What type of research do you want?
What type of evidence might persuade you?
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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1
- Thread starter The Librarian
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What type of evidence might persuade you?
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
As in, review historical court decisions systematically. All of them, potentially, or come up with a methodology better than that.
The Librarian
Banned
Aaron Strife
Banned
Oh yes, Harry Reid, mastermind politician, and the man responsible for this
No, Mitch McConnell will let us pass some bills! We had a Gentleman's Agreement!
I'm leaning towards entirely appointed judges, but forced retirement at 65 regardless of years served. This would isolate them from politicking, but also force a progression epoch.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
65 is too young. I don't support any term limits (as it makes it completely free from politics after confirmation) but if I had to I'd at least make it 75 in todays era. Gives judges about a 20 year term.
I got the vibe that a lot of Obama's jokes weren't jokes.
Thequietone
Member
My cousin went so full blown retarded about the 2nd amendment that he insists these kids were actors and are all still alive somewhere. His "proof" is a picture of Obama with a little girl that looks similar to the ones that was killed. All of his "proof" coming from these right wing news sources.Oh yes, Harry Reid, mastermind politician, and the man responsible for this
No, Mitch McConnell will let us pass some bills! We had a Gentleman's Agreement!
Popular election of judges isn't really a good way to bring Supreme Court decisions in line with public opinion. Elections just aren't about producing popular decisions. If you want popular decisions, you should just put the principles at stake up for a direct vote.
Look at the failure of universal background checks. We just saw an overwhelmingly popular measure fail to pass our elected Congress. There are a few reasons for that. One very important one is that the NRA, which is primarily a lobby for gun manufacturers, is willing to throw a lot of money at defeating politicians who are not sufficiently "pro-gun". Because background checks are so popular, the NRA wouldn't campaign against politicians by attacking them for voting for universal background checks. They would instead attack politicians on other issues - whatever's convenient. It doesn't matter to the NRA why people are voting against the politicians the NRA wants to punish. If judges have to campaign in the same way as Congressmen, expect the same sort of campaign finance issues.
There's also a strong culture war component. Background checks were something the Democrats wanted and were being pushed by Democratic politicians. Republican politicians may have been worried about losing support despite voting the same way their constituents would have, and despite their constituents knowing that, due to them being perceived as closer to the Democrats in general. The Court obviously already suffers from this to some extent, but making them into politicians would only make it worse.
The main advantage of appointed judges, to my mind, is that it increases the chances that judges are selected with an eye towards doing good in the long-run. Presidents are in a unique position in US politics in that they care a lot more about their legacies than anyone else. Congress is small-time enough that Congressmen are mostly just concerned with cozying up to business interests so as to achieve very comfortable retirements, but Presidents don't become lobbyists. Mostly they seem to jockey for position in the historical rankings. In office, they seem to try to move the country in the direction that they actually want it to go in (not the direction that they are paid to want it to go in, and especially in their second terms).
My feeling is that when the conservative justices win a decision, they're basically voting the way that Reagan or HW Bush or maybe W (if he cared enough) would have wanted them to vote independent of those presidents' political incentives. Likewise for the liberal justices and Clinton and Obama. You can probably tell more about Obama's political leanings from Kagan and Sotomayor's records than you can from his own time in office. The system basically works. It mostly fails because the Republican Party doesn't give a crap about anyone other than rich white men and these are lifetime appointments such that the appointment schedule is unpredictable and lumpy. If they had 18 year terms such that every presidential term saw two appointments, no single two-term president would be able to dominate the Court, it would only take 10 years for a determined population to give the Court a brand new majority, and we wouldn't have Scalia, Thomas, or Kennedy anymore.
adamsappel
Member
I'm depressingly confident that we'll have another mass shooting before November 2014.
Any "objective" measure for the quality of decision is going to be as subjective as my (or your) opinion.
It's nice to want to be data driven, but you can't be data driven on everything.
Demanding such level of certainty before moving on the issue pretty much guarantees we'll stay with the current system, which is great if you think it's the best option, but not so great if you don't (like me).
And more broadly, you can't have the certainty you demand on pretty much anything, legislation almost always have unintended consequences, the trick is to identify the problems and mistakes and to correct them.
I don't think it's great either, as I posted, I think it's slightly better than the current system we have.
jamesinclair
Banned
True. Houston, Dallas and Austin. I try and avoid thinking of Texas
But will it be in September or October?
speculawyer
Member
The propagation of crazy conspiracy theories in mainstream politics these days is quite frightening. They've always been around . . . the Birchers and whatnot. But they now get play in government with people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and others actually bringing up conspiracy theories in hearings.
speculawyer
Member
We will probably have several. Just the other day, some guy shot up 5 people in Washington state.
