From The Morning Bell, Heritage Foundation:
According to multiple sources, at 10 am today President Barack Obama will announce his decision to name Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Kagan, who served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009, would be the first justice without judicial experience in almost 40 years. But this does not mean she is in any way a stranger to the Senate confirmation process. In fact, in 1995 she authored an article on judicial confirmations for the University of Chicago Law Review where she wrote:
The Bork hearings presented to the public a serious discussion of the meaning of the Constitution, the role of the Court, and the views of the nominee; that discussion at once educated the public and allowed it to determine whether the nominee would move the Court in the proper direction. Subsequent hearings have presented to the public a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis. Such hearings serve little educative function, except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government. ... [T]he fundamental lesson of the Bork hearings [is] the essential rightness—the legitimacy and the desirability—of exploring a Supreme Court nominee’s set of constitutional views and commitments.
On this point, we find agreement with Ms. Kagan. As we documented first with the Justice Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, and again with the University of California at Berkeley law school Associate Dean Goodwin Liu hearings, President Obama’s leftist legal nominees have been completely unwilling and unable to defend their liberal legal views from Senate questioning. Instead they have retreated or renounced their past writings in an all too familiar spectacle that Kagan has said: “takes on an air of vacuity and farce.” We sincerely hope that Kagan continues to reject this model and that the U.S. Senate fulfills its proper advice and consent role. Responding to the news of Kagan’s nomination, Former Attorney General Ed Meese released the following statement:
First and foremost, any nominee to a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court must demonstrate a thorough fidelity to apply the Constitution as it was written, rather than as they would like to re-write it. Given Solicitor General Kagan’s complete lack of judicial experience, and, for that matter, very limited litigation experience, Senators must not be rushed in their deliberative process. Because they have no prior judicial opinions to look to, Senators must conduct a more searching inquiry to determine if Kagan will decide cases based upon what is required by the Constitution as it is actually written, or whether she will rule based upon her own policy preferences.
Though Ms. Kagan has not written extensively on the role of a judge, the little she has written is troubling. In a law review article, she expressed agreement with the idea that the Court primarily exists to look out for the "despised and disadvantaged." The problem with this view—which sounds remarkably similar to President Obama’s frequent appeals to judges ruling on grounds other than law--is that it allows judges to favor whichever particular client they view as "despised and disadvantaged." The judiciary is not to favor any one particular group, but to secure justice equally for all through impartial application of the Constitution and laws. Senators should vigorously question Ms. Kagan about such statements to determine whether she is truly committed to the rule of law. Nothing less should be expected from anyone appointed to a life-tenured position as one of the final arbiters of justice in our country.
The American people agree. According to a national post-election 2008 survey of 800 actual voters, the polling company, inc. found that 70% of respondents preferred that judges not base their decisions on personal views and feelings. And according to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll by a 16 point margin more Americans believe the Supreme Court should only consider the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution instead of considering changing times and current realities. And finally, the latest Gallup poll shows that more Americans “would prefer a new Supreme Court justice who makes the court more conservative (42%) over one who would make the Court more liberal (27%).” Let’s hope the Senate gives the American people what they want.
[my emphasis]
Naturally, my position is that polling doesn’t matter one bit: the only coherent view of interpretation — in fact, what makes interpretation interpretation to begin with — is the appeal to intent. What these polls suggest is that the American people, who for years have been indoctrinated with ideas about interpretation that allow them to kill off the author (and with him, original intent, as it exists manifest in the signs that both make and make up a text), on some gut level understand that to pretend to interpret without acknowledging that what they are interpreting is designed to mean is linguistically problematic — and leads to legitimizing certain assumptions about what constitutes a fair “interpretation” that replace original intent with the intent of those responding, be it through an appeal to convention (how would a “reasonable man interpret this”) or an appeal to utility (“it doesn’t matter how we reach our interpretation so long as we are happy that the outcome suits our purposes”).
As I noted in several earlier threads that discuss legal interpretation, “to say […] ‘I know what you meant, but what you meant is signaled in such a way that it couldn’t possibly be interpreted as consonant with your intent unless the buyer also knew beforehand what you meant — at which point presumably he wouldn’t have entered into the contract’ is different from saying ‘I know what you meant, but what you meant doesn’t matter, because convention says you meant something else, and your intentions are irrelevant when it comes to determining what you meant.’
“[…] in the first instance, you are holding the original intending agency responsible for failing to signal his intent — while allowing that he means what he means; in the second instance — the one supported by the theory of textualism (if not always in practice) — you are telling the original agency that what he meant or didn’t mean is not important, because consensus (as determined by convention) will tell you what you meant.
“At which point all you’ve done is strip the original text of its meaning, turned it into a set of signifiers, and then, by your own act of intending, attached to that set of signifiers the signifieds you prefer, taken from the realm of ‘convention.’
