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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 04, 2013 05:57 PM |
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Me too, the large usage Elodin gives to it makes me smile. This guy has no idea what communism means. My country went through armed revolution to put it down.
For a worse result, it seems.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted May 04, 2013 06:09 PM |
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Hm American army slang communist mean snow.
Yes future on US change communist country.. Ok 16 or 200.. If can't understandable.. Now topic isn't communist
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 04, 2013 06:13 PM |
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fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 04, 2013 08:00 PM |
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yeah, I wonder how France is even moving toward socialism, since all the public structures are being sold to private interests...
and what about the trans-atlantic free trade treaty? how communist is it?
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 04, 2013 10:52 PM |
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I don't know their stance on free trade between the EU and the US but France tends to be an extremly protectionistic voice in the EU.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted June 26, 2013 04:29 PM |
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 26, 2013 04:47 PM |
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I'm willing to bet they used the 14th amendment to justify that. more than willing, in fact...
And yay, now gay people can get married in Minnesota~! ... Oh wait...
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 27, 2013 03:53 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 03:54, 27 Jun 2013.
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Proposition 8 took a blow as well. I think the writing was on the wall.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted June 28, 2013 02:17 AM |
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The US no longer needs a presidency or legislature when it has a supreme court that considers itself to be the supreme power in the land. Scalia put it aptly:
Quote:
Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday called Kennedy's analysis in the DOMA case "jaw dropping" and an assertion of "judicial supremacy" that "envisions the Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government."
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Revelation
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bixie
Promising
Legendary Hero
my common sense is tingling!
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posted June 28, 2013 10:26 AM |
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That's the supreme courts job! If there is a popular motion that will oppress a minority of people, then it is the job of the judicial system to make sure that the motion is stopped. Just because the majority want for certain groups of otherwise legal citizens to have less rights, because of their sex, race or sexuality doesn't make that democracy or right. That makes it mob rule.
Individual states can choose whether gay marriage is legal or not, and, to my knowledge, Elodin, the lonestar state isn't going to change any time soon. But the least that could happen is that the federal government recognize that those marriages are equal to heterosexual ones.
(on a side note, please don't go on about how this is a slippery slope leading to polygamy, pedophillia, beastiality etc etc as some right wing pundits are doing. I've known you long enough and respect you enough to know that it's beneath you.)
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Love, Laugh, Learn, Live.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 29, 2013 01:43 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 01:48, 29 Jun 2013.
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@Elodin
I think it's only fair to present that excerpt from Scalia's dissent in full context. This quote was referring primarily to the majority's argument that the SC had jurisdiction to hear the case to begin with, because neither the Executive nor the lower court had a disagreement at issue. Scalia's argument is that the SC should not have heard the case because there was no argument to be decided (because, in his opinion, the majority wanted to weigh in on the central question of the case).
Actually I found this aspect of the case one of the most interesting aspects, even if it has been far overshadowed by the central issue of gay marriage. Few people seem to realize the implications of an Executive deciding on his own that a law is unconstitutional and therefore should not be defended by the Department of Justice - which is exactly what Obama did. (Curiously, Obama's administration still enforced the law.) If you read the decision written by Kennedy, you will see that he is critical of the president for doing this: "[BLAG's constitutional defense of the law] does not mean that it is appropriate for the Executive as a routine exercise to challenge statutes in court instead of making the case to Congress for amendment or repeal." Kennedy's explanation of why the SC had the right to hear the case is long and convoluted, and not entirely convincing (although not being a lawyer, I'm hardly on solid ground there), but one might read between the lines and conclude that Kennedy's somewhat contrived reasoning for hearing the case had something to do with wanting to remind this president (and future presidents) whose job it really is to determine the Constitutionality of laws.... or at least, to remind the president that if he doesn't like a piece of legislation, his job is to convince Congress to pass new legislation rather than just decreeing that the existing law is no good.
Example, from the Majority opinion:
Still, there is no suggestion here that it is appropriate for the Executive as a matter of course to challenge statutes in the judicial forum rather than making the case to Congress for their amendment or repeal. The integrity of the political process would be at risk if difficult constitutional issues were simply referred to the Court as a routine exercise.
Anyway, here is the passage from Scalia's dissent in the full context in which it was written, taken directly from the case Decision, which you can find here. As a matter of course, I try to read all the big cases any more because the media does tend to quote mine them and make implications that aren't always there. Plus you do get a fascinating look into some of the greatest legal minds on the planet.
In any case - agree with him or not, you've got to just admire Scalia's writing style. Reading his opinions is just great entertainment.
The Court is eager—hungry—to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case. Standing in the way is an obstacle, a technicality of little interest to anyone but the people of We the People, who created it as a barrier against judges’ intrusion into their lives. They gave judges, in Article III, only the “judicial Power,” a power to decide not abstract questions but real, concrete “Cases” and “Controversies.” Yet the plaintiff and the Government agree entirely on what should happen in this lawsuit. They agree that the court below got it right; and they agreed in the court below that the court below that one got it right as well. What, then, are we doing here?
The answer lies at the heart of the jurisdictional portion of today’s opinion, where a single sentence lays bare the majority’s vision of our role. The Court says that we have the power to decide this case because if we did not, then our “primary role in determining the constitutionality of a law” (at least one that “has inflicted real injury on a plaintiff ”) would “become only secondary to the President’s.” Ante, at 12. But wait, the reader wonders—Windsor [the Plaintiff] won below, and so cured her injury [was ordered to receive her tax money back], and the President was glad to see it. True, says the majority, but judicial review must march on regardless, lest we “undermine the clear dictate of the separation-of-powers principle that when an Act of Congress is alleged to conflict with the Constitution, it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and every- where “primary” in its role.
