Judge Roberts backlash

@snood,

I think I'll just let your response speak for me.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

You'd have done better then to just shut the **** up.

1 Reply

@snood,

And this one was the underscoring.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

And you can't shut the **** up. What's funny though is how you are simultaneously carrying on a half dozen antagonistic exchanges with other A2K posters; all with the underlying theme by you about how silly the A2K liberals are.

The humor of that is doubtlessly lost on your silly ass, though.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

Trying to crucify [Justice Roberts] now is pointless and just gives the left another thing to gloat about.

On NPR today, Judge Richard Posner speculates that right-wing activists might be hurting themselves even worse with their vendettas. They might lose his allegiance to conservative jurisprudence by alienating him.

On NPR, Richard Posner wrote:

"Because if you put [yourself] in his position ... what's he supposed to think? That he finds his allies to be a bunch of crackpots? Does that help the conservative movement? I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All the sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, 'What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?' Right? Maybe you have to re-examine your position."

Source

For those who don't know: Richard Posner is a Reagan-appointed judge on the federal appeals court for the 7th circuit. He is almost universally respected as a leading thinker in conservative jurisprudence. Now even he says the wackiness of the modern conservative movement has pushed him to the left. Republican conservatives may be becoming their own party's worst enemy.

3 Replies

@Thomas,

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/07/justice-elena-kagan-overlooked-turncoat-on-health-128095.html

Quote:

In the end, the verdict on Kagan may be much like that on Roberts: either a turncoat or a strategic genius, depending on your perspective.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

in the Politico article ehBeth pointed to, Josh Gerstein wrote:

Of course, there are several ways to distinguish Kagan’s heresy from Roberts’s. Whether any of them are persuasive, or at least mitigating, is in the eye of the beholder.

First, Kagan didn’t vote to knock down the expansion completely, since she said the legislation could be saved by interpreting it to make the state’s participation more voluntary. She voted for an opinion that said the federal government could not threaten to take away all Medicaid funding from states that don’t want to join the expansion, but the feds can make increased Medicaid funding contingent on new rules.

Second, Justice Stephen Breyer cast the same vote as Kagan did.

Third, I would add, today's American liberals differ markedly from today's American conservatives in that they actually appreciate scrutiny by independent authorities. To be sure, this hasn't always been the case. (Consider FDR's court-packing attempt). But today's movement conservatives in America have denounced wholesale any checks and balances that evidence and reason might place on their ideology. American liberals haven't. And that's why Kagan (and Breyer) will retain the respect of the liberal commentariat.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

in the Politico article ehBeth pointed to, Josh Gerstein wrote:

Of course, there are several ways to distinguish Kagan’s heresy from Roberts’s. Whether any of them are persuasive, or at least mitigating, is in the eye of the beholder.

First, Kagan didn’t vote to knock down the expansion completely, since she said the legislation could be saved by interpreting it to make the state’s participation more voluntary. She voted for an opinion that said the federal government could not threaten to take away all Medicaid funding from states that don’t want to join the expansion, but the feds can make increased Medicaid funding contingent on new rules.

Second, Justice Stephen Breyer cast the same vote as Kagan did.

Third, I would add, today's American liberals differ markedly from today's American conservatives in that they actually appreciate scrutiny by independent authorities. To be sure, this hasn't always been the case. (Consider FDR's court-packing attempt). But today's movement conservatives in America have denounced wholesale any checks and balances that evidence and reason might place on their ideology. American liberals haven't. And that's why Kagan (and Breyer) will retain the respect of the liberal commentariat.

You're just talking about the loud ones right? Or do you mean the ones on the SCOTUS?

Granted there are a lot more vocal conservatives on the extreme and they certainly get a lot more coverage but I don't think in the grand scheme of things what you say is correct. For every tea party, there's an occupy mob.

I certainly don't think todays liberals are in any way reaching some higher level of discourse though. Just look at the stuff that happens here as an example...