Or, to put it another way, you have ascribed your own will to the marks in order to make them mean — and you have done so at the expense of the signs you were originally asked to interpret. The result being that you haven’t ‘interpreted’ at all. You’ve merely rewritten — and so created an entirely new text.
“And ruling in favor of the text you created is hardly the kind of dispassionate functionality one expects from a judge.
“[…] To put [all this] into terms [textualists] are more comfortable with, let me put it this way:
“When [a textualist asks] ‘does a failure on the part of the utterer to signal intent allow the judge to interpret the text as a reasonable man — without consideration of [original] intent — might?’ and goes by that standard, the flaw is in the question as phrased. Were he to ask [instead] ‘can a reasonable man be expected to know the author’s intent from what’s been signaled?’ he is asking a different question, and basing his reasoning for ruling a particular way on a different standard: to wit, he isn’t ruling that because intent not signaled is [in most public instances] unknowable, we can dismiss intent and rule on the basis of convention; instead he is ruling that because intent wasn’t [adequately] signaled, a reasonable man couldn’t possibly reconstruct the intent.
“A distinction with a big difference.”
When the textualist asks, “as a practical matter, who cares what was meant, if in the end we get what we are after without an appeal to intent”? This goes to the heart of the problem: you can come up with the right reading by not appealing to intent at all; and those who appeal to intent could be entirely wrong. But how you get there matters, because if you institutionalize a rule based on the fact that it once proved effective or useful to your purposes — even though you know that rule is based on faulty logic — it will matter in situations where the outcome isn’t based on the variables in a (completely unlikely) hypothetical. So I care. And the textualist should, too — as should we all. Because advocating is that so long as you get where you wanted to go, it doesn’t matter how you got there, is advocating for an epistemology where the ends justify the means.
Hardly the position most conservatives want to take, I should think.
All of which is to circle back around to proposition that to restore the classical liberal foundation of our country we mustn’t allow those whose purpose is to de-legitimize the “libertarian mob” mentality that classical liberalism represents usurp the language from its structural foundation outward.
The institutionalization of certain incoherent linguistic premises that shift intent to the group (either through appeals to convention or appeals to utility) provides cover for the left’s epistemic project of replacing the intellectual basis for individual autonomy with a collectivism formed around “meaning” as decided upon by power distributed among competing groups.
(h/t GeoffB)
****
update: concerns over what may or may not be Kagan’s ideas about what constitutes the proper role of the judiciary? Is just “code” for calling Kagan a “nigger lover.”
And that makes you racist. Naturally.
Legal conservatives and classical liberals have no real concern over how ideas regarding the improper function of language can actively form a troubling anti-individual (and so technically anti-American, in the strictest sense) social compact; instead, they just resent them some darkies.
This is what passes for intellectualism on the left these days. And yet, these people have the temerity to think of themselves as somehow elite — even if their proletariat championing doesn’t typically allow them to say so quite so baldy as Mr Lilla recently did…
Well…you have to take this position, because of your attachment to the status quo.
But the Heritage foundation is just a bunch of conservative hacks that shill for the status quo.
And yes, I question the validity of that poll….representive elections express the will of the people.
Also, too…..66% of the electorate wish for Roberts decision to allow money to be speech to be overturned.
I don’t think you can fossilize language or make the justices into robotic expert systems on constitutional law.
I don’t believe the Founders and framers thought that either.
The speech and the speaker are non-separable.
I wonder if she will abide by the same standards she previously advocated?
Oh, and you are a fucking imbecile, nishit. That is all.
It is one point I’ll agree with Kagan on.
Subsequent hearings have presented to the public a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis.
From Ginsburg on, any question that is actually relevant is off limits. You can answer a question as to what your favorite ice cream flavor is, but any question as to how you intend to do the job to which you’ve been nominated is off limits.
It’s not just lefty judges though. Miers was good example.. but even Alito fit that pattern, and to an extent, Roberts.
That they wound up being decent compitent judges was a stroke of luck, either could have easily have been Kennedy, since they were unknown quantities that wouldn’t answer anything relevant.
Any bets on whether or not Kagan will spell out a coherant jurisprudence that she will follow to reach her decisions during the confirmation hearings?
I don’t think you can fossilize language or make the justices into robotic expert systems on constitutional law.
CULOTTELESS BIO-LUDDICISM!
You’re obviously of genetically inferior extraction.
We have teh technology.
We can make Justices better.
Stronger, faster, lighter, accompanied by sound effects.
It must heartening for you JeffG, in a way at least, to see a glimmer of understanding among the public of the very issue you’ve been talking about here at PW for years. Hopefully it will lead to a greater value of actual scholarship and not the semantics games that it seems we suffer so much of.