This image of the Court would have been unrecognizable to those who wrote and ratified our national charter. They knew well the dangers of “primary” power, and so created branches of government that would be “perfectly coordinate by the terms of their common commission,” none of which branches could “pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers.” The Federalist, No. 49, p. 314 (C. Rossitered. 1961) (J. Madison). The people did this to protect themselves. They did it to guard their right to self-rule against the black-robed supremacy that today’s majority finds so attractive. So it was that Madison could confidently state, with no fear of contradiction, that there was nothing of “greater intrinsic value” or “stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty” than a government of separate and coordinate powers. Id., No. 47, at 301.
For this reason we are quite forbidden to say what the law is whenever (as today’s opinion asserts) “‘an Act of Congress is alleged to conflict with the Constitution.’” Ante, at 12. We can do so only when that allegation will determine the outcome of a lawsuit, and is contradicted by the other party. The “judicial Power” is not, as the majority believes, the power “‘to say what the law is,’” ibid., giving the Supreme Court the “primary role in determining the constitutionality of laws.”
The bold emphasis is mine, and underscore's Scalia's point - that the reason the Court hadn't the right (in his opinion) to hear this case was because the lawsuit had been settled with no disagreement between the two parties. He sees the Court's deciding points of Constitionality in any and every law to be above its Constitutionally appointed powers, and that's where his point about being at the apex of government comes into play.
This is all vintage Scalia, who has always had a strict, originalist view of the Court's powers, and he would certainly have written something almost identical no matter what the central issue was. In this case it happened to be gay marriage. Not unexpectedly, Scalia does go on to criticize the central finding on gay marriage as well (because, as he writes, "Given that the majority has volunteered its view of the merits, however, I proceed to discuss that as well."), but my point here was that the passage quoted doesn't really have anything directly to do with the decision on gay marriage so much as it does with the jurisdiction of the court. Which I'm sure won't come out whenever it is repeated by the conservative media.
Of course, I've made no secret of the fact that I don't think the government should restrict the rights of homosexuals to marry if they so choose. That said, Scalia makes a number of interesting points about the process by which that should be decided. As usual, I emerge from reading a court decision on a contentious topic with a new perspective on it.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted June 29, 2013 05:47 PM |
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Lesbians manifested today, asking for assisted procreation. This is a reproductive technology used primarily in infertility treatments, the cost of such procedure is around 15 000 euros and is entirely supported by free health care. As Hollande told before being elected that he is favorable to such thing, now everybody will have to pay.
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 30, 2013 05:57 AM |
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Quote:
Lesbians manifested today, asking for assisted procreation. This is a reproductive technology used primarily in infertility treatments, the cost of such procedure is around 15 000 euros and is entirely supported by free health care. As Hollande told before being elected that he is favorable to such thing, now everybody will have to pay.
I would be more annoyed at how overpriced it is, tbh. 15000 Euros? Per operation? Jeebus, how hard and expensive can it actually be?
If I had to estimate markup, I'd put it at at least 1000% 
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted June 30, 2013 02:51 PM |
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Quote:
The “judicial Power” is not, as the majority believes, the power “‘to say what the law is,’” ibid., giving the Supreme Court the “primary role in determining the constitutionality of laws.”
Precisely what I said in my post.
When the majority is uninterested in original intent of the Constitution it can't be said that the US is still operating under a Constitutional democracy. The Constitution simply does not matter, all that matters is the will of the judges.
Why should lesbians get free taxpayer "infertility treatments" when they are not infertile, regardless of cost involved?
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Revelation
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted June 30, 2013 03:00 PM |
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Read carefully. They don't ask for "getting infertility treatments", but for assisted procreation, which is used, among the others, in infertility treatments. That's why Salamandre used word primarily.
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Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted June 30, 2013 03:18 PM |
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Leads at same point: a costly procedure which is done now only because personal sexual tastes, while at origins it is about serious health issues.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted June 30, 2013 03:48 PM |
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Quote:
Read carefully. They don't ask for "getting infertility treatments", but for assisted procreation, which is used, among the others, in infertility treatments. That's why Salamandre used word primarily.
They don't need assistance is procreating. The fact that they don't want to procreate through normal biological means does not entitle them to have taxpayers pay for their artificial insemination. They don't have a health problem.
I would say the same thing about a heterosexual woman who was fertile but who wanted for some bizarre reason to have a baby without having sex. Not a health problem.
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Revelation
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted June 30, 2013 07:49 PM |
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While I kind of agree this procedure is rather too expensive to do for such purpose, I don't agree it's about "only personal sexual tastes" or that they just don't want to procreate through "normal biological means". It's about human mind, very strong feelings that can't be "covered up" so easily as you seem to think.
I'd like to compare it to not washing yourself nor wearing any clothes nor putting waste in containers (only that human sexuality is rather stronger than such aesthetics). It could be easily done and, to some extend, is more "natural", but how would you react if your government didn't give you any permission for these?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not really sure if this idea of using assisted procreation more often is good. I just want to (kind of) understand what these women feel and justify them.
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Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted June 30, 2013 08:00 PM |
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Quote:
I just want to (kind of) understand what these women feel and justify them.
Who said that men would not want to get the same permission on the same ground?
And if you don't understand these women,why would you want to justify them?
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted June 30, 2013 08:42 PM |
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This thread is pages long: 