Apparently that doesn't count any more. We need to get up in the double-digits and include some children before it gets the top headlines.
PhoenixDark
Banned
Oh yes, Harry Reid, mastermind politician, and the man responsible for this
No, Mitch McConnell will let us pass some bills! We had a Gentleman's Agreement!
What does that have to do with anything? We've already gone over this: why would Boehner bring the legislation to the floor if it was the product of a partisan filibuster nuke? He'd have an excuse not to take any action.
Or...let's assume it did get taken up in the House. It wouldn't pass.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Your last statement it taking something I said much further than I ever suggested.
ANd regarding the first: A simple tabulation of polling data and decisions could be possible.
What is that going to tell you?
Like, what's the number there should be for you to consider election a good idea?
And again, I want to stress that I don't love those type elections, if I was tasked with fixing our legal system I would tackle different issues first, I'm just saying, that's all
and I'm kinda bothered by how much ya'll hate democracy 
RustyNails
Member
Appointing Judges question is interesting because it's case of who watches the watchmen. The answer is obviously whichever political party is in power in the executive branch. I think it's extremely flawed. Sadly I don't have an alternative. Voting for a judge is just as worse. Will a judge need to run a political campaign like the president does every 4 years?
Rocket Scientist
Member
I keep telling you guys that democracy isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
ClassyPenguin
Banned
Not so different from cold war era everyone is a communist paranoia.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
I bet it could have passed the House - or at least come close. There's enough reasonable Republicans for it to happen just like everything else that's passed the House so far - Blue Dogs might vote against it but there's not a whole lot of them left. Either way the point is that people get to see how their representatives in Congress voted - and against background checks is clearly a very unpopular position (though it remains to be seen if this stays until 2014; I'm optimistic because it doesn't seem like Manchin, Reid, et al. are giving up on the issue quite yet - and the longer it's being talked about the more salient it is).
Boehner definitely dodged a bullet by having it not pass the Senate. All of his options were pretty bad - don't bring it to the floor which would have been very unpopular, let it pass with mostly Democratic support and a few Republican defections (further cementing the notion that Boehner is inadequate at what he does/his party is too far right), or have his entire party vote against it and get campaigned against in 2014. None of those options would have resulted in something positive
Aaron Strife
Banned
It's not just gun control. There are scores of judicial and regulatory nominees Obama's put through that have stalled in the Senate because the filibuster. As well as other legislation, such as the American Jobs Act or Respect for Marriage Act, which could probably pass the Senate if not for the filibuster. Would it then pass in the House? Probably not, but the public isn't going to care how many votes a bill gets when it passes. They're going to see the Senate working on issues that people care about while the House sits back and repeals Obamacare for the bajillionth time. The onus would be on Boehner to find common cause with Reid and Obama, not for Reid and Obama to find common cause with McConnell.
In any case I think it's cute how you try and portray Reid as some masterful politician just so you can get a shot in on Obama, particularly when he keeps buying McConnell's snake oil on filibuster reform, gun control, immigration reform, budget talks, etc. Boehner at least has some skin on the game as the failures of the House fall largely on him - McConnell is a bomb thrower with no interest in legislating and Reid and other Democrats need to realize that.
PhoenixDark
Banned
I've never called Reid a master politician, I have more than a few problems with him. But the sequestration farce has just reinforced the fact that he was right about the fiscal cliff deal, and Biden/Obama gave away the farm. McConnell is more than just a bomb thrower, he's very smart - and if he was House majority leader he would have eaten Obama's lunch multiple times in negotiations; out of the four major congressional leaders, Boehner is clearly the worst and least effective.
Nuking the filibuster would help judicial nominations/appointments, but that's about it; it could have been the excuse Rubio needed to jump off the immigration bandwagon, who knows. I don't see the House passing the Jobs Act either considering they're pretty clear on the whole "no more stimulus" thing, and last I checked Obama isn't out there championing it or any economic issue for that matter.
Failure on guns, unforced error on sequestration, and a terrorist attack. Not a good start to a second term.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Wasn't Reid directly involved with negotiations for the fiscal cliff deal? Not to mention he voted Yes on the final package.
When you say something like "Reid must be shaking his head at Obama" that suggests Reid knows how to better play the game than Obama. If McConnell would have eaten Obama's lunch, with Reid it's more like a three-course dinner at this point. He's been horribly ineffective.
As for nuking the filibuster causing Rubio to jump off the bandwagon - who cares? The point of removing the filibuster is the Democrats could pass an immigration bill themselves. It's true that with the filibuster in place, any bill that passes the Senate needs GOP support, which gives conservatives in the House cover for their support, but in the broader picture voters aren't going to care about the process, they just want results. The Senate filibustering everything, even bills that have 90% support with the public only cements the idea that Congress as a whole is dysfunctional and can't get anything done. Take that away and suddenly the spotlight is entirely on Boehner.