As far as Kagan herself? I’ll just note that I find it curious that she, like her nominator Mr. Obama, has no real paper trail that can be availed of during her consideration in the Senate. Is this by design? Is this the new left-ish technique for passing otherwise unacceptable candidates under the public radar? Perhaps. I know that there are some wuarters that will howl over any criticism of her as MISOGYNISTS!, just as any criticism of Obama during the campaign, and to an extent to this day, leads to charges by some of RAAAAAAAACISM!.
Me? It’s enough that she wouldn’t allow military recruiters on campus fro me to give her a thumbs down.
But we all know that I’m a bitter, clinging, jingoistic, running-dog, racist h8ter; at least that’s what they say at HuffPo and KOS.
It’s an old old problem at least. Aristophanes wrote The Clouds with a view to ridiculing the sophists generally for their propensity to turn speech inside out, making black seem to be white and injustice seem to be justice, yet in the attempt, he chose Socrates as his exemplar, who, as it happened, was steady at work on the same project Aristophanes had set himself. So Aristophanes, through error (mistaking Socrates for a sophist), turned himself into the very thing he had set out to oppose. And did it so well, in fact, that he established in the minds of Athenians a prejudice that ultimately results in Socrates’ execution.
Here’s a pretty good post over at ACE’s; a though experiment regarding what the left’s reaction to the nomination of a stealth candidate such as Kagan by a Reich-Wing-President would be.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/301411.php
I don’t know if she should be filibustered, as the writer suggests, just for GP. But I do think that the Senate must be very thorough in their examination. It’s one thing to be considered for solicitor general, another completely for the SCOTUS.
But, to some on the left, they’re the same thing; I mean, they both have to do with law-right?
Media Matters has immediately put out an extensive list of talking points they call “Myths and falsehoods about Elena Kagan“. We can expect them to be plastered all over soonest. The one thing they don’t answer is how long ago they got their “heads up” to do this “research”.
Myth 1: Elena Kagan has a jowl flap.
Hi meya! Can’t stay away huh?
What “position” am I taking?
What part about not caring a whit about polls with respect to how language functions did you miss, exactly?
Convention is fossilized language; intent is what allows for the expansion of language.
Who are you arguing against?
Here’s an idea, Nishi. If you are going to try to pull off “griefer,” it helps to have some idea what the person you are arguing against is actually arguing.
How is Elena Kagan not Harriet Miers?
“How is Elena Kagan not Harriet Miers?”
She never lived in Dallas?
At which point we’ll hear “racist!” shouted from the rafters.
Of course, Meese says Kagan “expressed agreement” with Marshall’s views. True or untrue that she did?
That doesn’t answer the question, pfar.
The myriad cognomen just scream “neglected child”. It’s like it is standing across the room, jumping and waving both arms, while screaming, “LOOK AT ME!”…
Pathetic really. While I’ve been occasionally known to be snarky, or add descriptors to my name, or even “sock” when it seems amusing to the thread, I’ve kinda stuck with, like, my actual name. Funny that…
I guess I’m stupid for being willing to stand behind what I say, or not resort to sophmoric taunts or vile invective. I guess that goes along with other old fashioned ideas like honor, respect, truth, civility, and conduct becoming a gentleman.
The question has been asked repeatedly over the course of years. The recent flip is distinctive.
“Which comes closer to your point of view? In making decisions, the Supreme Court should only consider the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution. OR, In making decisions, the Supreme Court should consider changing times and current realities in applying the principles of the Constitution.”
Date Original intentions Current realities unsure
4/14-19/10 49% 42% 9%
7/8-13/08 40% 52% 8%
8/7-13/07 43% 50% 9%
7/21-25/05 44% 50% 6%
5/18-23/05 42% 51% 8%
2/26-3/3/03 39% 54% 7%
How is Elena Kagan not Harriet Miers?
I never thought I would say this… but…
Harriet Myers was hotter.
Y’know.. at least would have had eye-candy.
Kind of like a cough drop or a piece of decorative soap in the shape of a strawberry which is candy by some defintions I guess.
meya,
Why do you even bother changing your name, when the drivel remains the same?
So she was talking about how the amendment process designed by the founders allowing for “corrections” to original defect in the content of the document?
Awesome.
Because for a second there I thought she was talking about how its up to unelected judges, many with lifetime appointments — not some moldy Constitutional compact that is only of use when it adheres to current whim — to circumscribe the laws under which we should live.
Who the hell is meya?
Today, here, he’s famous for supporting a dangerous view of the role of justices with respect to a constitutional republic.
pfar Entropy, last week bdam, a few weeks ago some other name, the intent remains the same while the name changes.
I’ve read plenty about Brown, and Plessy, and on and on and on.
None of which changes what the role of a justice is or should be.
Teleologize much?
