Kagan "It’s Fine If The Law Bans Books Because Government Won’t Really Enforce it"

[bsd777]

I'd been thinking about posting a few links, now and then, that you will not see on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, USA Today or (for 9 out of 10 of you) your local paper otherwise known as the main stream media (MSM)

And someone has to act as a counter balance to that lunatic, Maoist Joe####.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBqdK...layer_embedded

[Darwin]

I watched that piece. She did an awful lot of fancy dancing and un-clever evasions of the questions the justices asked. And they called her nicely on it.

[bsd777]

It's hard to believe she's even being considered. Is it just me, or does anyone else think she might be Rosie O'Donnell's illegitimate half sister?

[bakerbarber]

It's hard to believe she's even being considered......

NOTHING surprises me.

No one has been handcuffed for the Deep Water Horizon yet.

Rome is burning.

[lxskllr]

What exactly was that about? What did they want to ban?

[Bigblue1]

NOTHING surprises me.

No one has been handcuffed for the Deep Water Horizon yet.

Rome is burning.

+1000 It's been smokey for awhile, but like all fires they start small, and grow quickly and exponentially. Before you know it there's no way to put it out. So we get what we got. Which is a rapidly growing and impossible to put out fire of great magnitude.

[sgreger1]

What exactly was that about? What did they want to ban?

I'll break it down for you.



Yes this law COULD mean that we could legally round up citizens and torture them, but since that hasn't happened before, there's no problem with giving the government that power. This law COULD allow the gov to ban any kind of media with a republican viewpoint in it but since that has never happened so far, we should allow the gov to have this power.


No, no, and no again. Saying that we should give the gov unchecked power to do drastic things just because it has not abused it YET is not a good idea IMO. Why give them the power at all?

[sgreger1]

NOTHING surprises me.

No one has been handcuffed for the Deep Water Horizon yet.

Rome is burning.

Yet people think we could pull off a utopian socialist society or communism because surely if everyone worked together there would be no corruption. The moral of the story is that bad people get away with evil. Do not make it easier for them to do so on the basis that "you trust them" to not abuse their power.

[Darwin]

That little old concept embodied in the constitution known as the "separation of powers" is what has kept that abuse of power in check, mostly. Blur those lines, mangle fuse and confound them with judicial activism, legislative overreach and executive "crisis" exploitation and bad things happen, many many bad things. But those bad things are not always obvious in the shortness of time, and contingent fusions may appear direly necessary, but the consequences are always unintended and inevitably un-salutary.

Them there post enlightenment boyos in their wigs and knee-britches really were smarter than any allegedly modern evolved "enlightened" Progressive or any media wary "compassionate" Conservative. They knew the ways of the world and the tangles of the human psyche at least as well as anyone alive today, probably much better, and we ignore their supposedly irrelevant and quaintly formalistic prescriptions at our extreme peril. The Constitution has not needed to evolve much in two hundred years, just a bit of sprucing up now and then, because basic human behavior has not changed much, if any, in that time.

[tom502]

I swear, "she" is Jon Lovitz in drag.

[bsd777]

I'll break it down for you.



Yes this law COULD mean that we could legally round up citizens and torture them, but since that hasn't happened before, there's no problem with giving the government that power. This law COULD allow the gov to ban any kind of media with a republican viewpoint in it but since that has never happened so far, we should allow the gov to have this power.


No, no, and no again. Saying that we should give the gov unchecked power to do drastic things just because it has not abused it YET is not a good idea IMO. Why give them the power at all?

+1 I couldn't explain it any better.

[bsd777]

That little old concept embodied in the constitution known as the "separation of powers" is what has kept that abuse of power in check, mostly. Blur those lines, mangle fuse and confound them with judicial activism, legislative overreach and executive "crisis" exploitation and bad things happen, many many bad things. But those bad things are not always obvious in the shortness of time, and contingent fusions may appear direly necessary, but the consequences are always unintended and inevitably un-salutary.

Them there post enlightenment boyos in their wigs and knee-britches really were smarter than any allegedly modern evolved "enlightened" Progressive or any media wary "compassionate" Conservative. They knew the ways of the world and the tangles of the human psyche at least as well as anyone alive today, probably much better, and we ignore their supposedly irrelevant and quaintly formalistic prescriptions at our extreme peril. The Constitution has not needed to evolve much in two hundred years, just a bit of sprucing up now and then, because basic human behavior has not changed much, if any, in that time.

The essence of the problem +1

[lxskllr]

+1 I couldn't explain it any better.

Yea, but what law specifically? What are they trying to ban, and why are books in general in the crossfire?

[myuserid]

I think Kagan is really Doug Heffernan in a wig.

[bsd777]

Yea, but what law specifically? What are they trying to ban, and why are books in general in the crossfire?

The argument, at it's essence was over freedom of speech. The government (Kagan and Obama administration via FCC) argued an organization could not distribute a video documentary, they took issue with. Kagan argued (unsuccessfully) that the government has a right to prohibit a political organization from distributing a documentary. The justices asked if the election law Kagan sought to uphold, also allowed the govt to ban other forms of media, including a book. It was a theoretical argument. No specific book was mentioned.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/21/...f-free-speech/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...003943_pf.html