The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
Easy to say as a man from afar. Can only imagine how women and minorities feel in these states.
Justifiably upset and worried i’d imagine.
But that’s still a long way from the break down of the federal system and the formation of Gilead.
You’re over-reacting
I don't think so, when you look at the direction of travel. Do I think it is the most likely outcome? No. Do I think that it could happen and is it sufficiently bad to warrant genuine fear and aggressive push-back? Yes, absolutely. Anyone who thinks American democracy and liberty are safe really isn't paying attention.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
And yet crossing State lines to commit an offence is a pretty fundamental concept in US Federal law, specifically in cases involving minors. I wouldn't be so confident.
Isn’t that concept simply to allow the Feds to enforce Federal Law, because two States are involved.
So a murder is an issue for the State where it happened to deal with, but someone crossing State lines to commit a murder means that the FBI can investigate it?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
Yes, that sort of thing. She had none of Bill's charm even if she was less sexually incontinent.
He might not have played away if she had been more like him!
Tut-tut. 'Man is unfaithful; it must be the woman's fault.'
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Really? That is the only alternative? If they had, say, 26 times as much power as California voters, they would end up completely ignored — is that what you are saying?
Wyoming voters get more power than Utah voters too. Why should they? Are you saying that’s because Wyoming voters would otherwise be ignored compared to Utahns?
Why should the voters of Rochester, NY be ignored? Rochester has roughly half the population of Wyoming. Wyoming gets 2 Senators. Rochester doesn’t get its own Senator.
What is magical about being in Wyoming that we have to give people 70 times as much Senatorial voting power so that they’re not ignored?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Yes, same applies to Labour. It also applies to the Greens, who are getting an awfully free ride in all this progressive alliance stuff. What the hell were they doing campaigning in those by-elections, and countless local elections where their active intervention handed the seats to the Tories? Someone needs to tell them that if they want tactical alliances to favour them in some places (and they very much do) then some restraint is needed elsewhere.
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
Intrigued as to how this plays out in Cheadle and Hazel Grove, where tactical voting would hand the seats to the LDs, but the antipathy between Stockport's Labour and LDs is such that Labour members canvas with the Tories to keep the yellows out.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
If the good people of Wokingham have not yet felt revulsion at voting for John Redwood, they never will. He's like a malicious version of Mr Spock who no doubt took great delight in pulling the wings off dragonflies when he was a child.
Wokingham summarises the problem perfectly. In 2010 and 2015 Redwood got over half the vote, polling almost four times what the Labour candidate got - and nearly five times the LDs. In 2019, he got less than the combined Green/LD.Labs, and the LDs were in second place - with four fifths of Redwood's vote - so that any vote for the Labour candidate helped keep Redwood in office.
That wasn't just Corbyn and Brexit: it was the remarkable rebirth of LD support throughout the Thames Valley, leading by 2021 to the LDs controlling Oxfordshire County - and in 2022, anti-Tories controlling four out of five Districts in Oxfordshire. Almost the whole of the Thames Valley - indeed most of the belt from Cambridge to Bristol - is now stuffed with potential LD Parliamentary targets and local Districts and Counties either run by LD-controlled anti-Tory alliances or real likelihoods of moving that way in 2024/2025.
Johnson helps. But so do demographics, the damage Osborne's cuts in 2010 did to semi-rural England and the collapse of traditional Tory activism throughout southern England.
Mike's argument that the LDs probably don't have the resources to target 50 or more seats at the next GE sounds fine. But what if 50 or more seats nationally will - like Wokingham - move to almost any LD or Starmerite Labour candidate if they're intelligently selected, well presented and don't have an idiot LD or Labour opponent wasting resources campaigning against them?
Talking of the Western mountain states and Roe vs Wade, I had one of those enlightening conversations this weekend with an American couple who've moved to London from Idaho, with no wish to return due to what happened last week among other things.
For all that we think the UK is a global laughing stock and economic basket case that nobody would get close to, conversations like this are a reminder most people are acutely aware of the failings of their own country but know little and care less about the goings on in the rest of the world. Clearly not all Americans have been reading NYT articles about the lawless knife crime ridden cesspit of London.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Really? That is the only alternative? If they had, say, 26 times as much power as California voters, they would end up completely ignored — is that what you are saying?
Wyoming voters get more power than Utah voters too. Why should they? Are you saying that’s because Wyoming voters would otherwise be ignored compared to Utahns?
Why should the voters of Rochester, NY be ignored? Rochester has roughly half the population of Wyoming. Wyoming gets 2 Senators. Rochester doesn’t get its own Senator.
What is magical about being in Wyoming that we have to give people 70 times as much Senatorial voting power so that they’re not ignored?
My inclination is to agree with you, because why do arbitrary geographic boundaries hold such significance (so arbitrary some boundaries are literal straight lines) to representational authority, why is there not at least a minimum population for a state or something, but it's not like that has not been the case from the start and it does not seem seriously challenged.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
No it doesn't. Any change (and I'm not holding my breath) would mean that a vote in rural Kansas is worth the same as a vote in downtown LA.
At present, there is very little point in either party campaigning in either state, as Kansas will vote Republican in a Presidential election, and California Democrat (or, in the extraordinary case where they don't, it's because it's a crazy landslide election where the winning party doesn't need them).
Kansas as a state can be said to punch above its weight compared with California, but only in the specific sense that there are many fewer voters per electoral vote. However, it doesn't mean Presidential candidates make a special effort to campaign or appeal to voters in Kansas, since the outcome there isn't in any doubt. They don't - their residents are every bit as sidelined as those in large, safe Democrat states.
Yeah, but States change party with remarkable regularity. Missouri was a swing state, before it wasn't. The Rust Belt was reliably Democratic, before it wasn't. And California had no shortage of Republicans in the past.
It is a mistake to think that current State alignments are somehow immutable.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Sounds a bit like a Green or Lib Dem voter in the UK
If the good people of Wokingham have not yet felt revulsion at voting for John Redwood, they never will. He's like a malicious version of Mr Spock who no doubt took great delight in pulling the wings off dragonflies when he was a child.