That’s incorrect. The role of the justice is to interpret and apply the law. So your idea that it’s uncontroversial to reach what a justice considers the right decision in a way that is not consonant with law is itself quite controversial.
Many legal scholars have argued that Brown represented good justice but bad law; and as such it has had the unintended consequences of leading us down the path to the kind of racialized application of law many are still fighting against today.
Did you stop beating your wife? ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!!!
So many question. So many that the answer is MU.
pfar, I see reading comprehension is not one of your strengths.
See right below, last sentence in the post you referenced? Read it carefully, and, here, use this link for the big words.
You do your own research and tell me what you think on the subject.
Meantime, I’ll circle back to Kagan’s “expressed agreement” with the idea that Court primarily exists to look out for the “despised and disadvantaged.” The Court should insist that all before are treated equally under the law. That would take care of both the despised and disadvantaged, and also those who have been socially favored, who — resentment aside — still qualify as having the same rights as those upon whom we take social pity.
By the way, the update was supposed to have a link it it. It’s there now. But here it is again just in case you missed it.
Also, re: Brown, this is worth a perusal.
You are arguing for the status quo….that is obvious to me.
The conventions on the structure of language, intent, form, text.
You view what you define as “judicial activism” as corruption of what you think originalist intent is.
But your analysis is non-separable from your selfness as well.
Has information become a distraction for you?
“the counter-majoritarian champion”
So much for that equla justice under the law thingie, eh?
Thurgood Marshall also strongly adovcated that welfare benefits be held a Constitutional Property Right. Visionary!
Insofar as how language functions isn’t up for debate — that it is a thing that operates by certain rules — yes, I am arguing for that “status quo.” Insofar as people pretend that they can interpret without an appeal to intent — and such a view has been widely disseminated through the humanities and taken hold as a legitimate form of hermeneutics — I am arguing AGAINST the status quo.
What is “obvious to me,” then, is that you aren’t up to snuff enough to determine what is “obvious.”
I define judicial activism as the idea that one has “interpreted” when one hasn’t. And such an analysis is perfectly separable from “selfness” in that others can make it.
Unless, of course, you are trying to point out that we cannot separate ourselves from what we say — which is only to note that what we say is a function of us, and becomes language by way of sign formation. It is a document of our intent, in other words.
In which case you’d merely be agreeing with me — and so failing terribly at this whole griefer thing.
#45 – why stop failing now? We are looking at a career long streak…
In that first link “Jill” really likes to flaunt the historical stupidity of her progressive credentials. Worthy of DU because she has jumped past HuffPo in a few paragraphs.
“At which point all you’ve done is strip the original text of its meaning, turned it into a set of signifiers, and then, by your own act of intending, attached to that set of signifiers the signifieds you prefer, taken from the realm of ‘convention.’
Oh, so this is where they got the idea that intentionalism is “anti-convention” or anti-context or whatever.
The point you’re making is too subtle for those who are having a lot more fun “proving you wrong” than trying to suss out the reason for the distinction.
those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of ‘liberty,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘equality,’ and who strived to better them
So, the Founders’ notions of “liberty, justice, and equality” utterly excluded slaves?
Hardly. The founders were well aware of the horrific inconsistency of slaves being sold in Washington, D.C., the newly created capital of liberty, justice, and equalty. They hated hated hated the fact that they could not outlaw slavery at the time of the Constitution and that they had to appease the South to complete the union (otherwise, they’d have had two countries on the continent, and the slave-owning country would never have outlawed slavery on their own).
People forget that the Constitution isn’t a law to govern the people; it’s the rules for constituting the government.
You are arguing for the status quo….that is obvious to me.
What’s obvious is that you need Jeff to be arguing for the status quo, because then you can ignore all of his arguments as invalid.
You’ve demonstrated that amply in the past by insisting that Jeff is “for” a whole slew of things that you find icky; and Jeff, being ostensibly your ideological opponent, must be for whatever you’re against.
All of it.
You should get a job in a movie theater. They can always use new projectors.
I’m not griefing….I’m driving a tractor through the holes in your argument.
Antonin Scalia’s Bush vs Gore decision is often cited as an example of extreme judicial activism.
But I doubt it would fit your definition.
Shorter Jeff: Judicial activism is any interpretation rendered by liberals.
I don’t object AT ALL to Jeff being a conservative shill….I just think he should get paid handsomely for it, like Levin, Goldberg, Beck and Palin.
The earth has often been cited as being flat.
Therefor….
Evolution or something.
The 1st season of Ergo Proxy on DVD clearly demonstrated that the sun is the driving force behind all dramatic ecological change on Earth.
Antonin Scalia’s Bush vs Gore decision is often cited as an example of extreme judicial activism.
Only by clueless failbots like you, Nishbot.
Nishit the genocidal eugenecist, translated – the moon is greater than 4, and purple is less than the moon.
