PONCE, Puerto Rico (Feb. 14) – People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn’t change with society are “idiots,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.
This is the level to which some conservatives have descended. Insults against groups of people who simply disagree isn’t criticism, it’s intolerance.Theists are not idiots — they are simply wrong. Scalia is not an idiot, he’s an ass.
alexgator1:
Please explain how Scalia?s authoring the majority opinion on the case ?in effect hand[s] the presidency to Bush.? It still sounds like you?re asserting that Scalia didn?t need the other four consenting votes to get a majority?that his vote somehow has the power to supersede those of any dissenting justices.
r4d, my condolences as well.
Zac,
I re-read Tom’s post, and see the point of making new amendments. There’s less room for interpretation bias. But how specific does it need to be?
I’m still getting conflicting definitions of what an “originalist” is, from people everywhere, and depending on your personal views, it means a variety of things. This is why I call the term empty, its definition in the political arena has been intentionally left vague, for nothing other than gathering support around confusion of a term.
As you said, it’s degenerated into rubbish.
Well jcc I should revise my statement to say that the Supreme Court handed the presidency to GW Bush.
Alex.
You read “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Alex? Well done! A great book. Scary as hell.
Not only did I read it but I reread it AND saw the movie adaptation. Recommended reading for anyone who is concerned about the lurch toward theocracy that we are currently experiencing in the USA and it should be on the shelf of all who are true patriots that care about this country and it’s democratic future.
Alex.
I just wikied ‘originalism,’ and boy was I off the mark. I can totally see its merits, and there are also some interesting arguments against it. But Tom was right, I was misconstruing the issue due to a combination of my own ‘liberal bias’ and a failure to even look the damn word up. Shame on me.
Legal philosophy is interesting stuff. Maybe I should pull my head out of the Dawkins pile for a while and read up on it.
rainbows,
Please accept my condolences as well. I am so sorry for your loss.
alex & atheistatic,
I read “Handmaid’s Tale” a few years ago in my reading group. Atwood, right? Indeed, scary stuff. And I agree, highly recommended reading. Didn’t know there was a movie adaptation. I’ll have to look for it.
r4d:
Deepest condolences on your loss, my friend.
pixel: gampac.org is for the http://www.GodlessAmericans.org
or http://www.gampac.org that will take you to the same place.
It is a political action committee for atheists.
mxracer:
from http://www.answers.com/topic/originalism?method=6:
“In the context of U.S. Constitutional interpretation, originalism is a family of theories which share the starting point that a Constitution (or statute) does not evolve in meaning, but rather, has a fixed and knowable meaning, which should be adhered to by Judges. A neologism, “Originalism” is a Formalist theory of law which is often used in concert with Textualism. It is popular among U.S. political conservatives (although some liberals, e.g. Hugo Black and Akhil Amar also subscribe to the theory; Amar’s book The Bill of Rights offers a monumental Originalist defense of incorporation); some opponents have charged that it is merely a form of judicial activism.
“Opponents of Originalism, often seeking to discredit it, refer to Originalism as the theory of Original intent. Just as football is a sport, but “sport” is not a synonym for “football,” so as with original intent and Originalism. Although Original intent is one Originalist theory, there are actually several theories, most of which categorically reject intentionalism. Rather, the term Originalism refers to a family of related – but distinctly different – theories:”
I list them here for brevity;
1. Original Intent
2. Original Understanding
3. Original Meaning
Read the source in its entirety. Interesting stuff.
r4d
My condolences on the loss of your family member. May your memories be sweet ones, and long-lasting.
Hey guys, thanks for your condolences. I really appreciate it.
I feel like it might be helpful to elaborate on what’s going on, even if it might throw things totally off topic. Hopefully it won’t seem too selfish of me, but I really value the input of this community so here it goes.
My sister in law has been struggling all her life with alcoholism, depression, and occasionally serious drug abuse. (My father in law is also a recovering alcoholic, and hence my wife has an extreme hypersensitivity to any alcohol use.)
About five years ago, my sis in law became romantically involved with her boss. He was still married at the time, and had kids (I think two.) Pretty soon the situation blew up (these things are a pretty big deal in Roanoke Va), an ugly divorce ensued, and she was tagged as one of Roanoke’s premier home wreckers.
Now, I’ve never been too crazy about this guy. Okay, I admit, I really disliked him. He was kinda of a bigwig in Roanoke – owned a lot of popular restaurants. Extremely loud, annoyingly arrogant, and apparently mentally and physically abusive as well. Their relationship was tumultuous to say the least. It was a constant cycle of fighting, breaking up, ‘everything’s perfect,’ fighting, breaking up, and getting back together again. This all corresponded to my sis in law jumping on and off the wagon.