Wokingham summarises the problem perfectly. In 2010 and 2015 Redwood got over half the vote, polling almost four times what the Labour candidate got - and nearly five times the LDs. In 2019, he got less than the combined Green/LD.Labs, and the LDs were in second place - with four fifths of Redwood's vote - so that any vote for the Labour candidate helped keep Redwood in office.
That wasn't just Corbyn and Brexit: it was the remarkable rebirth of LD support throughout the Thames Valley, leading by 2021 to the LDs controlling Oxfordshire County - and in 2022, anti-Tories controlling four out of five Districts in Oxfordshire. Almost the whole of the Thames Valley - indeed most of the belt from Cambridge to Bristol - is now stuffed with potential LD Parliamentary targets and local Districts and Counties either run by LD-controlled anti-Tory alliances or real likelihoods of moving that way in 2024/2025.
Johnson helps. But so do demographics, the damage Osborne's cuts in 2010 did to semi-rural England and the collapse of traditional Tory activism throughout southern England.
Mike's argument that the LDs probably don't have the resources to target 50 or more seats at the next GE sounds fine. But what if 50 or more seats nationally will - like Wokingham - move to almost any LD or Starmerite Labour candidate if they're intelligently selected, well presented and don't have an idiot LD or Labour opponent wasting resources campaigning against them?
Interesting point on the corridor of potential LD targets. People love a new label, it's the Liberal Corridor (if it forms).
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Even now I still understand and probably support this set-up. Its not democratic for a state or states plural to be outvoted by their larger neighbours. Supposedly they are a union, but its federal structure is sliding towards being confederal.
Ultimately its back down to how compatible one group of states finds the attitudes and behaviours of another group of states. And they are increasingly far apart.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
They should replicate it here: make the House of Lords an elected second chamber, beef up its powers significantly, and split the seats equally four ways between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
I suppose it depends on how sincere the conservative literalism is, and how much it was a convenient rationalisation for something that some people just really really wanted to do.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
Just appeared on Facebook: something about a Personal Responsibility Act. if abortion is unavailable then using DNA as a verification fathers should be required to support the child right through to adulthood including any medical costs incurred along the way! The child will also have a right to the fathers estate!
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
But the NY state demos doesn't want it.
Exactly. That's why the demos not the courts is the right way to run democracy. The SC's ludicrous view on 'the right to bear arms' is of course a scandal.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
How many of those have switched from saying it wouldn't happen to defending it ?
The stuff going on in America is just the product of extreme polarisation and best understood that way. Both sides (left and right) are extremely misguided and pursue insane policies and they goad each other in to more and more stupid policies. It is really a question of which dystopia is more benign, and for me at least it is a very difficult one to answer.
I think that’s wrong. We have one side plotting coups and almost succeeding, and with a large amount of supposedly ‘Moderate’ Republicans refusing to disavow a man and a movement that might very well succeed in not certifying an election in the future. That’s setting aside Roe v Wade.
Then we have another side who, depending on one’s point of view, might bang on too much about Trans people or Climate Change or whatever, but aren’t that dissimilar from the main UK parties economically, socially etc.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
But the NY state demos doesn't want it.
Exactly. That's why the demos not the courts is the right way to run democracy. The SC's ludicrous view on 'the right to bear arms' is of course a scandal.
The New York law strike down is particularly egregious, because this wasn't some new law designed to test the limits of the Second amendment, but dated back to the early 20th Century.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
Like more general arguments about liberal democracy people can be pretty complacent about things which could never happen anymore.
Truth is a committed minority can often win out over uncertain or divided majorities. Yes, that means we will worry overmuch sometimes, about things which are quite low probability, but sometimes we will need to fight to prevent even a low probability development due to the potential risks if it does occur. It won't be popular, but that's part of why more resistance and contemplation is needed on some trans and, yes, even the woke stuff, even though many of the complainers on the latter especially are overblowing it.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
In the UK, the power is (constitutionally) with the Crown.
It’s also why MPs need constant reminding that they are the servants of the people, and not the masters of them.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
Of its time, no. Except for the massive flaw in the difficulty of amending it.
As the number of States has increased, so has the difficulty of amending the Constitution.
It’s difficult to know if this is accidental or deliberate, as the framers were advocates of a smaller federal structure and more powers residing with the States themselves.
What has been noticable, until now, was the unwillingness of the politicians to even suggest amendments, or to pass legislation backing up SC judgements. Perhaps we will start to see this from Democrats, as the court is likely to disagree with their opinions of contentious issues.
Oh, and if you’re Stephen Breyer (aged 83), Sonia Sotomayor (68) or Elena Kagan (62), you’ve got six months to resign and see your successor appointed by Biden and a Democrat Senate. Don’t “Do an RBG”.
Attempts to pass further amendments are not surprisingly seen as futile.
I've mentioned it often before, but consider the ERA. The text is about as simple and unexceptionable as possible: "ARTICLE —
"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
"Sec. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
"Sec. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."
It was passed by two thirds majority of both Houses, and supported by three presidents (of both parties). 35 states voted to ratify it, but it is still not law, fifty years later.
That would be a good one for Dems to push. Need 3 more states (assuming rest still valid). Difficult to argue against (or politically costly at least)
But presumably it could then protect the right of women to travel to another state for whatever lawful purpose they wish.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
I have 2 daughters and a wife all of whom I love dearly. I do not regard their bodies as vessels for another, over which they have no autonomy, no right to choose, even when their physical or mental health is at risk. This is the underlying premise of the Handmaid's tale and in many parts of the US, an actual reality. I do not think it is possible to overreact to this to be honest.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
Yes, let's get in now before the herd -
"The Handmaid's Tale was a warning not an instruction manual."
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The more fundamental problem is that the people relying on explicit reference within the constitution are surely aware that many things they like are probably not explicit within it either, given the different contexts from when it was written and now, yet I doubt they let that stop them when it is convenient.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Sounds a bit like a Green or Lib Dem voter in the UK
They don't help themselves by voting "tactically" to keep the Tories out.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
I have to say I found the exchange of posts from @hyufd, @StillWaters and @PClipp really refreshing this morning. Excellent stuff guys.
b) Excellent response by @StillWaters in distilling the issues with it
c) Excellent exchange between @PClipp and @StillWaters which was very logical and very polite all around
d) And most importantly all against expectations (@hyufd not known for telling jokes, @StillWaters more from the right [I think], and @PClipp a liberal)
From my point of view (being from the Jeremy Clarkson wing of the LDs) I am not opposed to politically incorrect jokes that rely on stereotypes. I think it is all down to who is telling them and it is usually clear whether the person telling them is a bigot or just out for a laugh.
