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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#121
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is only allowing male female marriage against what you wrote? Religions would still be free to let gay people get married, they just wouldn't be able to register with the state.

This isn't my field, but afaik marriage is entirely a question of "registering with the state". Everything else is some sort of party or tribal celebration.

From a legal point of view, yes. From a social point of view, no – but that's not what people argue about.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#122

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

Conspiracies don't have to be spoken in hushed words in smoke-filled rooms to be conspiracies. Nothing about redlining, for instance, was particularly secret, but it was still a conspiracy.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment... Why? Catholics (as an example) don't perform or internally honor Jewish (as an example) weddings, either, without it being any sort of First Amendment issue.

First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. That’s why Catholic discussion of Jewish marriages is not a First Amendment issue, while Supreme Court Justice Alito advocating against gay marriage is.

> First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government.

Right. That's my point; there's no need to reconcile the First Amendment with permitting gay marriage. There's nothing to reconcile.

The common "allowing gay marriage is an infringement of religious freedom" argument is bunk for that reason.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#124

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

FedSoc has a well known reputation for being a nice civic organization for the legal profession and also endorsing the most radical right wing supreme court nominees. Without the broad acceptance by the legal community, it wouldn't be as effective.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#125

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

How you can post this and think you are being realistic after Alito's speech is mind boggling.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#126
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a standing army now. The 2nd Amendment is no longer relevant.

The Army has nothing to with personal self-defense or protection of civil rights. Standing armies were the part of the motivation for the 2nd Amd. There is plenty of 2nd Amd. scholarship that goes over all of this. Not saying you need to agree with the scholarship, but a lot of people have thought about his stuff and researched it deeply. Gotchas statements re: "...well regulated...", cars are registered why not guns…

> The Army has nothing to with personal self-defense or protection of civil rights

In the view of the theory underlying the second amendment, it is an existential threat to the latter which makes assuring that the State can meet it's internal and external security needs solely through small permanent cadres plus mobilization of the citizen militia of paramount importance.

> Standing armies were the part of the motivation for the 2nd Amd.

Preventing standing armies was, which is presumably why the statement was that having one (and also standing paramilitary forces for internal security, which was actually the abuse that was the biggest fear motivating fear of standing armies) rendered the second amendment irrelevant.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a conspiracy. It is the organization most at fault for mitch's anti-democratic actions regarding the supreme court that I honestly believe has the potential to completely undermine our government. The supreme court's move to a completely partisan institution is a huge step toward a populist dictatorship. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supreme-revenge/

The supreme court partisanship is overstated. It's brought out all the time as though the sky is falling, but typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears. Roberts, Gorsuch, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter all switched sides on major issues. Conservatives switch sides a lot more often, but perhaps because the court has been tilted towards Republican nominees.

"when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears"

Two sides of a conservative position.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" Unfortunately Alito is more likely to add to the problem than to help resolve it.

> There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment... Why? Catholics (as an example) don't perform or internally honor Jewish (as an example) weddings, either, without it being any sort of First Amendment issue.

No, he means your freedom to marry whom you choose infringes upon his belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. American evangelicals were instrumental in spreading their hatred of homosexuality in Africa and helped create laws allowing the murder of men accused of homosexuality, this was less than a decade ago. Those people are still very much alive and active within the conservative world, they haven’t become more accepting.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#130
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well-regulated does not mean government regulations. It means well-functioning. Like a well regulated clock.

We have a standing army now. The 2nd Amendment is no longer relevant.

+1 to this, at the time of the constitution's signing the states were trending towards fragmentation into separate countries. New York and Massachusetts were on the brink of a hot war over westward territorial expansion.

The founders were obviously concerned with the need for a military to "maintain a free state", but I'd doubt that a centralized military would have been palatable at the time.

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