Making people follow the actual law is only extreme judicial activism on the planet nishimonster inhabits.
“How so? The judiciary can deliver equality. The majoritarian branches more easily take it.”
Sure – but you seem to advocate, and so did Marshall (and maybe Kagan) that the role of the Court is to not weigh a law’s Constitutionality, but to measure if it delivers an outcome for selected results and/or groups. That is utterly contrary to “equal justice under the law”. Same unfairness if you find in favor of the Robber Baron or the Lumpenproles – if you do not follow the Constitution. See, eg., “emanations and penumbras”.
This is what I mean. I’ve spent days arguing AGAINST the kind of thing Scalia thinks he’s doing when he interprets; and yet here’s Nishi to show that not only has she not understood what I’ve been saying, but worse, she hasn’t even read it.
All that’s missing is happyfeet to show up to remind my how brilliant Nishi is for completely misrepresenting everything I argue.
It’s laughable.
You know why you get kicked off forums? It isn’t because you’re honest. It’s because you are aggressively and unapologetically dishonest.
You don’t even know what my argument is. If you wish to drive through it, you might begin by locating it. As it is, you’re driving tractors over windmills with the idea that you’re slaying giants.
My bold. Doesn’t even understand the basic thesis. Or, she lies. Or, brain lesion.
Regardless, the output is a bunch of noise.
Btw, I didn’t realize Nishi had been recognized as a griefer across the whole ‘net.
‘feets, recognize it. Please.
Yes, that seems to be one thing everyone can agree on. nishi is undesirable and unwelcome. I think it’s the obnoxious, but it could also be the stupidity.
So bringing up anything Kagan said back when she was a clerk for Marshall is off limits due to the “racism”.. or in Steele’s case its off limits due to “token Uncle Tom house negro.”
I’m not going to recognize it cause of the griefer label is a pretext for bannings and censorings and bannings and censorings are less than America I think
Self-proclaimed griefer, repeatedly. Proud of the bannings.
Reality is your friend. The griefer is not.
Recognizing the truth is very America. What one does with that truth, can be whatever.
I say this friendly like.
nah..its because im right.
you are IQ baiting 24/7 because your former colleagues scorn you because you are now a rightwing shill.
classic– MARK LILLA IS CALLING YOU STUPID should have been the name of this post.
and please….how language functions isn’t up for debate?
you are arguing that language doesn’t evolve.
QED.
I shall use this obvious observation as a pretext to have some delicious almonds.
So the “function” of language is “evolving”?
Some how I suspect the definitions of “function”, “language” and “evolve” are skewed and will skew more as they “evolve” in her comments.
It’s almost like that time the leftover meatloaf ate that furry piece of pie in the back of the fridge.
I prefer cashews myself, or pecans in I’m to be a non-import buyer.
From Jeff’s update article:
“Chief among the race-baiters is none other than RNC HNIC Michael Steele who had this ignorant mess to say re: Kagan:
Given Kagan’s opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school’s campus, her endorsement of the liberal agenda and her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution “as originally drafted and conceived, was ‘defective,’” you can expect Senate Republicans to respectfully raise serious and tough questions to ensure the American people can thoroughly and thoughtfully examine Kagan’s qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment.”
To which Ms Tubman responds:
“Leave it to the GOP to figure out a way to racialize Obama’s Supreme Court selection.”
I’d like to suggest Dicentra’s prescription here:
“You should get a job in a movie theater. They can always use new projectors.”
Except Ms Tubman’s lens seems to be missing completely. She must be reading cookie crumbs (mistakenly believing them to be braile) to come to that conclusion.
And did I miss something because I was not aware that “RNC HNIC” was Mr Steele’s new title?
Danger,
I think you’re forgetting that the progressive left is empowered to use any, and all, of the most vile and racist smears available to them if the target belongs to one of their pet “victim” constituencies that in their minds has strayed off the reservation; Steele is an inauthentic black man, and therefore open to any and all abuse that would itherwise be decried as bitter, clinging, xtianist, RAAAAAAACISM! if uttered in any other context.
Just ask Marco “Cocoanut” Rubio…
I can’t wait untill they try this move on Colonel West in Fla. and he brings the big guns to bear…
Yes, your new meme is that I’m a rightwing shill. It’s stuck in your loop. You’ve posted it here on multiple occasions and sent me several emails saying such. And it has nothing to do with anything in this post.
?
No I’m not.
— Though I’m sure happyfeet will find a way to claim that such an observation is interesting and provocative — and maybe chide me for not embracing what you bring to the table here, which from what I can gather is a rather trite and mannered use of formatting.
So the “function” of language is “evolving”?
Well, yes. Once upon a time, we used language to communicate. Now we use it to disembowel our prey.
The canvas-covered dictionary works quite well to hone our obsidian knives.