So I enjoyed @hyufd's joke and agree with @PClipp but I also found @StillWaters comments very persuasive.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Yes, same applies to Labour. It also applies to the Greens, who are getting an awfully free ride in all this progressive alliance stuff. What the hell were they doing campaigning in those by-elections, and countless local elections where their active intervention handed the seats to the Tories? Someone needs to tell them that if they want tactical alliances to favour them in some places (and they very much do) then some restraint is needed elsewhere.
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
Intrigued as to how this plays out in Cheadle and Hazel Grove, where tactical voting would hand the seats to the LDs, but the antipathy between Stockport's Labour and LDs is such that Labour members canvas with the Tories to keep the yellows out.
It's an interesting question to what extent party activity really influences tactical voting, or whether this is largely just voters making their own minds up.
On the surface the last 2 byelection results were helped by Labour and the Lib Dems holding off in the other's target, but in reality the LDs were nowhere in Wakefield anyway, and public opinion seemed quickly to land on tactical voting for them in T&H. North Shropshire was a useful case study of where the local Labour party did its damndest to muddy the waters and fought hard for the seat, yet the voters knew what to do and delivered a huge swing to the Lib Dems.
I could party coordination having a marginal impact in some three way marginals where there's no obvious main challenger, but they'll never agree in those constituencies anyway.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
& SCOTUS has huge power because the judges there get to decide how to interpret the constitution. Sometimes the power of interpretation massively helps the liberal side (Roe vs Wade original decision), sometimes the conservatives (NY gun case). It's a power both sides are very happy for SCOTUS to have when the decision goes their way.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
I think interstate commerce is the fundamental real principle of the union. Without that congress has no power whatsoever.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
Let's hope conjugal 'rights' is not in the constitution.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
An inevitable consequence of democracy is that the right to vote for whoever you want means there is no right to vote for a winner.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Really? That is the only alternative? If they had, say, 26 times as much power as California voters, they would end up completely ignored — is that what you are saying?
Wyoming voters get more power than Utah voters too. Why should they? Are you saying that’s because Wyoming voters would otherwise be ignored compared to Utahns?
Why should the voters of Rochester, NY be ignored? Rochester has roughly half the population of Wyoming. Wyoming gets 2 Senators. Rochester doesn’t get its own Senator.
What is magical about being in Wyoming that we have to give people 70 times as much Senatorial voting power so that they’re not ignored?
My inclination is to agree with you, because why do arbitrary geographic boundaries hold such significance (so arbitrary some boundaries are literal straight lines) to representational authority, why is there not at least a minimum population for a state or something, but it's not like that has not been the case from the start and it does not seem seriously challenged.
The differentials in population size were much smaller at the start.
The nature of the modern state has evolved. Federalism that worked in the 18th century doesn't work now.
The impact of the disproportionality has increased greatly in recent decades. In the 1950s, it was still disproportionate, but the GOP and the Dems did about as well in small states as in large states so it cancelled out. Nowadays, the Republican vote is more concentrated in smaller states, and the Democrat vote in large states.
It has often been challenged. The problem is that it's very difficult to change, and those with power are reluctant to give it up. Wyoming turkeys are not going to vote for Christmas.
Unwritten conventions helped, but the modern Republican party has ripped them up. We've seen radical changes in the filibuster. Then there was the nonsense over Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Democratic systems need regular servicing, like your boiler. That is difficult in a highly partisan context. When one party in that highly partisan context is very dependent on the flaws in the democracy as they benefit from them, it's a mess.
But we should remember the US is a very young democracy. It's only really been one since 1965.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
I have 2 daughters and a wife all of whom I love dearly. I do not regard their bodies as vessels for another, over which they have no autonomy, no right to choose, even when their physical or mental health is at risk. This is the underlying premise of the Handmaid's tale and in many parts of the US, an actual reality. I do not think it is possible to overreact to this to be honest.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
I think interstate commerce is the fundamental real principle of the union. Without that congress has no power whatsoever.
The point I was making earlier. And, in the US going to a pro-choice state from your benighted, medieval hell hole involves a commercial transaction for the purchase of a service.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I have quite a bit more sympathy with the current position at the Senate level. The US is a federal system and the compromise was a relatively proportionate House checked by a Senate that would protect the rights of states, including smaller ones. That's well established and, whilst it looks a bit odd from here in the UK, that's because we simply don't have that type of system (although we have historically put a thumb on the scales in the interests of pre-devolution Scotland and Wales, and still do for highlands and islands).
The US imbalance seems excessive in the sense that having an identical number of senators regardless of state size doesn't feel like a judicious thumb on the scales - it would feel a bit fairer, say, if Wyoming's interests were protected by a single senator and California and Texas had one or two more. But it isn't going to happen in the near future.
But the argument is really hard to sustain for Presidential elections, as voters are in fact electing one President, not one to represent the interests of the rural mid-west, one for the east coast, one for the west and so on. So it just isn't like the Senate (or House) where an election results in a group of people representing different interests and different areas. Where you have a single winner, it's hard to explain why individuals' votes have different values.
And, as noted below, it doesn't actually protect Wyoming and its residents. They are so reliably Republican voting at Presidential level that NOBODY (neither Democrat NOR Republican) actually has any incentive to court their vote at a Presidential election. So whilst it can contribute to someone with a majority of the national vote doesn't become President, it doesn't help Wyoming - it means candidates spend their whole time appealing to a handful of slightly arbitrary "swing states" several of which at the moment, as it happens, are fairly large states with very substantial urban populations.
This is also too easily framed as Democrat/Republican as the two losers from the system were Gore and Clinton. If you go into the figures, you can quite easily see a scenario where Romney or McCain had secured the additional votes to top the national poll against Obama, but where Obama would have won the presidency. This is true for Romney in particular - he was a shade over 4% off in the national vote. Had he got the additional support on a uniform national swing, he'd have picked up Florida, Ohio and Virginia - big states with 60 electoral college votes in total... and Obama would have won 272-266. He'd have required a further swing to be in contention in Colorado (the tipping point state at that election).
