AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

When pro-Israel people accuse the Palestinians of illegal activity, are they 'bashing' Palestinians? Or are they bashing illegal activity?

What? The irony here is that if you criticize Israel at all you're either an anti-Semite or you are against Israel.

Foxfyre wrote:

When pro-enforcement people want illegal immigration stopped, are they 'bashing' Mexicans or Chinese or Columbians or Guatemalans or whomever happens to be sneaking across the border illegally at any given time? Or are they bashing illegal activity?

See Chinese Immigration Act of 1885. When our country actively makes it harder for others to enter the country legally than it was for their ancestors, it does ask the question as to what the difference is.

Foxfyre wrote:

When a red headed man is arrested for rape and we serve on the jury that hears his trial and convicts him knowing full well that he will be sent to prison, is that some kind of diatribe against redheads? Or are we focused on a specific crime and the person who committed it?

So far away from relevant, that I'll just post a random fact to match it in contribution to this thread.

Did you know that Boeing debuted it's 727, the pilot made it do a barrel roll? All the spectators gasped, and Boeing officials were embarrassed.

Foxfyre wrote:

When you complained, accused, and condemned George W. Bush and the Republicans for the past eight years, calling them all sorts of vile names, and admitting that you loathe and hate them, were you bashing government? Or were you expressing your hatred for President Bush and his political party?

You you ask some yes or no questions then offer a false model to make your point?

Your options of
A) Bashing government
B) Hating Bush AND [the republicans]

does not offer the option to simply
C) Disapprove of illegal/immoral/unethical actions.

While you only see it as people hating Bush (and I'll concede there were people who that became their only driving factor), you use this as an excuse to ignore all of the valid problems his administration and other conservatives created.

Foxfyre wrote:

When some in government forget that they are elected to be servant of the people and ignore the values of the people, forego good stewardship, practice fiscal irresponsibility, and use their office to increase their power, prestige, and personal fortunes, is it bashing government to rail against that? Or is it railing against a government that is irresponsible, immoral, and/or illegal?

The irony here is that you remained silent about Bush until he was on his way out. Being that your personality disorder prevents you from endangering your ego, nothing you really say has any credibility. If you really valued any of these things you'd have been against Bush before it was popular for the GOP to abandon him. You're just a fall in line republican. You're not some radical hero of Modern American Conservatism. The GOP loves people like you.

Foxfyre wrote:

Can you see the point made here?

The point is the irony of your posts better illustrate the vacancy of your beliefs better than anything anyone else could ever compose.

T
K
O

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@Diest TKO,

Foxfyre wrote:

When pro-Israel people accuse the Palestinians of illegal activity, are they 'bashing' Palestinians? Or are they bashing illegal activity?

TKO wrote:

What? The irony here is that if you criticize Israel at all you're either an anti-Semite or you are against Israel.

Yes. Foxfyre's rhetorical question is indeed ironic because "everyone" with her particular world view knows that you're either FOR Israel or AGIN it! Therefore, because Rosa Brooks takes a pragmatic look at The Gaza Blame Game or the fact that Israel can't bomb its way to peace, then you can expect the "FOR" people to scream outrage: OBAMA NOMINATES A VIRULENT AMERICA HATER, JEW HATER, ROSA BROOKS, TO KEY POSITION IN DEFENSE (!) DEPARTMENT.

But, I wonder. If pro-RULE OF LAW people "accuse" government actors of ordering illegal torture and demand an investigation, are they "bashing" the government actors? or are they bashing illegal torture? or are they demanding that our government enforce our laws? According to the serpentine woman's earlier posts, those people are vengeful witch hunters.

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@Diest TKO,

We can't expect much from a person who still thinks waterboarding isn't illegal. Discussions with anybody who doesn't understand right from wrong, crime from innocence, and good and bad, it's impossible to have a intelligent discussion.

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This sounds familiar...
K
O

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Thomas Sowell will certainly irritate and prompt the usual insulting rhetoric from the numbnuts. Also those interested in rational discussion may reasonably agree or disagree with him here. But the points he raises are certainly of interest to Modern American Conservatives or should be. I highlighted those points that I think to be most pertinent.

Quote:

May 5, 2009
'Empathy' Versus Law
By Thomas Sowell

Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point.

That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group "representation" is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That President Obama has made "empathy" with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with "empathy" for groups A, B and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y or Z? Nothing could be further from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with "empathy" for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans.

We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law would become meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words "rule of law." And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.

Those people who just accept soothing words from politicians they like are gambling with the future of a nation. When you buy words, you had better know what you are buying.

In the American system of government, presidential term limits restrict how long any given resident of the White House can damage this country directly. But that does not limit how long, or how much, the people he appoints to the Supreme Court can continue to damage this country, for decades after the president who appointed them is long gone.