As for communication, now we just pee on trees.
BECAUSE OF TEH EVOLUTION!
Being called an intellectual slut by a pseudo-intellectual elitist ignoramus who pretends to be a Muslim due to unrequited lust? Priceless.
Unfortunately the meritocratic government we live with rewards elitist traits like intelligence, academic achievements, and public speaking, and does not reward “commonsense” and religiosity.
intelligence, academic achievements, and public speaking
None of which your lord and savior Obama has. Some meritocracy.
Eat your heart out, Caric.
oh i forgot…..conservatism gives ingroup social capital for race=white and nativism.
But liberal affiliation gives ingroup social capital for race=anything.
Jeff’s whole schtick is since the founders and framers that wrote the consitution in language were white and religious, the country needs must be governed by their intent.
But we have a black president now….I doubt the framers ever intended that.
My whole schtick is everything evolves in response to environmental changes.
Culture, demographics, government, the law.
Heh.
Because you are the only one with a weather system inside your head.
au contraire….the MAIN reason republicans and the TPM despise Obama is that he is a public intellectual and an academic elite AND a black man.
Obama is the avatar of Jefferson’s natural aristoi….everytime he publically displays talent and virtue it sends the right into a frenzy.
Jeff’s whole schtick is that if you don’t want to follow the constitution, say so. Or change it.
Don’t pretend you are interpreting it when you are changing it.
And I’ve had about enough of the personal attacks, Nishi. Keep it up and you’ll be gone again.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
Obama is an avatar of leftist vacuousness and identity politics, nothing more. Public intellectual and academic elite? Don’t make me laugh.
When has Teh One displayed talent, or virtue?
Unlike, say, Thomas Sowell.
Listen: you don’t see anyone on the “right” as a person. Just a collection of stereotyped traits you use to run them down. So it’s really no wonder you actually believe that any distaste many of us have for Obama can’t come from disagreement with his policies (and their long history of fail, even as they were tried by other lying progressive empty suits angling for Kinghood) but rather must come from an inveterate fear of his skin color.
And that’s because you are a bigot who tries to make her bigotry hip and transgressive by gussying it up in Japanese anime costumes and scifi jargon.
At the end of the day, though, you’re just a petty little bitch who hates hates hates, and then projects that hate onto the objects of your own derision.
Ideas!
Fish on Constitutional intepretation, from today.
thanks to Serr8d.
Methinks nishit is insane in the membrane.
From the Fish piece:
Do I really have to tie this back to all I’ve been arguing, or is it safe to say that Fish here is noting how the Living Constitution is born of certain ideas about language and text that, say, a textualist would be extremely comfortable with in theory, as a matter of necessity?
Interesting stuff.
Post-worthy if you’re not burnt out on the topic, IMHO.
Crikpes, I agree with Stanley Fish.
::has an attack of the vapors::
Stanley Fish, closet Neocon. We got him!
Reading the comments to the Fish article, note that reaction seems split.
Good to see the argument making it national, though.
For a while there I thought it might get lost in bullet points about lumps of coal.
Fish is “authoritarian,” according to one commenter.
MEANING NEEDS TO BE FREE AND DEMOCRATICALLY DECIDED!
Obama, public intellectual.
That made me chuckle a wee bit. Public: no argument. Intellectual?
Possibly minor-league, but I wouldn’t lump him with any public intellectuals who haven’t been elected President. That’s kind of fame by virtue of office, rather than personal accomplishment.
He is a wee bit more well-spoken than Dubya, I’ll give him that. But: low bars, and all.
Talking Points Memo despises Obama? Popularity nosedive.
There are a great many things the framers didn’t have locked in. This isn’t Intelligent Design, you know.
This about sums it up.
I developed my ideas about intentionalism in direct reaction to ideas like reader response (at least, the way they were being taught; Fish was always more careful to suggest it as utility rather than as something foundational to a text’s meaning).
When I did so, I had no political affiliation of note: I was a “liberal” because that’s what people of my station were. I registered Democrat, but I didn’t always vote that way (because when I paid attention enough to vote, I found I didn’t agree with Democrats).
I am convinced that the view I hold on language has guided my political thinking. I am, as I believe I’ve said before, quite “authoritarian” with respect to how meaning is made and where it lies; I reject any “democratic” attempts to suggest meaning is a consensus proposition.
Ironically, authoritarianism with respect to how language functions leads directly to a profound respect for — and championing of — individualism; whereas consensus meaning promotes group power dynamics and epistemic relativism — and is decidedly anti-American in the strictest sense that it flies in the face of the ideals of the founders.
Fish, it seems, has evolved his thinking in some ways. Which is why in certain instances he looks to his beloved left much like a wingnut, I’d venture.
