Poll: Supreme Court Assassination

[Grasshopp3r]

What kind of madman would push the button? If you are opposed to a judge, impeach them.

[AzDesertRat]

[ QUOTE ]
What kind of madman would push the button? If you are opposed to a judge, impeach them.

[/ QUOTE ]

or pack the court like FDR tried to do. Remember--there is nothing in the constitution stating a number for Supreme Court justices. It didn't work, but the justices got the message.

[4 High]

Clarence Thomas

[John Roberts]

OK,

anyone voting for myself, Thomas, Alito or Scalia-- your IP address has been logged, and we won't be hearing any cases about jack-booted thugs trampling your "constitutional rights" lol

[Dan.]

[ QUOTE ]
OK,

anyone voting for myself, Thomas, Alito or Scalia-- your IP address has been logged, and we won't be hearing any cases about jack-booted thugs trampling your "constitutional rights" lol

[/ QUOTE ]

Less is more with gimmick accounts; less is more.

[NickMPK]

I don't understand how any ACist or libertarian can press the button here against anyone. Doesn't your entire philosophy prohibit using aggression to violate a person's fundamental rights in order to achieve a teleological end? How can you justify pushing the button without accepting some form of utilitarianism?

[TomCollins]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't understand how any ACist or libertarian can press the button here against anyone. Doesn't your entire philosophy prohibit using aggression to violate a person's fundamental rights in order to achieve a teleological end? How can you justify pushing the button without accepting some form of utilitarianism?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course you don't understand. You don't try to.

I'll give you an answer- they have aggressed against people.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I don't understand how any ACist or libertarian can press the button here against anyone. Doesn't your entire philosophy prohibit using aggression to violate a person's fundamental rights in order to achieve a teleological end? How can you justify pushing the button without accepting some form of utilitarianism?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course you don't understand. You don't try to.

I'll give you an answer- they have aggressed against people.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. After the AC revolution, there are going to be some seriously bullet-riddled walls.

[Richard Tanner]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I don't understand how any ACist or libertarian can press the button here against anyone. Doesn't your entire philosophy prohibit using aggression to violate a person's fundamental rights in order to achieve a teleological end? How can you justify pushing the button without accepting some form of utilitarianism?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course you don't understand. You don't try to.

I'll give you an answer- they have aggressed against people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Awful dangerous judgement to make don't you think Tom. I mean I agree in principle, but there aern't any checks here, I don't like what they did (regardless of motivation) so they die.

Cody

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd want to push the button for each of the 5 justices (at least) who ruled in the majority on the Kelo vs New London case.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand why everyone makes a big deal about Kelo like it was a huge watershed case. The court had already decided the same thing in 1984 in Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff:

"After extensive hearings in the mid-1960s, the Hawaii legislature discovered that while the State and Federal Governments owned nearly 49% of the State’s land, another 47% was in the hands of only 72 private landowners. Concentration of land ownership was so dramatic that on the State’s most urbanized island, Oahu, 22 landowners owned 72.5% of the fee simple titles. The Hawaii Legislature had concluded that the oligopoly in land ownership was 'skewing the State’s residential fee simple market, inflating land prices, and injuring the public tranquility and welfare,' and therefore enacted a condemnation scheme for redistributing title." (Upheld by the court 8-0)

The takings in question in Midkiff were much more flagrant than those in Kelo. The Hawaiian government essentially forced certain people to sell their land merely because a small number of people happened to own the land. At least in Kelo there was actually a specific purpose in mind for the land that was being taken. In Midkiff, the land was being taken simply because the government didn't want certain people owning the land.

Kelo is no more of a big deal than all of the cases that have upheld the central ruling of Roe v. Wade. There is nothing that state governments can do now that they couldn't have done in 1984. Sean Hannity and all the other talking heads who were saying that Kelo was going to lead to mass eminent domain abuse are just ignorant fear mongers. I can understand if people think Kelo was a bad decision, but if its ramifications are not as serious as some people say or we would have been seeing eminent domain abuses since 1984, long before Kelo was decided.

The bottom line is that whether Kelo was right or wrong, it is not that important of a case because:
a) It had already been decided in 1984
b) There are already strong political checks on eminent domain abuses like in Kelo
c) Kelo does not prohibit individual states from interpreting their own constitutional restrictions on eminent domain more strictly


I also find it ironic that the people who are most strongly opposed to Kelo are supposedly federalists as well. But a true federalist interpretation of the US constitution would say that the 5th Amendment's takings clause does not even apply to state government. It wasn't until very recently that the 5th Amendment was magically held to apply to state government action through "incorporation" by the 14th Amendment.

So the people who argue strongly in favor of ignoring precedent and interpreting the federal Bill of Rights to strictly prohibit takings like in Kelo are being completely hypocritical. If precedent was really meant to be overruled, then the Court should also overrule all the decisions that held the 5th Amendment applicable to the states, in which case Kelo would never have gotten to the Supreme Court and would have been decided by the Connecticut Supreme Court.

When it comes to interpreting the Constitution, you can't have your cake and eat it too.