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Yes, same applies to Labour. It also applies to the Greens, who are getting an awfully free ride in all this progressive alliance stuff. What the hell were they doing campaigning in those by-elections, and countless local elections where their active intervention handed the seats to the Tories? Someone needs to tell them that if they want tactical alliances to favour them in some places (and they very much do) then some restraint is needed elsewhere.
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
Intrigued as to how this plays out in Cheadle and Hazel Grove, where tactical voting would hand the seats to the LDs, but the antipathy between Stockport's Labour and LDs is such that Labour members canvas with the Tories to keep the yellows out.
It's an interesting question to what extent party activity really influences tactical voting, or whether this is largely just voters making their own minds up.
On the surface the last 2 byelection results were helped by Labour and the Lib Dems holding off in the other's target, but in reality the LDs were nowhere in Wakefield anyway, and public opinion seemed quickly to land on tactical voting for them in T&H. North Shropshire was a useful case study of where the local Labour party did its damndest to muddy the waters and fought hard for the seat, yet the voters knew what to do and delivered a huge swing to the Lib Dems.
I could party coordination having a marginal impact in some three way marginals where there's no obvious main challenger, but they'll never agree in those constituencies anyway.
Whisper it, but apart from making sure your known supporters turn out, the actions of individual local activists rarely have much effect on the big picture result.
(Hyperlocal Focus Team stuff might be an exception, but even that doesn't really viably scale.)
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Sounds a bit like a Green or Lib Dem voter in the UK
They don't help themselves by voting "tactically" to keep the Tories out.
No indeed. Much better from the Tories' perspective if they would just stop 'cheating' and continue to waste their votes indefinitely.
How do you think such voters would 'help themselves' if they avoided tactical voting?
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
All are equally subordinate to the UK.
Definitely not true. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to have their own parliaments and governments.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
I haven’t read the full concurrence. What did he say about it?
This, which to me (FWIW) was unpersuasive, in the light of the majority opinion. ...as I see it, some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter. For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel. May a State retroactively impose liability or punishment for an abortion that occurred before today’s decision takes effect? In my view, the answer is no based on the Due Process Clause or the Ex Post Facto Clause. Cf. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347 (1964)...
I don't, for example, see how the 4th Amendment gives rise to a constitutional right to travel between states if it does not give right to a woman's right to autonomy in medical decisions.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
You’re right. America is not a democracy. It’s a republic.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
& SCOTUS has huge power because the judges there get to decide how to interpret the constitution. Sometimes the power of interpretation massively helps the liberal side (Roe vs Wade original decision), sometimes the conservatives (NY gun case). It's a power both sides are very happy for SCOTUS to have when the decision goes their way.
Good point. The people who today are decrying the court for their bias, were happy when the Obergefell v Hodges decision came down, only seven years ago this week.
The Supreme Court has always been political, and there’s been a large group of Republicans working for decades to see this week’s headlines. Many conservatives disliked Trump, but voted for him purely because of his commitment to putting more conservatives on the Court. Liberals now need to think the same way, starting with at least two of the three liberal Justices retiring.
I must agree with the people on here highlighting the danger the US is in when it comes to democratic backsliding.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
I have to say I found the exchange of posts from @hyufd, @StillWaters and @PClipp really refreshing this morning. Excellent stuff guys.
b) Excellent response by @StillWaters in distilling the issues with it
c) Excellent exchange between @PClipp and @StillWaters which was very logical and very polite all around
d) And most importantly all against expectations (@hyufd not known for telling jokes, @StillWaters more from the right [I think], and @PClipp a liberal)
From my point of view (being from the Jeremy Clarkson wing of the LDs) I am not opposed to politically incorrect jokes that rely on stereotypes. I think it is all down to who is telling them and it is usually clear whether the person telling them is a bigot or just out for a laugh.
So I enjoyed @hyufd's joke and agree with @PClipp but I also found @StillWaters comments very persuasive.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Sounds a bit like a Green or Lib Dem voter in the UK
They don't help themselves by voting "tactically" to keep the Tories out.
No indeed. Much better from the Tories' perspective if they would just stop 'cheating' and continue to waste their votes indefinitely.
How do you think such voters would 'help themselves' if they avoided tactical voting?
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Yes, same applies to Labour. It also applies to the Greens, who are getting an awfully free ride in all this progressive alliance stuff. What the hell were they doing campaigning in those by-elections, and countless local elections where their active intervention handed the seats to the Tories? Someone needs to tell them that if they want tactical alliances to favour them in some places (and they very much do) then some restraint is needed elsewhere.
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
Intrigued as to how this plays out in Cheadle and Hazel Grove, where tactical voting would hand the seats to the LDs, but the antipathy between Stockport's Labour and LDs is such that Labour members canvas with the Tories to keep the yellows out.
It's an interesting question to what extent party activity really influences tactical voting, or whether this is largely just voters making their own minds up.
On the surface the last 2 byelection results were helped by Labour and the Lib Dems holding off in the other's target, but in reality the LDs were nowhere in Wakefield anyway, and public opinion seemed quickly to land on tactical voting for them in T&H. North Shropshire was a useful case study of where the local Labour party did its damndest to muddy the waters and fought hard for the seat, yet the voters knew what to do and delivered a huge swing to the Lib Dems.
I could party coordination having a marginal impact in some three way marginals where there's no obvious main challenger, but they'll never agree in those constituencies anyway.
Whisper it, but apart from making sure your known supporters turn out, the actions of individual local activists rarely have much effect on the big picture result.
(Hyperlocal Focus Team stuff might be an exception, but even that doesn't really viably scale.)
They don't like hearing it, but I'd be pretty confident many examples can be found where places were won unexpectedly without any meaningful activist involvement, or lost despite a great deal of it (both against the general level of support).