Been there, Stanley. Just pray Brian Kiteley doesn’t write you an email asking that you kindly not allow any of his students to cite your work in class.
So it didn’t stem from your increasing fear of brown people?
I’m confused.
That’s not what I’ve heard, meya.
He taught classes on Alinsky to community organizers types bh — could have been really good at that, for all we know.
Oh, that makes sense, sdferr. My apologies, meya.
Teaching is an awesome display of awesomeness. Plus, there are hardly any teachers in the world anymore.
Evidence please meya.
The Constitution is seen as a series of marks forming an icon to be worshiped not read by the common man. The secular priesthood “interprets” it into the common tongue so that all can marvel at how it always seems to speak so well, and concisely of to problems of the modern world and the exact solutions that their priests should take.
“Dear Teacher“
So, the Constitution is much like the version of the Declaration of Independence in the original Star Trek episode, “The Omega Glory,” where only chiefs were supposed to speak the words written there. Somehow, that isn’t surprising.
When he taught.
When he taught Alinsky to ACORN?
That makes a distinct NO on both the virtue (Alinsky was an amoral slimeball) and the talent (derivative, derivative, derivative).
anyone else remember the time nishi thought there were twelve supreme court justices? good times… good times…
ah, there it is…
BWAH HA HA Ha ha haaaaaa
yup, i did say that….i have learned a lot since then….for example there have been as many as 10 and as few as 6, and congress can set the number of justices.
i admit to never have been interested in government, politics, history, etc.
…before i started reading Jeff.
strictly hard-sciences major….lib arts bored me to tears.
and I’m still mostly interested in the rise of the Third Culture intellectuals and how biology informs politics, government, and history.
Jeff’s mastery of linguistics is interesting but too…..umm….precious for me, in that he just attempts to use the science of linguistics to argue for partisan goals.
Dan isnt here anymore is he? nor Enoch. i know they got their own blog but they never visit?
light the corners of my mind in my head
Does that babbling idiot nishit ever shut up?
i adore Jefferson…his Adams letters is my favorite book right now.
I am repeatedly astonished that conservatives try to claim him. its like mormon baptism.
The earth belongs to the living and not the dead
Here’s the scifi analog from Morgan’s Broken Angels.
The skeletal grip of a corpse’s hand round eggs trying to hatch.
Neither Jefferson or Machiavelli were fans of the status quo.
can all political struggles be distilled down into those who want to preserve the status quo and those that want to progress, to evolve?
“disagreement with his policies”
where? just say
nooutlaw isn’t disagreement, its opting out.He passed HCR, and FinReg is going to pass.
How can those be failed policies that other liberals have tried before?
I don’t blanket-hate the right…..i think they are dishonest.
Ric Locke is honest at least.
“If it rejects support from people it doesn’t like for other reasons, while the Leftoids continue to not only accept but try to attract support from the gimmeists, it will fail as if it had never existed.”
You need the racists, homophobes, stormfronters, anti-semites, pre-trib fundies, and christofascists if you are ever going to get a majority.
People will vote their economic advantage.
All humans love their family.
As long as the status quo kept non-conventional families from achieving economic parity, the status quo was undesirable, except to white christian nuclear families who benefitted from the status quo.
The change to support the evolved version of “family” is inevitable, because of the demographic shift.
Not all, perhaps, but many. For instance, one of the first of political struggles is my attempt to preserve the status quo ante with regard to my property while the progressive attempts to steal that property away from me. So theft initiates political organization from the start. So also with my intention to preserve my life while the progressive would take it and with it, not simply a single article of my property, but all of it.
The fact that in this very thread I detailed how it was my understanding of language that led me to my ideological positions with respect to politics (and not the other way round) notwithstanding.
Well, that, and my obvious love for all things GOP.
Uh, you do realize that just because something passes doesn’t commit me to agreeing with it, don’t you? No, really. Don’t you?
Socialist countries and fascist regimes have nationalized businesses and industry before. They have expanded the public sector and public sector unions. And right now in Europe you are seeing the results play out.
You’re a griefer. You play act. And it bores me.
Taking personal shots at me might cause the synapses in happyfeet’s brain to fire in an orgy of colored lights, but I just find it insulting, rude, and ungrateful. Misrepresenting my positions because you think it’s fun is also rude — as well as childish.
It’s a good thing the internet is so vast, Kate. Because otherwise you’d soon be running out of places that tolerate you. Rather than wear that as a badge of honor, perhaps it’s worth taking a good look at yourself and asking why it is so few people appreciate what it is you bring to any conversation.
The nishit-nuggie school of economic self-interest forgot to teach their students that their economic models have failed failed failed every single time they have been tried. The rest of that was just a grouping of several of its precious little memes. Jefferson would spit on you, nishi-nuggie.
“Jefferson would spit on you, nishi-nuggie.”