Also wasn't Reid's big move on gun control removing the assault weapons ban to attract more Republican votes, even while Obama and Biden were lobbying for it to be included? Great plan, chief. Though I don't believe gun control is going away any time soon. Those senators who voted no have seen their approval ratings drop like a rock and might be wanting to redeem themselves.
jamesinclair
Banned
Hand over your miniature american flags everyone, the terrorists have won.
http://gothamist.com/2013/04/26/weve_been_wondering_how_the.php
Fuck this shit.
http://gothamist.com/2013/04/26/weve_been_wondering_how_the.php
Fuck this shit.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
What is that going to tell you?
Like, what's the number there should be for you to consider election a good idea?
And again, I want to stress that I don't love those type elections, if I was tasked with fixing our legal system I would tackle different issues first, I'm just saying, that's all.and I'm kinda bothered by how much ya'll hate democracy
Well, you are trying to say that you want the court to reflect the will of the people, how about measuring it first? Like I said, your stance sounds like punditry more than something thought-out.
Avon Barksdale
Member
PD gonna PD.
I've got an academic question of sorts. Is it widely understood amongst academia that America's minority populations keep America more conservative through self-segregation? What I mean is, as someone from the deep south, I see it all the time that most white people would never consider being a Democrat or ascribing to liberal beliefs because that's the party and ideology of "Lazy blacks sitting at home collecting checks and getting Obama phones".
Most Southern whites I know would never be open to even considering a liberal argument because they believe it helps lazy minorities who are eager to not work and abuse the system. The level of hatred around here for blacks and minorities is so strong, it feels like anything that minorities are for is something that whites must necessarily be against.
I can see it working in reverse in States like Vermont where black populations are slim and so they're more than open to liberalism because there's few minorities around and hence nothing to fuel the perception that support of liberalism would lead to all the minorities around abusing the safety net at the expense of (in their eyes) hardworking whites with intrinsic American values and work ethic.
Without the white population being open to liberalism and Democrats it's obvious America is tilting left through the sheer overwhelming numbers of left-leaning minorities. I have been wondering lately how open a hypothetical 95%+ white America would be to liberalism, if the negative perception of minorities and their embrace of liberalism wasn't there.
Most Southern whites I know would never be open to even considering a liberal argument because they believe it helps lazy minorities who are eager to not work and abuse the system. The level of hatred around here for blacks and minorities is so strong, it feels like anything that minorities are for is something that whites must necessarily be against.
I can see it working in reverse in States like Vermont where black populations are slim and so they're more than open to liberalism because there's few minorities around and hence nothing to fuel the perception that support of liberalism would lead to all the minorities around abusing the safety net at the expense of (in their eyes) hardworking whites with intrinsic American values and work ethic.
Without the white population being open to liberalism and Democrats it's obvious America is tilting left through the sheer overwhelming numbers of left-leaning minorities. I have been wondering lately how open a hypothetical 95%+ white America would be to liberalism, if the negative perception of minorities and their embrace of liberalism wasn't there.
We broadly have a similar system to you (although we have compulsory retirement at 70, which eliminates the tactic of 'holding on' till a sympathetic executive comes along) but, from what my constitutional law professor told us (shamefully I know more about the American bench than my own), we've avoided overly partisan appointments (although there is one particular judgment from Howard's last term that reeks of Scalia-esq 'conservative activism') because PM's have preferred to promote someone boring and predictable (presumably because of Kirby and Mason). Which is problem in itself, but a different one.
I agree that the facade of objectivity is a dangerous assumption of the appointment system but I think the dilution and populism of complex legal issues that would inevitably result from elections would be the greater evil.
I'm not so sure a city as large as Dallas should be proud of light rail.
TacticalFox88
Banned
ONE terrorist attack? Sweeping changes where you can barely do anything.
Thousands of people die from gun violence? Lol fuck that 2nd amendment!!!!
Fuck this ass backwards country
jamesinclair
Banned
Well to be fair the system design is crap
Avon Barksdale
Member
Why?
Aaron Strife
Banned
4 Americans die in a riot in Libya? NATIONAL CRISIS
20 children die in a shooting in Connecticut? PRICE OF FREEDOM
Black Mamba
Member
ThERE WAS NO RIOT AARON. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?
youre focusing too much on race instead of history, culture, ingrained attitudes, systems, etc.
Rocket Scientist
Member
Shame they were already born. If they were still embryos, I'm sure Republicans would have at least tried to pass a law against it.
It's probably a given that if you removed minority influence you could recruit more whites to progressive issues. I can't give you a lot of examples because I'm fairly ignorant myself but after reconstruction era there were white, racist democrats who were progressive in the modern sense with regards to everything but black rights. I can't find the page this was from right now so I don't remember if this was before the Jim Crow laws began to set in or after. Maybe around the 1890's.