Even in seats with lots of activity most people will not have contacted beyond a leaflet.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
I have to say I found the exchange of posts from hyufd, StillWaters and PClipp really refreshing this morning. Excellent stuff guys.
a) Cracking joke by hyufd
b) Excellent response by StillWaters in distilling the issues with it
c) Excellent exchange between PClipp and StillWaters which was very logical and very polite all around
d) And most importantly all against expectations (hyufd not known for telling jokes, @StillWaters more from the right [I think], and PClipp a liberal)
From my point of view (being from the Jeremy Clarkson wing of the LDs) I am not opposed to politically incorrect jokes that rely on stereotypes. I think it is all down to who is telling them and it is usually clear whether the person telling them is a bigot or just out for a laugh.
So I enjoyed hyufd's joke and agree with PClipp but I also found StillWaters comments very persuasive.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
All are equally subordinate to the UK.
Definitely not true. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to have their own parliaments and governments.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
That's because in the West over the past 100 years we've concluded that women are not second class citizens.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
Your last point is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
Until recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to bear arms is within the context of a well-regulated militia. The recent position that there is a general right to bear arms more broadly is judicial activism.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
If it becomes illegal to travel out of state for an abortion then the state has extended its jurisdiction into states where abortion is intheory legal to make it illegal for some women to have an abortion there. It would be the exact parallel to Dred Scott, which meant that slaves who escaped to free states were still slaves, ie extending slavery to the free states. It doesn't matter what excuse a woman may find to travel, if prosecutors find evidence that she had an abortion that would stand up in court then she faces a murder charge.
Your argument is “if I am right then I am right”.
The SC would absolutely protect the interstate commerce clause. Otherwise Congress has virtually no power outside of wartime - everything it does is based on that principle.
If a women travels for a valid reason to another state, and does not break the laws of that state while she is there, she can’t be prosecuted for travelling or under (say) the laws of Texas for actions that are legal in Vermont.
Unwritten conventions helped, but the modern Republican party has ripped them up. We've seen radical changes in the filibuster. Then there was the nonsense over Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.
They certainly have, the modern GOP simply doesn't give a monkeys about any sort of "fairness". They just want power at any cost. The shift from Reaganism to Trumpism is probably the most dangerous development in recent times for the USA. Trump's attempted putsch didn't work but some of the stuff coming out of state courts from elected GOP judges was way over the line.
Check out the dissent in this one - utterly mind blowing
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
But the NY state demos doesn't want it.
Exactly. That's why the demos not the courts is the right way to run democracy. The SC's ludicrous view on 'the right to bear arms' is of course a scandal.
The New York law strike down is particularly egregious, because this wasn't some new law designed to test the limits of the Second amendment, but dated back to the early 20th Century.
This seems to me to be the SC problem whoever is in the ascendency. With both abortion and gun laws it is ridiculous to suggest that the constitution can deal properly with the detail.
A moderate might consider this: the UK manages fine with a legal system (not court rulings) which bans and criminalises outright both abortion and gun possession/use EXCEPT in particular circumstances where a statutory exception applies, and which parliament can change.
In no case in the UK can a private individual simply make the decision for themselves.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
On the current composition of the court, it's pretty certain that Roberts would side with Kavanaugh and the three liberals on this, though.
Barrett, Alito and Thomas would be up for any shit along those lines; Gorsuch could go either way.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
It wouldn't happen in the Commons as the House of Representatives is the US equivalent of the House of Commons.
However I could perfectly see a scenario where a future elected Senate replaced the House of Lords with Wales and Northern Ireland and the East of England getting the same number of Senators as London, the South East and North West despite much smaller populations.
Plus also don't forget Republican Texas has far more EC votes and Representatives than Democrat Vermont too but Vermont has 2 Senators just like Texas has
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
Your last point is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
It’s often been suggested that the trans rights stuff started the day after the Obergefell ruling in 2015 - the activist groups achieved one aim and moved on to the next one. Will those activists now go back to fighting for abortion rights, is an interesting question.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
I think interstate commerce is the fundamental real principle of the union. Without that congress has no power whatsoever.
The point I was making earlier. And, in the US going to a pro-choice state from your benighted, medieval hell hole involves a commercial transaction for the purchase of a service.
And maybe just maybe commerce and capitalism might end up being part of the solution.
Why is liberal democracy so historically successful? At least partly because it has constistently outgunned other systems economically. People in liberal democracies are richer, better educated, live longer, have better infrastructure and services than those in authoritarian regimes.
This premise has been threatened frequently over the years, by the the petro-states of the gulf in the 70s and more recently, by Russia until it started committing geopolitical suicide from 2008 onwards, and by China (though the latter is starting to look a little more shaky).
I doubt the Roe-vs-Wade decision and some restrictions on abortion will be enough to chill investment or migration in the red states, after all Poland has been booming despite Christian authoritarian rule, but the next phase as certain states go fully down the rabbit hole could well see some demographic flight. I think there is a way to go until even Alabama is up there with Saudi or Iran but I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of economic threshold is crossed in due course.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
That's because in the West over the past 100 years we've concluded that women are not second class citizens.
It used to be claimed that the US was a beacon of enlightenment, freedom and hope in a generally dark world. If that were ever true (and I could easily argue it was a myth) then it certainly isn't now. The US is riddled with superstition and ignorance and in significant parts is not much better than the oppressive regimes of Islam.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
Or, they re-read it and realised it doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms in pursuance of participation in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed".
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
As an aside, there is a worrying tendency for some feminists to argue as if women could not enjoy sex, so must always have been coerced.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
Even without a deep knowledge of the constitution it seems weird that is even being threatened and needs defending. One would think the whole point of having power to do what you want on an issue in your state is that other states cannot control your actions vis the backdoor.
But as rochdale suggests it will surely be tested. The fervour of the winners has to find a new challenge.
The point is that the Dobbs decisions both casts aside stare decisis (the certainty of binding precedent), and casts doubts on any rights granted by earlier decisions of the court, which are not based on rights specifically described in the text of the Constitution.
That is why the decision - and its reasoning - are so unsettling. The concurrences written by Roberts and Kavanaugh are attempts to assuage some of the doubt which the majority decision creates.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
Your last point is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
It’s often been suggested that the trans rights stuff started the day after the Obergefell ruling in 2015 - the activist groups achieved one aim and moved on to the next one. Will those activists now go back to fighting for abortion rights, is an interesting question.
Well, we'll see.