This last year has been especially rough. For a while she was calling up my wife out of the blue and verbally assaulting her for no reason. She was diagnosed with chronic depression and some other form of psychosis that I can’t remember. She would go on medication for a while and things would seem to clear up, then suddenly there would be a cave in and she would call us up drunk and abusive.
For the past three or four months, there has been very little communication, and none of it very encouraging. There was a rumor that she might be using heroin. Just a few weeks ago, she
was pulled overwrecked a company car and was charged with a DUI. That caused her to lose her job, and it sounds like she’ll have to serve some jail time. I guess sometime since then she must have gotten back together with you know who.This morning, she woke up to find him lying dead beside her.
Now, this isn’t much of a direct personal loss for me or even my wife. But for my sister in law… we really don’t know how she’s going to take it. I mean, she can barely handle life, how the hell is she going to cope with death? It’s very scary, because what this really means is that we may only be a another phone call away from my sister in law’s death.
I’m interested in any thoughts ya’ll might have. Oh, and just in case any of the theists here believe the solution is an obvious one, the answer is yes – she has gone to church. This is Roanoke we’re talking about, after all.
r4d:
Terribly sorry to hear of your family’s loss, and the rough life of your sister. Warm wishes from here in CA.
-Jeremy
r4d–
So sorry to hear about your sister-in-law’s problems. I don’t know that there is much you and your wife can do to help her, other than encourage her to get into rehab. Will getting the DUI mandate rehab for her?
It must be so hard on you, and especially on your wife. Is your sis-in-law seeing a therapist?
I wish I had some helpful advice. I’ve had all kinds of crazy things happen in my family – so bad that I’ve really had to distance myself from all of them. That’s hard to do, also, but sometimes you have to do that for your own sanity.
_____________________________________
pnuhn@gampac.org –
Thanks! I found the link. Are you connected with the PAC?
reluctant
sorry about the last post ending in the word “reluctant.”
I was going to write a comment to reluctant about pnuhn’s link, then pnuhn gave me the info, and I forgot to take reluctant’s name off the posting.
pnuhn–
DUH!! I should look around on a website before I ask questions. I see that you’re on the GAMPAC board.
(But, where’s your photo?)
r4d
Tough situation. Sounds like your sis-in-law could be bi-polar, what with the swings in mood. Of course, with depression, adding booze and drugs only worsens the condition, especially if she’s on psychotropics for her disease. Gotta remember that depression IS a disease.
Is she under a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s care? If so, hopefully she’ll talk through her grief with that person. Does she have other local friends to turn to?
I agree, there’s no telling how she’ll react to this death. It was a torrid relationship, and apparently just back on the upswing, so she probably will be grieving hard.
You and your wife have no control over her sister or her actions, however. I suggest the two of you talk about how you’ll feel (especially your wife) if her sister does follow her lover in death. That is the most drastic scenario, but one I wouldn’t rule out, based on your description of her.
I get the feeling you are willing to be supportive, but at a distance. That’s fine. She is a grown-up, and you have young children to think of first. If you want to reach out to her, keep in mind the baggage she carries. It could be rocky and abusive from her end, even in grief, and that would be really hard to tolerate.
She also has other responsibilities she’s going to have to face, and some jail time may sober her up in more than one way.
I do feel bad for her. Her depression may have had a hand in keeping her in an abusive relationship. But in the end, we are all responsible for ourselves. She needs help of the professional kind, which is more than you or your wife are capable of. So try not to feel helpless or guilty about what you can or can’t do.
Hug your wife. Tell her how much you love her. Tell her how happy you are that she is healthy and with you. Be ready to do more of that in the coming days. I suspect you do that already anyway, from what you’ve written before. I think your wife’s a lucky lady.
If you need to talk more, and don’t feel right about posting here, here’s my email: kagee630@earthlink.net
Pixel,
Thanks for your input. Yeah, she’s done the rehab thing many times, and I forgot to mention that she recently stayed at the ‘psych-center’ for a week under suicide watch.
I don’t know, there really isn’t any clear cut solution for anybody to offer. And yes, we know exactly what you mean about setting up boundaries to the dysfunctional aspects of our family. There are very good reasons for us to live here in Portland, 3000 miles away from the constant insanity.