Justice John Paul Stevens virtually destroyed the Constitution's restrictions on government officials' ability to confiscate private property in his 2005 decision in the case of "Kelo v. New London"-- 30 years after President Ford appointed him.

The biggest danger in appointing the wrong people to the Supreme Court is not just in how they might vote on some particular issues-- whether private property, abortion or whatever. The biggest danger is that they will undermine or destroy the very concept of the rule of law-- what has been called "a government of laws and not of men."

Under the American system of government, this cannot be done overnight or perhaps even during the terms in office of one president-- but it can be done. And it can be done over time by the appointees of just one president, if he gets enough appointees.

Some people say that who Barack Obama appoints to replace Justice Souter doesn't really matter, because Souter is a liberal who will probably be replaced by another liberal. But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with "empathy"-- which is to say, with justices who think their job is to "relieve the distress" of particular groups, rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/05/empathy_versus_law_96335.html

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@Foxfyre,

Sowell starts with a logical fallacy

Empathy vs the law.

It assumes the law can have no empathy. When people that claim we shouldn't apply the law to Presidents now claim the law should have no empathy, I find it hard to believe their arguments.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with "empathy"-- which is to say, with justices who think their job is to "relieve the distress" of particular groups, rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

These two goals are not contradictory, though it's unsurprising that those without empathy themselves believe that they are. In fact, they are complimentary.

Cycloptichorn

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@parados,

When somebody commits murder, should it matter whether that person is male or female, black or white or some other, rich or poor, angry or passive, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, married or single, straight or gay? Or should the same law regarding murder apply to everybody equally regardless of their personal circumstances? Do you want judges granting favorable treatment to one group and not another? Being harsher or more lenient depending on who the judge likes more?

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

When somebody commits murder, should it matter whether that person is male or female, black or white or some other, rich or poor, angry or passive, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, married or single, straight or gay? Or should the same law regarding murder apply to everybody equally regardless of their personal circumstances?

Naturally, it is not determined whether or not someone is guilty of committing murder before they are sentenced; and the courts and juries do take those factors into account during the trial. Therefore, empathy most certainly does apply to our legal system; it is part of the decision-making process.

You are pre-supposing guilt, and then asking if we should ignore that guilt because of certain factors. You should instead be asking if those factors preclude the notion of guilt in individual cases.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

In no court I have ever sat in on was the jury instructed to consider the situation or feelings of the person who was being tried. Again, do you honestly want the judges feelings to determine whether he will be harsh or lenient with any person? Would you want a Bernie Madoff to receive a lighter sentence because the Judge admired his hutzpah and felt like he didn't intend to hurt anybody while a lesser crook received a more severe sentence because the Judge didn't like his attitude or demeanor or just didn't think he was very sincere?

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

In no court I have ever sat in on was the jury instructed to consider the situation or feelings of the person who was being tried. Again, do you honestly want the judges feelings to determine whether he will be harsh or lenient with any person?

What exactly is it you think the lawyers are doing, Fox? They are attempting to get you to consider all the factors in a situation.

For example, the argument of self-defense when a battered wife kills her husband is extremely effective when it comes to reducing or eliminating punishment. Empathy most certainly is a factor. You are not instructed to do so by the judge, b/c he's not looking to preclude your decision.

Quote:

Again, do you honestly want the judges feelings to determine whether he will be harsh or lenient with any person?

How wonderfully naive you are Smile

This is exactly how our legal system works, Fox. The judge is called a 'judge' because he's allowed to judge the situation to come up with the correct action. Often, the law is not as clear as you make it out to be; when it is unclear, Empathy is a definite factor in deciding which laws to apply.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Okay. We'll put you down as one that believes judges should judge based on how they feel about something and the rule of law should not be a factor in that. I worked with Work Comp judges for years and saw a lot of wrong decisions made just because the Judge distrusted and despised employers and took the employees' side every time. Our attorneys tried hard to avoid those judges but it was not always possible.

I trust you will feel the same way about the opinion of an ideologically conservative judge who thinks you are way too unethically prosperous or impudent or irresponsible or whatever and is justified in factoring that in when he decides your fine or jail time. If empathy/sympathy is a valid criteria for judicial citizens, then so should contempt or disgust be a valid criteria.

Or perhaps if the judge based his judgment strictly on interpretaton of the existing law apart from his personal opinions about what is politically correct and what is not, we might actually see justice done?

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@parados,

All one needs to do is go back to all the presidents who nominated our supreme court judges. You're right; Thomas Sowell begins his argument with a fallacy, and expands on that to try and make his point. What nonsense!

He still has people like Foxie who believes everything Sowell writes with religious ferver. They left their common sense and logic at the front cover of his books/articles.