I always think there is more passion on whichever side doesn't have what they want. So Eurosceptics had the fervour when Britain was in the EU, while Remainers were practically catatonic.
We will also start to see some terrible stories out of the US, that will help swing the pendulum the other way. People forget that there will be some obvious and terrible tragedies - most commonly suicide - that happen when abortion is broadly prohibited.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
Sounds a bit like a Green or Lib Dem voter in the UK
They don't help themselves by voting "tactically" to keep the Tories out.
No indeed. Much better from the Tories' perspective if they would just stop 'cheating' and continue to waste their votes indefinitely.
How do you think such voters would 'help themselves' if they avoided tactical voting?
Just look at Wakefield - if Lib Dem supporters had actually voted Lib Dem instead of "tactically" Labour at recent general elections, there could have been more of a vote for the LDs to build on.
Voting honestly for your actual first choice is never a waste.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Hampshire's a swing state now, though. Tories campaigning in Mansfield or Thurrock perhaps.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
I must agree with the people on here highlighting the danger the US is in when it comes to democratic backsliding.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
Everyone who facilitated, supported or simply failed to act to prevent Jan6th should, in my view, be banned from political office for life, as an absolute minimum. Those who instigated it really should be in jail. The inability of American law and politics to properly address this shows a democracy in peril.
Unwritten conventions helped, but the modern Republican party has ripped them up. We've seen radical changes in the filibuster. Then there was the nonsense over Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.
They certainly have, the modern GOP simply doesn't give a monkeys about any sort of "fairness". They just want power at any cost. The shift from Reaganism to Trumpism is probably the most dangerous development in recent times for the USA. Trump's attempted putsch didn't work but some of the stuff coming out of state courts from elected GOP judges was way over the line.
Check out the dissent in this one - utterly mind blowing
81 My conclusion that errors in the certification of absentee ballots require discarding those ballots is consistent with our precedent.
At one point
To be clear, I am not interested in a particular outcome. I am interested in the court fulfilling its constitutional responsibility.
Sure you are, sure you are.
(Someone may counter that the other side are doing that, which this dissenter alleges, but the dozens upon dozens of failed challenges across many states inluding very conservative ones, shows it would fair to suggest the evidence leads to the other conclusion)
On the Supreme Court: I'm old enough to remember when referring to judges as 'enemies of the people' was frowned upon. In social media it seems to be open season on Clarence Thomas in particular. I disagree with their decision in a personal sense but can understand it constitutionally, though as others have pointed out, if abortion laws can vary from state to state gun laws ought to be allowed to as well, given the words of the constitution ('well-regulated militia') are open to flexible interpretation.
I feel like a lot of the issues being devolved to state level would help to diffuse the rather poisonous national debate in the USA, but it is difficult to see how this gets accomplished any time soon, as whichever party is elected to the presidency is constantly pressured by its base to enact as much as possible on the federal level, partly to 'get one over' on the other side.
What I don't understand is how large parts of America have stayed so religious whilst almost the entire rest of the West has strongly moved in a secular direction.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
I have 2 daughters and a wife all of whom I love dearly. I do not regard their bodies as vessels for another, over which they have no autonomy, no right to choose, even when their physical or mental health is at risk. This is the underlying premise of the Handmaid's tale and in many parts of the US, an actual reality. I do not think it is possible to overreact to this to be honest.
Exactly. Roe isn't the beginning and end of this. We have states where they think an abortion doctor should be prosecuted and receive a bigger sentence than the person who raped the woman seeking an abortion.
They're going to war against contraception. Women shouldn't be allowed to use any. Conception is God's will and the woman will submit to the man. Not hysteria - its what is happening legally in some states legislatures.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
Islam is happier with abortion than Catholicism in general. Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East have some limits on abortion, but rarely ban in outright. If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_countries and look at the first column, abortion is only completely prohibited in Catholic countries.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
Or, they re-read it and realised it doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms in pursuance of participation in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed".
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
So, 12 years after the Second Amendment was written, the Supreme Court had no idea what the drafters meant, but *now* we understand it.
Do you really believe that?
1791. That's when the Second Amendment was passed. And the cases started early - certainly while its drafters were alive - and pretty much all respect the fact that the US was federal system, that the Second Amendment was clear that it was in the context of a "well regulated militia", and gave States a degree of latitude.
If the SC had moved further and further over time, that would be one thing. But it did not. For close to 200 hundred years - starting just 12 years from drafting - it took it as read that the drafters included "well regulated militia" for a reason.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
On the Supreme Court: I'm old enough to remember when referring to judges as 'enemies of the people' was frowned upon. In social media it seems to be open season on Clarence Thomas in particular. I disagree with their decision in a personal sense but can understand it constitutionally, though as others have pointed out, if abortion laws can vary from state to state gun laws ought to be allowed to as well, given the words of the constitution ('well-regulated militia') are open to flexible interpretation.
I feel like a lot of the issues being devolved to state level would help to diffuse the rather poisonous national debate in the USA, but it is difficult to see how this gets accomplished any time soon, as whichever party is elected to the presidency is constantly pressured by its base to enact as much as possible on the federal level, partly to 'get one over' on the other side.
I don't agree that even the US Supreme Court Justices should be labelled as enemies of the people. But one key difference between there and here is our judges are not explicitly, openly political in their appointment and rulings.
They are politicians. Usually more intelligent and erudite politicians, and they will even go against their party position more often than the elected, but they are still very clearly acting with their political goals principally in mind (and this is shown by the logical inconsistency of their decisions). It has been noted that it is not only conservative justices who act so.
So while such attacks can still be frowned upon, that they are both judges and politicians does blur the lines around acceptable criticism, since politicians have to accept sterner criticism. The Justices no doubt don't like that, they want to present as nothing but impartial arbiters of the law, but their own dissents at each others decisions frequently imply its all about poltiics and not law.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
Or, they re-read it and realised it doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms in pursuance of participation in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed".
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
The way the Supreme Court currently interprets it is as though the words "well-regulated militia" don't exist. But they do exist. They are there. Logically they should have some effect.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
Utah's attractions are almost entirely natural - and impressive, from the salt flats to Arches, Bryce and Zion Canyons and other geological wonders. There are also very wide roads in Salt Lake City, if you're into that sort of thing.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
An inevitable consequence of democracy is that the right to vote for whoever you want means there is no right to vote for a winner.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
Your whole premise, that it should be about winning and losing - rather than about effective representation and good government - is part of the problem.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
Or, they re-read it and realised it doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms in pursuance of participation in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed".
