Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Ken B]

Ha ha, yourself. There is no one "case." The central issue with the Citizens United case was the Court's 5-4 decision that "corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment." This was an overruling of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), which "upheld the right of the state of Michigan to prohibit corporations from using money from their corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates in elections, noting: '[c]orporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.'"

Are you going to accuse the 4 dissenting justices of ignorance too? I bet Stevens, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg know more about the law than you do in your little finger.

(quotes from Wikipedia, "Corporate Personhood")

Did those justices deny that corporations are legal persons in those cases? No. Your comment was about Scalia thinking corporations are persons. So do all the justices. They differ on which rights corporations should have, and which restrictions on corporations constitute infringements on the rights of their owners. Those are indeed arguable. Your implication isn't.

Some explanation of the background. http://volokh.com/posts/1253637850.shtml

[(poco) Sforzando]

Did those justices deny that corporations are legal persons in those cases? No. Your comment was about Scalia thinking corporations are persons. So do all the justices. They differ on which rights corporations should have, and which restrictions on corporations constitute infringements on the rights of their owners. Those are indeed arguable. Your implication isn't.

Yawn. You know very well what I was talking about.

[Gurn Blanston]

You're talking about the same Scalia who thinks corporations are persons and that the opening clause of the 2nd Amendment can be discounted.

Any document, especially such a huge and complex one as the ACA, is bound to have instances where meanings are not as clear as the framers intended. Roberts's point, and he was right, is that despite a few ambiguous and inconsistent words, in context "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them."

Live with it. It was a good day for the country, and the bad guys don't always get their way.

Bravo. on all counts. 

[Ken B]

Bravo. on all counts. 

What you are applauding is an ad hominem argument straight up. Rather  than answering Scalia's charge about language this attacks the man. And if you follow the thread you will see it does so with scant regard for accuracy. This is nothing but boosterism. Pfui.

[(poco) Sforzando]

What you are applauding is an ad hominem argument straight up. Rather  than answering Scalia's charge about language this attacks the man. And if you follow the thread you will see it does so with scant regard for accuracy. This is nothing but boosterism. Pfui.

Jiggery-pokery, you might have said. Pure applesauce.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Wikipedia again: "Doug Walton, Canadian academic and author, has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue, as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words."

Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times:

Do "words no longer have meaning," as Justice Scalia put it in his angry dissenting opinion? What, after all, could be clearer? The state, not the federal government. The two are not the same. They are different! So poor and middle-class people in the 34 (mostly red) states that refused to set up their own insurance exchanges, defaulting that task to the federal government, are just out of luck. They aren't eligible for tax subsidies to help them buy insurance, subsidies that are critical to making the law work. End of story, end of case, end of the Affordable Care Act (or Scotuscare, as Justice Scalia said the law should be re-named).

The chief justice's masterful opinion showed that line of argument for the simplistic and agenda-driven construct that it was. Parsing the 1,000-plus-page statute in a succinct 21-page opinion, he deftly wove in quotations from recent Supreme Court opinions.

Who said that we "must do our best, bearing in mind the fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme"? Why, it was Justice Scalia (actually quoting an earlier opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor) in a decision just a year ago.

And who said that "a provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme" because "only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law"? Why, Justice Scalia again.

"In this instance," Chief Justice Roberts wrote, "the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase." He concluded: "A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan."

[Karl Henning]

If Justice Scalia doesn't like it, it's wrong!  I get it.  He Is Supreme!

[Florestan]

Actually, the whole idea that 9 people nominated on political criteria have the power to deny, or allow, an act voted by hundreds of others elected by the people is mindboggling.

Mindboggling, unless one acknowledges that the "representatives of the people" can, and often do, make bad and unjust laws, but then one runs into a big dilemma: if they act as truly representatives of the people, as they claim, and in so doing they make bad and unjust laws, then it follows logically that the people themselves want, or at least acquiesce to, bad and unjust laws --- and then why can 9 persons have the power to oppose the will of tens or even hundreds of millions? If, on the other hand, people themselves do not want, nor acquiesce to, bad and unjust laws, then it follows logically that those who make such laws are in no way representatives of the people, and as soon as one of their laws has been found bad and unjust, and blocked by the 9 persons who have the power to do so, all those who voted for the law should automatically be declared as fraudulent representatives of the people and immediately removed from their positions.

Big dilemma, unless one acknowledges that the whole "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is actually a fiction, a very useful and practical fiction which makes the state machinery run relatively smooth and peaceful and therefore should better be left unquestioned and unexposed, lest the whole political, economical and social arrangements crumble like a playing-cards castle, crushing under its weight the whole political, economical and social establishment and "elites"

[Karl Henning]

Checks and balances . . . and there is always the human factor . . . if there is some better system of government, you have the floor 

[Florestan]

Checks and balances . . . and there is always the human factor . . . if there is some better system of government, you have the floor 

I unreservedly agree that "government of the people, for the people, by the people" is the least bad of all governments, but this doesn´t mean it is not bad on its own terms. Diabetes is less bad than cancer, since one can live with it  --- but it is bad enough on its own. 

"government of the people, for the people, by the people" is basically a trade off, and an inequal one for that matter:

1. The political establishment pretends to represent the people, in order to better secure its privileges and powers, while

2. The people (or rather, their majority) pretend to be represented by the political establishment, in order to better secure their rights and liberties.

Of course, there are degrees in that, according to the nature of the people and the quality of the political establishment. I see no reason (other than it´ll make Ken furious    ) to refrain from stating the obvious: the smallest gap between the two is to be found in such "Socialist" states as Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. And I hasten to add that simpy copypasting their policies in other countries is no guarantee that wider gaps will be reduced. One cannot change moral and mental habits acquired in centuries by passing overnight legislation. And I´m not even sure that the price at which the smallest gaps come (massive and irresistible social conformity, and massive and irresistible governmental interference in society from the craddle to the grave) is not too high.

[Karl Henning]

You've made enough points to qualify your post, that I have nothing to add at present 

[Florestan]

You've made enough points to qualify your post, that I have nothing to add at present 

I feel relieved. 

[Karl Henning]

We're here for you, buddy!

[North Star]

One cannot change moral and mental habits acquired in centuries by passing overnight legislation. And I´m not even sure that the price at which the smallest gaps come (massive and irresistible social conformity, and massive and irresistible governmental interference in society from the craddle to the grave) is not too high.

I for one have not spent centuries acquiring moral or mental habits. 
And I would like some examples of how the social conformity and governmental interference are different (and detrimental) in countries using the Nordic model compared to others.

[drogulus]

     All health care reform has a system of subsidies at the center. That's the reform, yours, mine, the Martians, the French who are too evil to have bad health care.

     The opponents have no trouble differentiating between an oversight and an intention for the purpose of opposing the act, but only from the perverse standpoint of becoming unaware of the same facts to read the oversight as the intention. It didn't work and Scalia is pissed because he thinks it should. Me, I had the idea that if the act was constitutional, and that wasn't challenged, the intention would have to be honored and the oversight treated as such.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Big dilemma, unless one acknowledges that the whole "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is actually a fiction.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

[(poco) Sforzando]

I see no reason (other than it´ll make Ken furious    ) . . . .

Laudable goal.

[Florestan]

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

He´s worse than a Socialist, he´s a Commie!

[Brian]

Between yesterday and today, Scalia is riding an express train well past Crazytown. Calls the same-sex marriage decision "a threat to our democracy."

[Karl Henning]

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

[...] America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead.

Quite right:  if the wealthy do not benefit from these, why should they be compelled to underwrite them?