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

You're just talking about the loud ones right? Or do you mean the ones on the SCOTUS?

I'm talking about the loud ones in Congress and in conservative media outlets, which are increasingly taking over the Republican party. By contrast, the conservative judges on the Supreme Court are by and large reasonable people, whom I respectfully disagree with most of the time and even agree with sometimes.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Good info; I doubt the conservatives understand these fine points of human behavior.

0 Replies

Since not all of the conservative posters here seem able to follow along very well--i wrote that there is no backlash for Roberts, because he is appointed for life or until he chooses to retire. Mysteryman said that he could be impeached. I consider that hilariously improbable and have said why i think that. However, the idea would be that if Roerts were impeached, it would be by a Republican lead House, because his vote was not politically correct from a conservative point of view. It was also suggested that it might be a good idea to impeach him so that Mr. Obama could appoint someone else. I think that's a bad idea, and have said why.

0 Replies

@snood,

When you shut the **** up, perhaps I will as well.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Posner is an asshole, plain and simple and it is little wonder that those on the left now find him to be sagicious.

I doubt very much that Roberts is now thinking: "Gosh all those conservatives who are ripping me means I have to be a liberal justice."

Obviously that's the way Posner would react to criticism which makes him an asshole.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Posner is an asshole, plain and simple

Why? If you found that your friends had turned into a cult of lunatics, wouldn't you leave the cult? That's the normal, human reaction. How does it translate to being an asshole?

3 Replies

@Thomas,

Because Finn thinks that anyone not part of his cult is an asshole, and people who leave it are double-plus assholes.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

I'm sure Finn would just lo-ove this guy...

I was a right-wing child star

At 13, I gave a speech at CPAC. Four years later, I renounced conservatives -- and they attacked me for it

http://media.salon.com/2012/07/krohn-460x307.jpg

"... I felt justified in my beliefs if for no other reason than no one actually told me I was wrong. Instead, men like Bill Bennett and Newt Gingrich hailed me as the voice for my generation and a hope for America.

But then, earlier this week, Politico released an interview in which I announced I wasn’t a conservative anymore — and the proverbial crap hit the fan. Since then, I have been treated by the political right with all the maturity of schoolyard bullies.

The Daily Caller, for instance, wrote three articles about my shift, topping it off with an opinion piece in which they stated that I deserved criticism because I wear “thick-rimmed glasses” and I like Ludwig Wittgenstein. Why don’t they just call me “four-eyes”? These are not adults leveling serious criticism; these are scorned right-wingers showing all the maturity of a little boy. No wonder I fit in so well when I was 13. ..."

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/08/i_was_a_right_wing_child_star/[img][/img]

2 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:
Posner is an asshole, plain and simple

Why? If you found that your friends had turned into a cult of lunatics, wouldn't you leave the cult? That's the normal, human reaction. How does it translate to being an asshole?

Finn happens to be correct; Posner is an asshole.

But, not because of his recent comments. That's just a case of an asshole actually saying something that's not as crazy as normal. And I don't believe he is being lauded by the Left all of a sudden; more of a case of, 'look, even THIS asshole realizes how crazy they've all become.'

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

While I don't think of myself as belonging to "the left" (whatever this is), I have admired Posner ever since I first read him in the late 1990s. I also remember Joefromchicago making friendly comments about the judge Richard Posner years ago, while pointing out that he usually disagrees with the legal philosopher Richard Posner. Indeed, even Barack Obama used to make lots of friendly comments about his fellow law professor. Respect from Democrats for Richard Posner is anything but a new phenomenon.

Incidentally, this supports my earlier point that American liberals can usually recognize arguments from outside their own cult. It gives me no pleasure to observe that you're apparently an exception here.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I wasn't referring to your argument, but instead the several pieces I've seen on Dem sites that reference Posner's words.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@snood,

Hey thanks! I used to have a thread about this guy. I'm totally going to steal this article.

0 Replies

Judge Roberts backlash

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