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
The way the Supreme Court currently interprets it is as though the words "well-regulated militia" don't exist. But they do exist. They are there. Logically they should have done effect.
Yes. What effect I do not know for sure, probably not as strictly as I would interpret it, but what do the Justices have to say about what the words mean? Even if they treat the words as if they don't exist surely they've at least come up with some legal jiggery-pokery to handwave why they do that?
Comments
So a murder is an issue for the State where it happened to deal with, but someone crossing State lines to commit a murder means that the FBI can investigate it?
Wyoming voters get more power than Utah voters too. Why should they? Are you saying that’s because Wyoming voters would otherwise be ignored compared to Utahns?
Why should the voters of Rochester, NY be ignored? Rochester has roughly half the population of Wyoming. Wyoming gets 2 Senators. Rochester doesn’t get its own Senator.
What is magical about being in Wyoming that we have to give people 70 times as much Senatorial voting power so that they’re not ignored?
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
That wasn't just Corbyn and Brexit: it was the remarkable rebirth of LD support throughout the Thames Valley, leading by 2021 to the LDs controlling Oxfordshire County - and in 2022, anti-Tories controlling four out of five Districts in Oxfordshire. Almost the whole of the Thames Valley - indeed most of the belt from Cambridge to Bristol - is now stuffed with potential LD Parliamentary targets and local Districts and Counties either run by LD-controlled anti-Tory alliances or real likelihoods of moving that way in 2024/2025.
Johnson helps. But so do demographics, the damage Osborne's cuts in 2010 did to semi-rural England and the collapse of traditional Tory activism throughout southern England.
Mike's argument that the LDs probably don't have the resources to target 50 or more seats at the next GE sounds fine. But what if 50 or more seats nationally will - like Wokingham - move to almost any LD or Starmerite Labour candidate if they're intelligently selected, well presented and don't have an idiot LD or Labour opponent wasting resources campaigning against them?
For all that we think the UK is a global laughing stock and economic basket case that nobody would get close to, conversations like this are a reminder most people are acutely aware of the failings of their own country but know little and care less about the goings on in the rest of the world. Clearly not all Americans have been reading NYT articles about the lawless knife crime ridden cesspit of London.
It is a mistake to think that current State alignments are somehow immutable.
Ultimately its back down to how compatible one group of states finds the attitudes and behaviours of another group of states. And they are increasingly far apart.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
We're about to find out.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion
2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice
3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact
and
4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
Cat, meet some pigeons
Then we have another side who, depending on one’s point of view, might bang on too much about Trans people or Climate Change or whatever, but aren’t that dissimilar from the main UK parties economically, socially etc.
Truth is a committed minority can often win out over uncertain or divided majorities. Yes, that means we will worry overmuch sometimes, about things which are quite low probability, but sometimes we will need to fight to prevent even a low probability development due to the potential risks if it does occur. It won't be popular, but that's part of why more resistance and contemplation is needed on some trans and, yes, even the woke stuff, even though many of the complainers on the latter especially are overblowing it.
It’s also why MPs need constant reminding that they are the servants of the people, and not the masters of them.
But presumably it could then protect the right of women to travel to another state for whatever lawful purpose they wish.
"The Handmaid's Tale was a warning not an instruction manual."
(GOP please note ...)
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
a) Cracking joke by @hyufd
b) Excellent response by @StillWaters in distilling the issues with it
c) Excellent exchange between @PClipp and @StillWaters which was very logical and very polite all around
d) And most importantly all against expectations (@hyufd not known for telling jokes, @StillWaters more from the right [I think], and @PClipp a liberal)
From my point of view (being from the Jeremy Clarkson wing of the LDs) I am not opposed to politically incorrect jokes that rely on stereotypes. I think it is all down to who is telling them and it is usually clear whether the person telling them is a bigot or just out for a laugh.
So I enjoyed @hyufd's joke and agree with @PClipp but I also found @StillWaters comments very persuasive.
On the surface the last 2 byelection results were helped by Labour and the Lib Dems holding off in the other's target, but in reality the LDs were nowhere in Wakefield anyway, and public opinion seemed quickly to land on tactical voting for them in T&H. North Shropshire was a useful case study of where the local Labour party did its damndest to muddy the waters and fought hard for the seat, yet the voters knew what to do and delivered a huge swing to the Lib Dems.
I could party coordination having a marginal impact in some three way marginals where there's no obvious main challenger, but they'll never agree in those constituencies anyway.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
The nature of the modern state has evolved. Federalism that worked in the 18th century doesn't work now.
The impact of the disproportionality has increased greatly in recent decades. In the 1950s, it was still disproportionate, but the GOP and the Dems did about as well in small states as in large states so it cancelled out. Nowadays, the Republican vote is more concentrated in smaller states, and the Democrat vote in large states.
It has often been challenged. The problem is that it's very difficult to change, and those with power are reluctant to give it up. Wyoming turkeys are not going to vote for Christmas.
Unwritten conventions helped, but the modern Republican party has ripped them up. We've seen radical changes in the filibuster. Then there was the nonsense over Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Democratic systems need regular servicing, like your boiler. That is difficult in a highly partisan context. When one party in that highly partisan context is very dependent on the flaws in the democracy as they benefit from them, it's a mess.
But we should remember the US is a very young democracy. It's only really been one since 1965.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
The US imbalance seems excessive in the sense that having an identical number of senators regardless of state size doesn't feel like a judicious thumb on the scales - it would feel a bit fairer, say, if Wyoming's interests were protected by a single senator and California and Texas had one or two more. But it isn't going to happen in the near future.
But the argument is really hard to sustain for Presidential elections, as voters are in fact electing one President, not one to represent the interests of the rural mid-west, one for the east coast, one for the west and so on. So it just isn't like the Senate (or House) where an election results in a group of people representing different interests and different areas. Where you have a single winner, it's hard to explain why individuals' votes have different values.