Anyway there's probably plenty of examples of progressive racists before the democrats became the party for minorities, particularly in bad economic times, so it might be possible to recruit more whites from the conservatives if they didn't have blacks to vilify. There would still be stumbling blocks where you'd have corporate/financial interests, religious interests, and others actively pushing a conservative agenda to peel back the rights of individuals and government power. Tea Party ideology and people who benefit from it would not disappear, but would probably only adjust to drop the racial and anti-immigrant hysteria. Self-segregation is also a pretty bad way to describe it. From the rest of your post I don't know if you really meant anything by it but I feel like the level of poverty and crime from black communities is exactly what people should expect of a minority terrorized from nearly every angle for such a long span. Even now something that's not nationally under the spotlight like punishments of crack (black) and cocaine (white) actively destroy minority progress.
http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform...00-1-disparity-crackpowder-cocaine-sentencing
It's down to 18 - 1 now IIRC. Blacks are also in a small minority of crack users, while are arrested in a massive majority. Somewhere around 90% I believe, don't have the figures on hand right now. One example in a sea of issues that punish minority communities. White Jim Crow era racists and their kids are also still alive and voting even if the policies they choose aren't always as transparent. Stuff like Voter ID is plainly obvious if you read about the voter restriction schemes pulled in the south as the Jim Crow laws were rolling in.
If you know all this and recognize it that's fine but I wanted to be sure. Minorities aren't going to turn it around after generations of oppression and when current laws/politics still work against them. That's not self-segregation, it's segregation. White racists either don't realize this (bad education), don't care, or benefit from the situation. Minorities and the poor in general deserve some sort of herculean political and government effort which they'll never get to reverse the trend. Some racists might be more progressive without the minorities to scapegoat but it's hard to say how far they might go. There's probably a lot to say for voter education and integration in the cities where whites and blacks are forced to interact but I sorta lost that train of thought as I was typing.
Edit: Just wanted to add again that I don't think you're a bigot or anything like that even though I went through all that stuff, but you might be hard pressed to find an academic who ever looks at America's conservatism from a perspective where it is caused by the "underachievement" of minorities. It's an odd way to think about things. Not that minority crime and such doesn't help breed conservatism but beyond knowing that I don't think there's anything meaningful to draw from it. To know what whites would do without you'd need the minorities to stop being a "problem" or the minorities would need to go away. Not many options.
Hi PoliGAF. I got linked this and wanted to see what people who actually live in America (i.e. not me) think of it.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/legislation-democracy-graeber.html
My chief source of interaction with the US political process is via the Daily Show and threads on here, so I'm not really in a good place to have a worthwhile opinion on it. But I'd be interested to see what you lot make of it.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/legislation-democracy-graeber.html
My chief source of interaction with the US political process is via the Daily Show and threads on here, so I'm not really in a good place to have a worthwhile opinion on it. But I'd be interested to see what you lot make of it.
i'm all for a war against those energy saver bulbs, i hate those things.
helloresolven
Member
The White House just can't get a press conference to start on time...
speculawyer
Member
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/po...ervatives-buy-energy-efficient-products/5435/
what the hell? They are so mean-spirited that they will pay more in order to pollute. That is amazing. And they wonder why they alienate so many people?
The are more driven by hatred of liberals than their own-self interest.
Link
The Autumn Wind
I wish I could say I was surprised by that article.
they've gotten better, but they need LED to drop in price as the real viable alternative
You're looking for lumens, not watts.
I've had to teach multiple people the reason their lighting was worse was because they weren't looking at the lumen equivalent.
Link
The Autumn Wind
Off topic, but those Cree LED bulb commercials with Lance Reddick are great.
CFLs are generally awful (and the first generation of consumer bulbs were downright dreadful) environmentalists really hurt their cause when they tried to tell the public that the light quality is comparable to incandescent bulbs.
That being said, those new Cree LED light that Lt. Daniels keep telling me to buy are fucking fantastic, seriously, it's everything I've ever wanted from a energy saver bulb - great light quality, quick, work with a dimmer, looks great, even the packaging is well thought of.
The price need to go down a bit (they're 12$ now), it will pay for itself in a couple of years, so I think it's aimed at the tree hugger crowd more than the penny pinching one, but price should go down, I don't think there's any reason for an LED bulb to be more expensive than an incandescent one outside the economy of scale.
I doubt I'll ever buy another incandescent light bulb, I should've never doubted you Cedric!
Something should make a thread or something, making sure that whole quantum mechanic thing don't go to waste.
my man, i own 50 shares of cree, buy away
thanks for the lumen tips,
also though, the size, they stick out the top of all my old lamps.
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