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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

nytimes.com

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

#271

Post by nickff »

hackuser wrote: post #240
rrggrr wrote: post #25

Scalia was foremost an advocate of judicial restraint, who believed that the further the Courts stretched interpreting law, the more vulnerable the Courts become to the animosities of the Executive and Legislative branches. The Judiciary, Scalia understood, was the least powerful and most vulnerable of the three branches of government, and its strength and influence rests in its artful and judicious use of its very,…

> Scalia was foremost an advocate of judicial restraint He believed in judicial restraint when it came to interfering with conservative political causes; but when it came to furthering those causes, he was an activist. The court should not protect LGBT Americans due to "judicial restraint". But when it comes to a healthcare law passed by Congress and signed by the President, the court should overturn it. I could pred…

This is plainly untrue; Scalia was one of the most consistent and strong advocates for defendants' rights, and often decided cases which went against his personal morality. He was often quoted saying that the side he liked got no preferential consideration when it came to deciding a case, and if you look at the way he wrote his opinions, you will see this is true. He would often decide in favor of people who he personally disliked and believed to be guilty of horrible things because their arguments were correct.[1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Jardines

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

#272

Post by dang »

themartorana wrote: post #208
dang wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he's still a terrible person The combination of incivility and internet buzzphrase is toxic for HN. Please don't do this when commenting here, regardless of how you feel about someone. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11096095 and marked it off-topic.

I find the requirement of "civility" over "truth" to be rather off-putting. The direct line here is Scalia's belief that justice is trumped by tradition, and therefore an innocent person has no right to be declared so by new evidence. This makes him a terrible person, because he is directly standing between an innocent person (or people) and their freedom and the justice this country promises. It's calling a spade a…

Statements like "X is a terrible person" don't come from a concern for the truth, they come from our desire to see the people we identify against as evil. Whatever truth is, the ability to suspend this motive in oneself is sine qua non for it.

> I find the requirement of "civility" over "truth" to be rather off-putting.

That would of course be absurd, and there's no such requirement.

People regularly conflate judgment made from strong feeling with truth, and so they blast out the former with a righteous sense of legitimacy. Those with the opposite judgment feel equally so entitled. This dynamic is destructive, both of civil discourse and of the search for truth, so we needn't choose between the two.

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

#273

Post by dang »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #269
dang wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 prohi…

To go from having written a terrible thing to being a terrible person is an enormous leap, and a catastrophic one.

Indeed, if the threshold is that low, then we're all a terrible person.

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

#274

Post by pvg »

tptacek wrote: post #251
pvg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president can use a recess appointment. It would probably end up looking worse than blocking a nomination for 11 months so it seems unlikely, if technically possible.

The Senate can prevent recess appointments by not recessing.

Sure, and, of course, that itself was subject of a recent Supreme Court decision. But it's piling a hypothetical on my already silly hypothetical. He'll just make an appointment as he's already said and reasonably argues is his duty, the Senate will just stall him out, as the majority leadership has already said.

I like to imagine he and the Democrats in general might actually end up looking better if that's how it plays out.

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

#275

Post by hysan »

Question for those familiar with how the Judicial system works: If Congress prevents any new appointments until after the election cycle, does that mean that the Supreme Court is effectively halted on making any rulings? What happens to the cases currently being taken on and those that are queued up? Would they all potentially be delayed an entire year+?

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

#276

Post by harywilke »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #204
vonnik wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The stay he supported on the Florida recount was rampant federal interference in a state matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Stay_of_the_Flori... Indirectly, he gave us eight years of incompetence and Iraq, a horrible farce of a war.

This comment needs to be better supported. It is intuitive that votes for POTUS would be a federal matter, and Wikipedia does not mention a jurisdictional issue for that case, nor any other federal interference conflict whatsoever. Also, singling out Scalia when four other justices voted with him is biased. It is also an incredible stretch to cast responsibility for an incompetence in handling an unanticipated war on…

You are not voting for POTUS. You are voting for your candidates chance to chose your states representative to the electoral collage. it's a state election. not a federal election.

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

#277

Post by rdancer »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #216
bradleyjg wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parliamentarian is an advisor to the presiding officer of the senate, which is either the vice president or in his absence the president pro tempore (by tradition the senior member in years of service of the majority party) or his designee. In any event any parliamentary ruling is appealable to the floor where it is subject to a majority vote. The is the basis of the so-called nuclear option. McConnell's hand can…

Thanks. I know what a parliamentarian is and in any case could've found the dictionary definition. I was hoping for suggestions as to what kind of sneaky tricks and shenanigans we could expect if the opportunity presented itself.

I would hazard the explanation was to the benefit of the less educated readers, such as is yours truly.

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

#278

Post by x0x0 »

spinlock wrote: post #114
x0x0 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the fear that democrats may take both the presidency and the senate might motivate senate republicans to make a deal now, since there's a nonzero chance an immediate deal comes with maximal leverage.

I just don't see republicans as that cautious.

Nor do I in general, but Mitch McConnell is. He strongly prefers a nominee constrained by Grassley rather than by Manchin.

For the immediate future, even a 4-4 court is a marked improvement from the pov of democrats.

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

#279

Post by lotharbot »

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…

Many of the most important people in my life have been those I profoundly disagree with on major issues, but who are able to articulate their positions honestly and clearly, and who are able to address criticisms and alternative opinions well. It's not always enjoyable to face strong and well-argued criticism, but it's what helps me make my own ideas stronger.

Scalia was one of those who, whether I agreed or disagreed, I always learned from when I read his arguments.

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

#280

Post by dang »

orbitur wrote: post #192
dang wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is small. vonnik got the flamewar rolling. But I'd say generic_user made it worse in two ways, by upping the rage ante and by making it purely ideological, i.e. completely unmoored from anything factual in the story. Once things get to that point, people are just taking turns bashing each other tribally and trying to outdo the other in venom, and that's always bad for discussion here. My issue has noth…

That linked comment is really just a description of Scalia's stance. How can one say "here's why Scalia is bad" without being called out for being inappropriate? Even people who've listed their grievances with sources are being downvoted to gray. Am I correct in saying a commenter is only encouraged to praise a person, and if that can't be done, to only describe without opinion? edit: and to be clear, this is comment…

I originally thought bradleyjg was being more critical than that, but you might be right. Edit: here's a good example of substantive criticism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11096847

It's definitely not the case that one can only praise a person or describe without opinion. But I would push back a little against the formulation "Person X is bad". That's the sort of thing people say about an enemy, and one can't have civil discourse and war at the same time.

It's better to criticize something a person did or said than to denounce the whole of them. Not one of us would like to be regarded as merely the sum of the bad we did, nor would we consider it fair.

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