Progressive decisions = law of the land, conservative decisions = just a speed bump on a progressive path.
Spot on!
Ditto, my read.
I’d hang my head over such a stupid argument, even if I’d been paid a price.
see #35.
But, it is left to interpretation...
And who was it who wrote: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,””
I think Scalia is just mocking the rhetoric he cites. My first reaction was similar to your, but more in the abstract sense that SCOTUS justices routinely compromise legal principle, horse trade across cases. I suppose they do that too, but Scalia’s comment here can be taking as nothing more than mocking the rhetoric.
There's a lot of money spent on the 4th of July.
Oh good grief. We have real arguments Let’s stop with the silly conspiracy theories.
This would all presuppose that Kennedy is otherwise Conservative. He isn’t.
If we keep focusing on silly theories we never address the real issues and never get anyone’s attention to listen to us.
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"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
-Frederick Douglas
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