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you're only supposed to speak good of the dead, so here goes:

he's dead. good.



*ok not really, i am sad for his family and those who looked up to him, that's an incalculable loss. but as someone who loves america, i am glad he no longer has power. maybe those things are conflicted, but that's where i'm at.

It's one of those not-so-rare moments that someone's death is a net gain for humanity and everyone he's affected.

Eh, I wouldn't say that. By all accounts on a personal level he was a great person. Friendly, incredibly smart, etc. All the lawyers I know, even those who disagree with his opinions, universally say he was brilliant legally. Even the most liberal justices on the Supreme Court are quite obviously saddened by his death. His wife, kids and the rest of his family also are obviously devastated. So, on a human level, I am sure he is a great loss to a great many people. I'm not a fan of celebrating death, no matter how much I may have disliked the person.

On a public and political level, however, I am glad he's gone, because I completely disagreed with most of the legal positions, and I feel that there's now a chance to swing the balance of the court back away from the far right wing. There's no way Obama gets a real liberal justice confirmed before he's out of office, period, though. So, either he has to support a centrist candidate that could get enough GOP senators voting for him that there'd be enough in order to override a veto. (which means 14 GOP senators would have to agree to vote for the candidate, which they'd never do for a thoroughgoing liberal). Or, the alternate option, submit a more liberal justice (though still fairly centrist), and use the GOP's refusal to allow a vote as a hammer in the media to try and get more Democrats elected to the Senate and get another Democrat in the White House, and let THEM appoint someone. Of course, the obvious risk is if the GOP wins the presidency, we might see a justice nominated by Cruz or Trump, which is a horrifying thought.

I guess we'll see which way Obama will go with this before too long.

What a nasty, petty, shitty thing to say. How mean spirited. So 'caring' except when someone disagrees with you, and then they can fuck off and die, even if by all accounts they are good people and have valid reasons for their convictions in a non malicious manner.

Lack of common courtesy is doing far more to kill Western Civilization than disagreements on spending or wedge issues.

Obama won't get a person confirmed this year. The comedy is if Bernie is elected and the Dems retake the Senate.

Someone who causes such widespread pain and suffering, isn't really worthy of much...

It isn't a simple "this guy thinks differently!" The man spread hate.

Bullshit. The guy had people who disagreed with him, but in no way did he spread hate, anymore than Bernie Sanders with his socialist message is spreading hate. You are justifying nastiness based on disagreements on governance in a personal manner. He had valid reasons for his beliefs, just as many do.

Don't buy into that shallow pool of nastiness.

Lyion wrote:What a nasty, petty, shitty thing to say. How mean spirited. So 'caring' except when someone disagrees with you, and then they can fuck off and die, even if by all accounts they are good people and have valid reasons for their convictions in a non malicious manner.

Lack of common courtesy is doing far more to kill Western Civilization than disagreements on spending or wedge issues.

Obama won't get a person confirmed this year. The comedy is if Bernie is elected and the Dems retake the Senate.

Eh, the GOP is going to have a hard time saying no if he nominates someone they've already confirmed. I saw one judge mentioned as a possibility that was confirmed for the Appellate court 97-0 in 2013, and was specifically praised by Ted Cruz in the process. There's going to be an immense amount of pressure on the GOP senators in swing states to have a vote on this, and expect the Democrats to hammer the GOP relentlessly for not allowing it. There's video of McConnell specifically stating the Thurmond rule that the GOP is quoting now as a reason not to vote was "not an actual rule the Senate has to follow" when the Democrats didn't want to confirm judgeships in Bush's final year. McConnell also had no issue voting in Kennedy to the Supreme Court during Reagan's final year in office in 1988.

So, like I said, if the GOP stalls too much on this one if Obama picks a judge the GOP already approved, their candidates are going to get eviscerated in the swing states, making it more likely that Democrats get elected to their seats. After all, letting a Supreme Court position stand empty for an entire year would be absolutely unprecedented in the last 100+ years.

ok as usual finny is being a bit hyperbolic, but it's a pretty serious question that we should ask ourselves

is it impossible to hate what a person does and not hate that person? history is rife with examples of people in power doing horrible things to other people because of their strongly-held personal beliefs. most if not all of the people who founded this nation felt they had "valid reasons" to believe it was okay to own people as though they were cattle and had "valid reasons" to believe that universal suffrage and democracy itself were existential threats to their prosperity and the potential for this great experiment to be successful, yet today we do not agree with these ideas regardless of whatever "valid reasons" fueled them

just because scalia had "valid reasons" to believe that the civil rights act needed to be destroyed, that there was zero risk of unlimited campaign contributions corrupting the political process, and that the constitution doesn't forbid the government from executing innocent people doesn't mean his "valid reasons" didn't lead him to rulings which were destructive/harmful/disenfranchising to living breathing people

i will restate: i am glad he is off the bench, as his views were atrocious and harmful to millions. i do not, however, wish him or his surviving family members any ill will

Lyion wrote:Lack of common courtesy is doing far more to kill Western Civilization than disagreements on spending or wedge issues.

