U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#261

Post by ianamartin » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #256

ianamartin wrote: post #133

I usually disagreed with Scalia, but I have tons of respect for the man. He's always struck me as one of the best examples of the idea that two intelligent, educated people with reasonable minds may legitimately come to different conclusions about the same set of facts. I also found when reading transcripts of oral arguments that Scalia was really terrifically funny pretty often. Once, I was doing some computer repai…

I used to feel like that - that Justice Scalia was an thoughtful, intellectually honest justice that I profoundly disagreed with simply because I found his foundational principles alien and wrong. Then came Eldred v. Ashcroft . Larry Lessig, argued the case before the Supreme Court. In his retrospective on the case [1], Lessig describes how he built his argument on the Lopez/Morrison line of decisions which said that…

This isn't really directed at you, but it seems like a good place to address the crowd.

I didn't say the man was a saint or that he was always perfectly intellectually honest all the time. No one is.

But I think was a lot more of those things than he often got credit for. Some of you seem to forget that people who have different opinions than you are also people. And as such, they have the right to try to get those opinions represented. Scalia's attitude towards torture was repulsive in my opinion. But he represents the attitudes of a very large number of real people.

It's not like he's some kind of singular monster or something.

As for saying crass things, giving people shit when maybe he shouldn't have, well, we've all done that too.

I figure if there's one day you can cut a guy a little slack, it's the day he dies. Sheesh, if you can't find one tiny little positive thing to say about the man, I suggest that you aren't even trying. It's not like the man was pure evil.

I further suggest that you say nothing at all if you honestly can't think of anything good about him.

The vitriol in much of this thread is utterly tasteless and shameful.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#262

Post by mentat » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #225

jbapple wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically, he said of lawyers like me (the not-harvard crowd) "You cannot make a purse out of a sow's ear". According to the NYT source, he actually said, "you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse", referring to the Harvard crowd as silk purses but not to non-Harvard lawyers as sow's ears. He seems to be referring to his disdain for the quality of the education at the most selective law schools while compl…

It's an expression he has used more than once. I first heard it when a law student asked him whether she should bother applying for a clerkship given she hadn't gone to harvard. In that instance the sows ear was the asking law student.

Maybe it's time to let it go.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#263

Post by aggie » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

Steko wrote: post #178

michaelt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think candidates who turn the job down will be expecting another chance later?

Well the simplest game theory is (100% chance to be nominated now but near 0% chance to be confirmed) vs (??% chance to be nominated later but 90%+ chance to be confirmed) which seems fairly straightforward. Given current outlook for POTUS election I would decline in their shoes. An older nominee or one that expected 8+ years of GOP presidents might reasonably say this is their only chance and take it though. I guess…

> near 0% chance to be confirmed

This seems like very unreasonable estimate. Being election season, the Republicans will be sensitive to public opinion and stalling for 9+ months could cement the perception of being obstructionists. If Obama nominates a somewhat moderate candidate, they may decide to live with it.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#264

Post by code777777 » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:39 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #161

dlandis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really what that quote says. It sounds more like he is expressing an opinion about what should happen.

He's the Senate Majority Leader and the official spokesperson for Republicans in the Senate. The fact that he said it right away , after two GOP Senators who are also viable Presidential candidates said it as well, is a pretty strong indication of what's going to happen.

At least wait until the man is buried.

The right-winged politicians are posturing to make this a presidential election issue, maybe even a big one.

Electing a president who will in turn appoint a SCOTUS Justice may sway more people to vote. Perhaps the the politicians believe that they can use the normal wedge issues (abortion, death penalty, guns, etc.) to have a strong showing on election day.

I would tend to agree that an open SCOTUS seat would motivate more conservatives to vote. But, these things have a way of back firing for politicians and a lot can happen between now and November.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#265

Post by mentat » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:41 AM UTC

ianamartin wrote: post #261

fpgeek wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to feel like that - that Justice Scalia was an thoughtful, intellectually honest justice that I profoundly disagreed with simply because I found his foundational principles alien and wrong. Then came Eldred v. Ashcroft . Larry Lessig, argued the case before the Supreme Court. In his retrospective on the case [1], Lessig describes how he built his argument on the Lopez/Morrison line of decisions which said that…

This isn't really directed at you, but it seems like a good place to address the crowd. I didn't say the man was a saint or that he was always perfectly intellectually honest all the time. No one is. But I think was a lot more of those things than he often got credit for. Some of you seem to forget that people who have different opinions than you are also people. And as such, they have the right to try to get those o…

I'd love to see these people dealing with their every action criticized through their whole life. Now when he dies they can't stop piling on.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#266

Post by KMag » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:44 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #231

KMag wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I encourage everyone to not just read the opinions, but to be vigilante of this when doing so. Vigilantism, particularly against judges and justices for written opinions, is not the way to deal with laws and interpretations you find unjust. We must not fight the unjust with injustice.

Going on a tangent here, that's an interesting claim, and I think I disagree. I posit that vigilantism is merely an alternative vehicle to the legal system, and only outcomes can be just or unjust. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that the legal outcome is necessarily the just outcome.

I full heartedly agree that the courts are courts of law, not courts of justice or morality. However, mob justice isn't justice, either.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#267

Post by KMag » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:50 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #212

KMag wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I encourage everyone to not just read the opinions, but to be vigilante of this when doing so. Vigilantism, particularly against judges and justices for written opinions, is not the way to deal with laws and interpretations you find unjust. We must not fight the unjust with injustice.

I think it was meant "vigilant" in the Latin sense, ie.: watchful, attentive. Otherwise, the statement ("vigilant of") doesn't seem to make much sense.

Ahh, I see. I live in a non-English speaking country, and I'm very used to correspondence where the author has copy-pasted a correctly spelled word from a dictionary, but has used very non-standard grammar in constructing the sentence. I guess that's why I read it as a grammatical mistake rather than a spelling mistake.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#268

Post by rdancer » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:51 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #239

geofft wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where ballots aren't sufficiently clear to voters, they should be made so. Well there's the problem. What do you do when you have ballots that are objectively unclear, like the infamous butterfly ballot? You can't invalidate the election and have a new one--apart from the logistical problems, the turnout is going to differ significantly based on the media attention and the knowledge that the cancelled ballots were so…

There's nothing that you can do about the butterfly ballots after the fact short of re-running the election, which is out of the question as you state.

There are plenty of elections re-run every year, it is a possibility.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#269

Post by CamperBob2 » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:53 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #201

orbitur wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit the phrase "terrible person" is uncivil, but where is an internet buzzphrase in my comment?

"You are a terrible person" or "he is a terrible person" is the internet buzzphrase, in the same category as "you are bad and you should feel bad". I mean, I don't collect data on how often these things appear, but that's the one I was reacting to.

Just on a purely objective level, isn't "terrible" a reasonable adjective to describe someone who wrote this?

  “There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in 
   contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding 
   in the Constitution a right to demand judicial 
   consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence 
   brought forward after conviction.”

Scalia could easily have stated that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment would apply to a case where a defendant was denied the benefit of evidence discovered after conviction. No one could possibly have argued with that reasoning, or with his right to apply it. But he didn't.

A good person would have done a very different thing.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#270

Post by fixxer » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #249

fixxer wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you get hellbanned.

He really does need to back up that second assertion.

Doesn't support progressive politics != Racist. Such a tired meme. Whenever a lefty plays that card in discussions, I know I've won the argument.