But at the same time, it’s family. This is all happening at the same time my mother in law is driving 500 miles down to southwest Virginia every week to take care of her ailing father (blacklung, the dudes an old Appalachian ex-coalminer.) My mother law has her own business to run, and has been relying on my sister in law to watch the store while she’s down in Appalachia. Meanwhile, this all gets filtered in to my wife who has three children to look after and is really too far away to offer much help anyway. So the family gives us the whole ‘if only you lived here’ guilt treatment and it’s hard for Misty not to let it mess with her head. It’s confusing, and disconcerting, and downright scary – this tragedy has inevitable repercussions that threaten to… well I don’t really know I guess. But I’m not feeling too optimistic about it.
Karen,
Thanks for your kind words.
Actually, you’ve jogged my memory. She’s been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. That’s supposed to be a secret, but I don’t care anymore. I’m so sick and tired of the whole southern culture ‘don’t hang your dirty laundry’ bullshit. It’s totally counterproductive and only serves to exacerbate the issues.
If only. All of her so-called friends are fellow abusers with zero ethics and therefore enablers. And she doesn’t stick to therapy regimens long enough for them to do much good. What she really needs is for someone to get some balls, do an intervention, and put her away – far away – into an extended detox program. Then once the chemical addiction is taken care of, she’ll need very close psychological supervision and treatment for years in order to deal with the mental side.
r4d:
That’s really a heart-breaking story.
My close friend has/had a major drinking problem: he’d go on these HUGE benders. The guy’s like a little brother that I never had. He’d call me w/these literally frightening stories of…blood coming out of all the wrong places. He knew he had a problem, just didn’t know how to deal w/it.
Went to AA on again, off again. Got cherry (& I mean CHERRY jobs), & the drinking would screw it all up.
Oh, & he was religious (fundy, no less!) for all of the 20 yrs. he was/is an alcoholic.
1 of the things he got sick of, was starting all over again, from scratch.
We were on the phone 1 day, & finally I think I (or at least helped) got thru to him: I told him in no uncertain terms he had to choose to live.
Because in my amateur opinion, self-destructive behavior is just that: not wanting to live.
No amount of medication can change that. It can delay it, but that undercurrent is part of the subconscious.
It does boil down to choice, for any of us.
I realize that’s not much help. Sorry.
Deepest sympathies to you & yours, my friend. I hope this helps in some small way.
pixel:
You are forgiven, my child.
Do 10 hail mary’s, & call me in the morning.
R4D, Condolences and best wishes.
ahhh… rainbows…. that sucks. Sorry to hear that. Well, if you do come to the east coast and find yourself in the raleigh area, you’re welcome at the casa de spanders.
RA,
I totally agree with you, and it feels good to hear someone else say it.
And everybody,
thank you. sincerely.
reluctant said,
You are exactly right. Six years ago I watched my brother-in-law literally drink himself to death at the age of 44. He’d been an alcoholic for a few years, his wife had an affair, they got a divorce and he just could never pull himself back up. He ended up getting fired from a job where he’d worked for 20 years. Family members would offer to help, but you can’t force it upon them if they don’t want it. He lived on the streets when he had six brothers and sisters who offered him a home with the condition that he stop drinking and go to rehab. He refused. He was the sweetest guy, never a violent drunk -he was a sad drunk. It broke my heart to see it because I was so fond of him. It was the saddest funeral I’ve ever been to, and that’s including my own father’s. It was such a waste.
rainbows,
I’ve dealt with the bipolar issues in my own family, my mother takes medication for it. She tried to commit suicide the day my father died a little over ten years ago. He had lung cancer and she drank the liquid morphine they had brought for him. I was at the funeral home making the arrangements and one of her sisters was staying with her, and she didn’t see her drink it. She thought she was just lying down resting. She missed his funeral because she was in the hospital from that attempt. She’s since remarried and has been pretty stable for the last 6-7 years or so, but I wait on pins and needles for something to tip her over again. With her there’s always a catalyst that sort of sends her over the edge. It’s bad enough WITHOUT the drugs and alcohol so I can only imagine what your family must be going through. My thoughts are with you and your family and I hope your sister-in-law gets the help she needs.
Pixel: I came in late and just starting helping out with the PAC last year, so no picture was ever posted.
I lost a loved one back in Wales about nine months ago to alcohol related heart and liver failure. He was 39. It really was hard on me becasue I was unable to make it over for the funeral. Times like that I almost wish that I understood the power of religious faith in order to offer comfort.
Alex.
That guy is not only an ass David, he is a threat to our nation and possibly the world. People like him are always a threat to everything correct.
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