He’d probably find some use for her manning the butter-churn, or maybe hoeing the spinach rows for weeds JD.
I think he’s raping liberty with his dirty socialist prong whilst his wife is busy raping Tony the Tiger with a wicked and formidable strap-on.
It’s most unseemly.
Liberals are profoundly racist, in their actions, nishit. Your policies, the policies you have proposed, and continue to espouse have been fail fail fail every time. Yet you continue to want to subjugate a class of people.
Let’s not forget that the “Liberals” like nishi (I prefer to call them Proggs) think that black people are their fucking pets, to be manipulated en masse like they’re populating some big utopian ant farm, run by their intellectual betters.
JD, that might be the effect.
But the cause is the basic disconnect between the liberal and conservative ideology (from my perspective).
Liberals believe they can level the environment.
Conservatives believe they can level the genes.
Liberals believe they can “level” humans using law and Government to do so.
Conservatives believe they should “level” law and Government as they effect humans.
Status quo is not a static thing and meant something much different to both Jefferson and Machiavelli.
“Progress” is a subjective term not an objective thing.
“Evolve” as you are using it is simply a synonym for change which does not specify either better or worse or a direction in anyway, only different.
no geoffb.
conservatives belief that all men are created equal and any citizen can bootstrap themselves out of the environment with hard work and faith.
That is what anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism is…a rejection of Jefferson’s natural aristoi as leaders in favor of “a man of the people” with commonsense and a belief in god…..
liberals believe that no men are created equal under the genes, so they try to use the law to bootstrap the disadvantaged or level the environment.
So their intentions were pure so we should gorget about their proven history of abject failure? Not very science-y of you, nishit.
Nishit the racist thinks minorities are genetically inferior, and does not believe in the foundational principle of our country that all men are created equal. Shocka.
Best ant farm ever, niggaz! Come and git in it!
You are not “arguing” nishit.
“how can we argue when you just delete any comment you don’t want to respond to?”
How can anyone argue anything where their interlocutors are as plainly dishonest as you nishi? You delete aplenty as you move along re-writing others thoughts to make them into your own.
Sadly, I haven’t noticed any of your commentary being deleted as of late. Unless there are other “socks” you post under, Matako-Chan…
Would it be racist of me to punctuate sdferr’s thought with a hearty, “Oh Snap!”?
They were not simply questions. They were loaded, full of innuendo, and transparently dishonest. Transhumanists UNITE !
Griefers grief.
Oh, thank God.
The inanity was killing me.
I saved a few and I keep them in a jar
anti-intellectualism is a rejection of a misreading of Jefferson.
Okay. Got it.
Bye.
Of course you do. The lies, they sparkle! SHINY!
“Liberals believe they can “level” humans using law and Government to do so.”
“liberals believe that no men are created equal under the genes, so they try to use the law to bootstrap the disadvantaged or level the environment.”
“Conservatives believe they should “level” law and Government as they effect humans.”
“conservatives belief that all men are created equal and any citizen can bootstrap themselves out of the environment with hard work and faith.”
Repeating what I said using different words is not an argument. Equal treatment under the law and equalized by the law are quite different things. I think that perhaps we should require pre-frontal lobotomies for all who test above two digits in IQ to “level” them. Or we could just go with something old but still original.
You conservatives believe people are all equal under the law and equal inasmuch as they are endowed with certain unalienable rights.
We progressives believe people aren’t really all that equal, because the genetics of the brown ones mean more often than not they won’t do as well as, say, the yellow ones, and so won’t get as big a TV. And that’s just wrong. So we try to enforce an equality of outcome.
You conservatives are therefore racist status quo mongers who are in the grip of the dead skeletal hand of an “equality” that is outmoded.
Whereas we progressives are the light and the hope of all the little dumb brown peoples who can’t get by without we reorganize society to assure their success — so long as it’s understood that we get to remain in charge of the rules, and that we’re the executive class.
Your conservative belief in equality is a white Xtian dodge to keep the dumber races down. You racists!
careful there, Jeff. You might strain or break something.
liberals believe that no men are created equal under the genes, so they try to use the law to bootstrap the disadvantaged or level the environment.
that’s just precious.
Jefferson was, on the other hand, a slaveowner.
Which nishi doubtless sees as confirmation that he was cognizant of his station in life, relative to others.
You certainly prove your point that in genetic inheritance people are not “equal” with every comment posted.
All that is life is diverse. It is only in death that all that lives is equalized. Dust to dust. The pursuit of the Left’s form of “equality” does have an end result, an equalization. It is the one there all along, death.
Jefferson would spit in youR face, nishit monster the genocidal racist, right before he told you to go tend to the zucchini, mop the floors, and get him a grog of mead.
So nishi is a white supremacist with a heart of gold. Not her heart, of course, some other rich bastards.
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