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@Foxfyre,

I just know how judges act (and react) in the English (Welsh), Scottish and German court systems.

Since the British are similar to that in the USA ...
From the explanations to the Magistrate's manual: What does the bench do? They will assess how serious the offence was 'of its type'. They will agree the right point on the scale, the lowest being perhaps a kick or blow, the highest being deliberate and ingenious cruelty. Next they will consider what sentences are available, e.g. in this case a maximum of a £5000 fine, six months in prison, or a community order of some kind. A reduction of one third for a guilty plea is mandatory. Fine or discharge? No, too serious. Serious enough for a community penalty? Certainly. So serious that only custody is appropriate?.. ... ....

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@cicerone imposter,

What the conservatives are demanding now is that Obama select a republican for the supreme court. That's also ridiculous on the face of it, but the conservatives have lost it all, and they just can't live with that! They are now the No Party, and the conservatives are destroying their own party.

Most people with common sense believe our country needs a strong two party system, but what can we do when they are out to destroy themselves? Can't they see it?

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Interesting. That is pretty much how it is supposed to work. The judge follows the law in determining whether a crime is committed and he can use discretion to determine the severity of the offense in allocating the allowable penalties which are also authorized via rule of law. Thus a judge can issue a fine or 'time served' for a crime of lesser severity; a bigger fine or more jail time for a crime of greater severity, but always he should be guided by what the law says as well as enforce a just hearing of the evidence in the case.

Sowell was not in any way referring to mitigating circumstances in any given court case, but was rather referring to entire groups being afforded empathy to the exclusion of other groups. Such ideology has no place in a court system that is supposed to provide equal protection under the law.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cyclo wrote:

Quote:

Naturally, it is not determined whether or not someone is guilty of committing murder before they are sentenced; and the courts and juries do take those factors into account during the trial. Therefore, empathy most certainly does apply to our legal system; it is part of the decision-making process.

You are spot on! I was a jury member of a rape-murder trial in our county that lasted three months (one of the longest in our county). We almost had a hung jury, but the judge told us to go back and talk out our differences. We finally agreed to find him guilty, because all of the circumstantial evidence showed he was guilty. During the penalty phase, we heard from the grandmother and his brother, who was for the prosecution, but asked for mercy. What we learned during the penalty phase was that his step-mother burned his penis when he was a young boy. We decided on life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Yes, the jury will consider empathy during the trial. I'm sure most judges run their courts the same way whether it's a lower court or the supreme court. We are all humans, after all.

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Where does one think the phrase, "throw oneself on the mercy of the court," came from? There's some on these threads who may have studied history but neglected the history of the law. There is the rule of law but there is also the spirit of the law. Results in courtrooms establish precedents because the judge interpreted some details in a law that were fair and unfair and makes a decision that will be used in all future cases. It sometimes may not seem to follow the "letter of the law" altogether but as we have to deal with semantics in all written texts, they have to be considered in the way a law is written. As I've pointed out before, most of the laws were legislated predominantly by lawyers, who often leave gaps that are open to interpretation. Sometimes they're positive wormholes. We certainly want every defendant to be judged equally but every case has its own set of circumstance -- judges, and BTW juries, have to decided sometimes on very fine nuances. For example, pre-meditated murder -- often there's slim evidence as to motive and any planning of the murder. If one thinks judges have not used the benefit of doubt which is basically empathy, especially in the sentencing part of a conviction (or decision in a civil case), whether they are liberal or conservative, is in need of cognitive therapy. Better start looking up how many cases have had their verdicts reversed in appeal, people later found innocent by DNA evidence, and all the other workings of the law that don't always follow the letter, but do follow the spirit.

I do realize it makes the absolutist and authoritarian conservatives cringe but so be it.

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@Lightwizard,

Again there are certainly mitigating circumstances. I remember one case in Perryton TX in the 1960's. The husband told the wife there was no money for groceries and left her and the kids home where she was attempting to feed her hungry kids fried flour dough because there was nothing else in the house. He was supposed to be out borrowing money for food and when she went looking for him, she found him in the downtown cafe enjoying a steak. She shot him. She got seven years. Nobody in town thought the judge was too lenient.

But that is an extreme and unusual case and we aren't talking anecdotal evidence here.

Again, when the judge is expected to empathise and give deference to one group and not another, or to respect one politically correct position but not an opposing point of view, the judicial system is corrupted and there is no equal protection under the law.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

... but always he should be guided by what the law says as well as enforce a just hearing of the evidence in the case.

Extenuating circumstances

Quote:

Quite independently of any recommendation by the jury, the judge is entitled to take into account matters proved during the trial, or laid before him after verdict, as a guide to him in determining the quantum of punishment.

1 Reply

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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