And, as noted below, it doesn't actually protect Wyoming and its residents. They are so reliably Republican voting at Presidential level that NOBODY (neither Democrat NOR Republican) actually has any incentive to court their vote at a Presidential election. So whilst it can contribute to someone with a majority of the national vote doesn't become President, it doesn't help Wyoming - it means candidates spend their whole time appealing to a handful of slightly arbitrary "swing states" several of which at the moment, as it happens, are fairly large states with very substantial urban populations.
This is also too easily framed as Democrat/Republican as the two losers from the system were Gore and Clinton. If you go into the figures, you can quite easily see a scenario where Romney or McCain had secured the additional votes to top the national poll against Obama, but where Obama would have won the presidency. This is true for Romney in particular - he was a shade over 4% off in the national vote. Had he got the additional support on a uniform national swing, he'd have picked up Florida, Ohio and Virginia - big states with 60 electoral college votes in total... and Obama would have won 272-266. He'd have required a further swing to be in contention in Colorado (the tipping point state at that election).
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
(Hyperlocal Focus Team stuff might be an exception, but even that doesn't really viably scale.)
How do you think such voters would 'help themselves' if they avoided tactical voting?
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
...as I see it, some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter. For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel. May a State retroactively impose liability or punishment for an abortion that occurred before today’s decision takes effect? In my view, the answer is no based on the Due Process Clause or the Ex Post Facto Clause. Cf. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347 (1964)...
I don't, for example, see how the 4th Amendment gives rise to a constitutional right to travel between states if it does not give right to a woman's right to autonomy in medical decisions.
The Supreme Court has always been political, and there’s been a large group of Republicans working for decades to see this week’s headlines. Many conservatives disliked Trump, but voted for him purely because of his commitment to putting more conservatives on the Court. Liberals now need to think the same way, starting with at least two of the three liberal Justices retiring.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
YOU HAVE ALL BE WARNED.
Even in seats with lots of activity most people will not have contacted beyond a leaflet.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
The SC would absolutely protect the interstate commerce clause. Otherwise Congress has virtually no power outside of wartime - everything it does is based on that principle.
If a women travels for a valid reason to another state, and does not break the laws of that state while she is there, she can’t be prosecuted for travelling or under (say) the laws of Texas for actions that are legal in Vermont.
Check out the dissent in this one - utterly mind blowing
https://law.justia.com/cases/wisconsin/supreme-court/2020/2020ap002038.html
81 My conclusion that errors in the certification of absentee ballots require discarding those ballots is consistent with our precedent.
A moderate might consider this: the UK manages fine with a legal system (not court rulings) which bans and criminalises outright both abortion and gun possession/use EXCEPT in particular circumstances where a statutory exception applies, and which parliament can change.
In no case in the UK can a private individual simply make the decision for themselves.
Barrett, Alito and Thomas would be up for any shit along those lines; Gorsuch could go either way.
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
However I could perfectly see a scenario where a future elected Senate replaced the House of Lords with Wales and Northern Ireland and the East of England getting the same number of Senators as London, the South East and North West despite much smaller populations.
Plus also don't forget Republican Texas has far more EC votes and Representatives than Democrat Vermont too but Vermont has 2 Senators just like Texas has
Why is liberal democracy so historically successful? At least partly because it has constistently outgunned other systems economically. People in liberal democracies are richer, better educated, live longer, have better infrastructure and services than those in authoritarian regimes.
This premise has been threatened frequently over the years, by the the petro-states of the gulf in the 70s and more recently, by Russia until it started committing geopolitical suicide from 2008 onwards, and by China (though the latter is starting to look a little more shaky).
I doubt the Roe-vs-Wade decision and some restrictions on abortion will be enough to chill investment or migration in the red states, after all Poland has been booming despite Christian authoritarian rule, but the next phase as certain states go fully down the rabbit hole could well see some demographic flight. I think there is a way to go until even Alabama is up there with Saudi or Iran but I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of economic threshold is crossed in due course.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
That is why the decision - and its reasoning - are so unsettling. The concurrences written by Roberts and Kavanaugh are attempts to assuage some of the doubt which the majority decision creates.
I always think there is more passion on whichever side doesn't have what they want. So Eurosceptics had the fervour when Britain was in the EU, while Remainers were practically catatonic.
We will also start to see some terrible stories out of the US, that will help swing the pendulum the other way. People forget that there will be some obvious and terrible tragedies - most commonly suicide - that happen when abortion is broadly prohibited.
Voting honestly for your actual first choice is never a waste.
To be clear, I am not interested in a particular outcome. I am interested in the court fulfilling its constitutional responsibility.
Sure you are, sure you are.
(Someone may counter that the other side are doing that, which this dissenter alleges, but the dozens upon dozens of failed challenges across many states inluding very conservative ones, shows it would fair to suggest the evidence leads to the other conclusion)
I feel like a lot of the issues being devolved to state level would help to diffuse the rather poisonous national debate in the USA, but it is difficult to see how this gets accomplished any time soon, as whichever party is elected to the presidency is constantly pressured by its base to enact as much as possible on the federal level, partly to 'get one over' on the other side.
They're going to war against contraception. Women shouldn't be allowed to use any. Conception is God's will and the woman will submit to the man. Not hysteria - its what is happening legally in some states legislatures.
Do you really believe that?
1791. That's when the Second Amendment was passed. And the cases started early - certainly while its drafters were alive - and pretty much all respect the fact that the US was federal system, that the Second Amendment was clear that it was in the context of a "well regulated militia", and gave States a degree of latitude.
If the SC had moved further and further over time, that would be one thing. But it did not. For close to 200 hundred years - starting just 12 years from drafting - it took it as read that the drafters included "well regulated militia" for a reason.
They are politicians. Usually more intelligent and erudite politicians, and they will even go against their party position more often than the elected, but they are still very clearly acting with their political goals principally in mind (and this is shown by the logical inconsistency of their decisions). It has been noted that it is not only conservative justices who act so.
So while such attacks can still be frowned upon, that they are both judges and politicians does blur the lines around acceptable criticism, since politicians have to accept sterner criticism. The Justices no doubt don't like that, they want to present as nothing but impartial arbiters of the law, but their own dissents at each others decisions frequently imply its all about poltiics and not law.