Comments on: The Constitution, How Does it Work?

By: muselet

muselet — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 23:38:00 +0000

For the Right, Dred Scott is an all-purpose tool for undoing any judicial ruling with which one disagrees. It’s not, but that’s the way they think: the courts got that one wrong, so we don’t have to pay any attention to anything they have to say now, unless we agree with it.

That a clown like Mike Huckabee thinks that way is no surprise.

Huckabee also doesn’t seem to know squat about Thomas Jefferson. I can’f find Jefferson saying anything like what Huckabee, presumably cribbing off of pseudo-historian David Barton, attributes to him. Certainly he never used the expression “judicial tyranny.”

On the other hand, in a letter to Edmund Pendleton, dated 26 August 1776, Thomas Jefferson expressed his expectation that the law “be dispensed equally & impartially to every description of men.” That kind of sounds like an implicit endorsement of marriage equality, doesn’t it? (And before any troll blows a gasket, I’m being mischievous.)

–alopecia

By: GrafZeppelin127

GrafZeppelin127 — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 23:28:00 +0000

I actually wrote a piece yesterday on Daily Kos about how the Kim Davis imbroglio is really about separation of powers. Basically, she didn't break the law by ignoring or defying Obergefell. She basically violated the separation of powers by giving herself discretionary authority not granted her (as an executive-branch functionary) by the legislature, and usurping the legislative and judicial prerogative to determine who is eligible for civil marriage in Kentucky and in the U.S. The Obergefell decision didn't affect her statutory duty to issue marriage licenses to eligible couples; it merely expanded the scope of eligibility, which as an administrative functionary is none of her concern. Huckabee is actually half-right, in that same-sex marriage is not "the law of the land" to the extent that states can stop issuing marriage licenses altogether. That, of course, is up to state legislatures and not individual administrative functionaries like Kim Davis. The "law of the land" is a bit more complex and nuanced, viz., states that issue marriage licenses to opposite-sex couples must also issue them to similarly-situated same-sex couples. Now, chances are good that Huckabee understands all this, and is pandering to people who don't understand it and don't want to understand it by coming up with a plausible-sounding (plausible, at least, to non-lawyers and non-legal-experts) explanation for why they don't have to accept same-sex marriage, why they don't have to admit that they've been wrong about it all along, why they don't have to acknowledge that their "opposition" was based on nothing but animus against either the LGBT community, their supporters and allies, or both. Because, of course, "[b]eing a victim is more enthralling than being told they're irrelevant."

By: i_a_c

i_a_c — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 23:18:00 +0000

Huckabee doesn’t believe this bullshit. His sole motive is to whip all the evangelicals into a frenzy. He’s a complete fraud now.

By: Christopher Foxx

Christopher Foxx — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 21:15:00 +0000

“The idea that they’re being persecuted in Obama’s America is far more sexy than being told the modern electorate has no appetite for codifying discrimination. Being a victim is more enthralling”

Because it’s far more easier. Being a victim means you don’t have to do anything to fix your situation. You don’t have to figure out what to do to fix things, and you don’t have to then take action.

And conservatives are very lazy.