Let's talk about Constitutional Amendments

[farmteam]

That is like 90% of the SCOTUS justices in our history though...the position was created for some bitter old condescending crusty jerk or jerkette.

Fair point; Scalia has just been the biggest culprit during my lifetime.

 

I mean, I get the same way reading Hugo Black's opinions for classes as I do reading some of Scalia's. Taney was pretty bad, too.

[iamshack]

Fair point; Scalia has just been the biggest culprit during my lifetime.

 

I mean, I get the same way reading Hugo Black's opinions for classes as I do reading some of Scalia's. Taney was pretty bad, too.

I'm removed enough now that I don't really recall many specifics about the particular justices anymore, but I seem to remember thinking Scalia, although disagreeable at times, wrote some pretty convincing arguments. Much better than Clarence Thomas, anyway.

[StrangeSox]

Blaming a guy who posts somewhere around once a month? Now that is pretty funny.

 

he had his own catch phrased coined!

[farmteam]

I'm removed enough now that I don't really recall many specifics about the particular justices anymore, but I seem to remember thinking Scalia, although disagreeable at times, wrote some pretty convincing arguments. Much better than Clarence Thomas, anyway.

Scalia's earlier stuff is better. As a (very conservative) professor of mine said, Scalia has become more concerned with coming up with particularly good turns of phrase in his opinions, instead of marshaling his argument in the best way possible.

 

Like SS said, Thomas is about as consistent as it gets, even if I disagree with most of what he says.

[Quin]

There's actually ways to amend and alter it! Crazy!

 

I'm not sure that function was intended for you and your liberal friends to create a despotic federal government, but hey... there's a process.

 

Why are you such a condescending ass?

 

Seriously, I'm talking about how people like to wave the 2nd Amendment in people's faces as a legitimate reason to own assault rifles. It was written at a time when the most powerful country on the face of the planet could come attack the US and the most powerful guns weren't rapid-fire death machines, but were 3 shots per minute type deal.

 

And no one has created or wants to create a despotic federal government. There are checks and balances for a reason and no one is advocating those go away. And in your f***ed up, hyperbolic world where liberals steal from the rich and give to the poor, let's remember that in the same version of a conservative world that gays can never marry, girls must give birth to every baby, etc. Neither party in complete control is good, however people like you are the reason we can never have bi-partisanship and actually get things done while we all sit and wait for things such as the fiscal cliff to hit.

[Quin]

So people living in Montana and Idaho should be bent to the will of those from NYC and Chicago? The need for states' rights is greater now than its ever been with the formation of mega-cities and the increasingly disperate ways-of-life the modern era has brought.

 

The top left is the familiar red/blue state we've all come to see.

 

The second one is of counties, which supports your bent to the will of those in big cities theory.

 

The third is popular vote by county, mixed to account for how many people in each county voted.

 

The fourth large one is popular vote by county and intensity is based on population. The completely red counties are few and far between.

 

The country isn't as red and blue as you seem to want to make it.

[Jake]

So people living in Montana and Idaho should be bent to the will of those from NYC and Chicago? The need for states' rights is greater now than its ever been with the formation of mega-cities and the increasingly disperate ways-of-life the modern era has brought.

 

First of all, states rights are usually brought upon when one state doesn't like the expanded civil rights of another. The federal government exists to make sure these small ponds (states) don't choose to violate rights. This is why we have the Bill of Rights for the whole USA and not just for those who agree.

 

As far as whether we should do something like dissolve the states entirely -- no, probably not. States and localities will know how to run the bureaucratic and other minor management issues in their areas. Chicago and Billings will have different ways to keep their streets clean, undertake construction projects, manage their police forces, etc. However, there are certain things that should not vary within a single country. The right to marriage, for instance. To some extent, even things like gun control. Chicago's gun ban is undermined terribly by the fact that every place near them does not have one. If you want no guns in Chicago, you are probably pretty pissed about that. While a gun ban is debatable, in my opinion the right for any two people to get married is not. Like MLK said, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

 

I also would debate your point as it pertains to disparate ways of live, at least in terms of state by state lives. Our new interconnectedness has made alternative lifestyles more viable. For instance, if I wanted to be gay in my hometown of 500 people 50 years ago, I was probably hopeless if I hoped to live a "gay lifestyle." Nowadays, I can easily connect to people like me via the internet and other means. This lets people that are like me, even in the same confined areas I'm in, to more easily make themselves known. So on one hand, more types of living are viable in our time. However, our geographic locations are becoming more and more irrelevant. This makes governance more difficult and calls for a less involved local government. The affairs of other units of government affect us more than they used to.