Ugh, this.

I don't have much faith left in this country at this point. Idiocracy (dunno why Mike Judge movies keep coming up) is actually happening as people become more focused on the media they consume and the clothes they wear and less on things that actually matter. Everyone judges everyone relentlessly now. About the dumbest shit. You piss someone off on accident, they hate you forever. Facebook has become the official word on friendships and relationships. Man, everyone made fun of me when I'd talk about instant messaging on AIM as a teen. Now everyone's finger fuckin their iPhones all day long. People break up over the internet, people hire and fire thru FB messenger. Everyone in this country watches too many shitty movies and thinks life's actually gonna play out like that. Awful music is considered "excellent." Lunatices like Kanye West are allowed to do what they do year after year. People can't deal with their own problems anymore. If something's weird they ignore it and pretend it'll just go away, until things get REALLY shitty. Always gotta ask for help or pay someone else to do it.

Give it like 15 or 20 more years and we'll get people trying to water their plants with Gatorade because it has electrolytes. People are dumb as fuck right now. And mean to eachother. Even in Eugene now, half the people are starting to act like New Yorkers with that head down "fuck outta my way" attitude. Or maybe it's just that I see more of it online and in the small business world than ever before

Sorry.

Fuck.

Rant over.

We're actually smarter and less violent than we've ever been. Doomsday prophecies are a construct of the media. People like to feel better than the average person so we make broad generalizations. This has been going on since the birth of thought. We'll be fine.

Common sense and knowledge aren't the same thing. How you gonna have a PhD but be too bothered to use your turn signals on the road? People are dumb now. Human interaction is coming closer and closer to an end as we continue to text our way out of difficult situations so we don't actually have to have feelings or take care of problems or as we order our subway sandwich online so we don't have to talk to another human being. Too far up our own asses. Affluenza or whatever they call it nowadays

I feel like Lyion's absolutely right, courtesy is on its way out. Everyone's too cool to be nice now

Also I'd like to point out that I'm talking strictly about the US, because I don't see this type of behavior nearly as much, if at all, from foreigners. You're in Canada, a much better country in most ways IMO. American ideology, like 40 or 50% of it, is a fucked-up cesspool where reason doesn't exist, where ego and assumption are king

The violence I agree with, because that's true, but I wasn't talking about that

My favorite is when someone runs into you while looking down at a device and gives you the dirty look like it was your fault that the collision happened.

I agree with everyone's take as it's really all true.

We live in a society where isis beheadings of actual people are easily viewable via the internet. Everything is so desensitized that we're just numb to it I think. Talking about someone's mortality is what it is. Probably akin to someone in the old days being happy that Henry VIII had died because of how it impacted their lives / the country's outlook.

Drem wrote:Common sense and knowledge aren't the same thing. How you gonna have a PhD but be too bothered to use your turn signals on the road? People are dumb now. Human interaction is coming closer and closer to an end as we continue to text our way out of difficult situations so we don't actually have to have feelings or take care of problems or as we order our subway sandwich online so we don't have to talk to another human being. Too far up our own asses. Affluenza or whatever they call it nowadays

I feel like Lyion's absolutely right, courtesy is on its way out. Everyone's too cool to be nice now

Also I'd like to point out that I'm talking strictly about the US, because I don't see this type of behavior nearly as much, if at all, from foreigners. You're in Canada, a much better country in most ways IMO. American ideology, like 40 or 50% of it, is a fucked-up cesspool where reason doesn't exist, where ego and assumption are king

The violence I agree with, because that's true, but I wasn't talking about that

Agree and wholeheartedly agree with Lyion. Despite our differences in political matters and social issues, we need common courtesy and the ability to "read between the lines" to see a person for what they truly are. I don't know what kind of person Scalia was, and I absolutely disagreed with his stances on everything, but I'm not dancing on his grave either.

I actually just recently lost someone, my boss, who has basically treated me like a son since I've met him and has given me advice on how to carry on after my marriage failed. He's as conservative as it gets. Disagrees with me on every political and social issue out there but I still think of him as one of the greatest men I've ever known. I think most liberal and progressive ideas are "correct" but people use their version of "righteous" ideas to pardon shit behavior on both sides. It's gross seriously.

We're going to drown in our own waste.