The Sunday New York Times interviewed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in which she made the following comments. Ginsberg: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often. Question: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae – in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong. Politicans and bloggers have pounced on these statements to suggest that Ginsburg supported eugenics, the theory that selective breeding can better the human race. For example, on July 17th, Rep. Joseph Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, declared Ginsburg's "eugenics way of thinking debases all human life" and he expressed shock that a Supreme Court justice would suggest certain classes of people are not worthy of life and should have been aborted.
I agree that eugenics is a discredited notion that is empty of both science and ethics. I also concede that eugenics informed the population control movement that included the legalization of abortion. Margret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, for example, often asserted a racist, eugencist point of view. I think it is disingenuous, however, to associate either racisim or eugenics with those who are pro-choice. People arrive at policy conclusions in different ways, and an abortion-should-be-legal position need not be predicated on a hatred of other races or a desire to breed out inferior humans. But no where in that quote that Ginsberg suggest that she supports eugenics or wants to use eugenics to control certain groups of people.
I'm amaze that people can absorb the same words and those words can trigger interpretations that are diamentrical to what the writer or speaker intended. This is a good example of such a situation.
So what is Ginsberg saying? Let's break down the statements.
Ginsberg: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. As a legal question, Ginsberg suggests, the question of reproductive choice remains unsettled. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. And it is also obvious to me that women with money have choices that women without money do not have. Thus, before Roe v. Wade, a women could travel to a different state or country to get an abortion. The overturn of Roe would only put the question back to the states. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often.
I disagree that the decision to abort or not abort is primarily financially driven. There are surely social and psyuchological factors at play as well. But I cannot disagree with her statement that states allowed abortions are going to repeal their laws to restrict abortions, and states that don't allow abortions clearly impact poor women and families.
Question: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?
Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae – in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.]
Ginsberg answers this question in the context of the prohibition of the use of Medicare.
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.
"There was concern." Ginsberg is making a statement about motivations behind Roe. She is not saying that she shares those motivations. The "we" as used in this sentence refers to prevailing sentiment and "that we don't want to have too many of" refers to people who could burden the state in one way or another-- the premise behind eugenics.
So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them.
Ginsberg is clearly troubled about the potential abuses of public funding of abortions, and that some states could use Roe to coerce women into having tubal ligations or abortions.
But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
And so here she disassociates herself from the eugenics premise and implies consideration for pro-lifers who are appalled at the notion that some women are predestined to have their fetuses aborted. Ginsberg has clearly wrestled with this issue, and she is far from the feminist ideologue that some have painted her.
Said Clarence Thomas in his dissent: "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments. Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."
It's a strange conservative who consistently sides with the state in distinction to the individual.
Here is a more complementary analysis of his approach to jurisprudence, and i cannot but admire the courage of his convictions.
"At first Thomas was dismissed as a clone of Justice Antonin Scalia. But today even liberal analysts of the court concede that he has set his own course. His opinions show an original and consistent approach to the law, and their distinctive prose — disciplined and graceful, but not flashy — indicates they are not the products of his law clerks but of the justice himself.
"Two themes that run through his years on the court are illustrated by two of his opinions announced in the last full week of the court’s term last month. One of them was a dissent from the court’s 8-1 decision on the Voting Rights Act, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. The other was his opinion for the court in a 5-4 decision on maritime law, Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend.
"The first theme is that, as in Northwest Austin, Thomas has been willing to stand alone, or nearly alone, even against his natural allies. Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion, with concurrences by seven other justices, raised serious doubts about the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires Justice Department approval for changes in election laws in states that had low voter turnout in elections from 1964 to 1972. Thomas zeroed in on the issue the court sidestepped and argued that the law was unconstitutional. This was consistent with his view back in 1994 that almost all Voting Rights Act cases had been wrongly decided — and with his general willingness to overturn previous high court decisions he regards as wrong.
"But it’s not fair to charge, as some critics have, that Thomas ignores past discrimination against blacks. His dissent paints a vivid picture of white Southerners’ “concerted acts of violence, terror and subterfuge to keep minorities from voting” from the 1870s to the 1960s, and endorses the court’s upholding the original provisions of the Voting Rights Act. At the same time, he has objected to racial preferences in government contracting because they “stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority,” and in a 1995 case, he wrote, “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.”
"In the Atlantic Sounding case, he agreed with the four justices generally labeled liberal that an injured seaman may sue for punitive damages for “failure to pay maintenance and cure” — an admiralty law term. Thomas had similarly agreed with the liberals on the meaning of the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines. As in that earlier case, Thomas’ opinion went far back in history, citing English and American cases decided in 1676 and 1784 and interpreting the Jones Act of 1920.
"Thomas’ willingness to write lonely opinions and to be guided by history has sometimes helped to change the law. For example, his 1997 concurring opinion setting out recent legal scholarship on the Second Amendment right to bear arms laid the groundwork for the court’s 2008 decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. In setting his own course in case after case, Thomas has also done more than his detractors understand to change the course of the law."
The Bush military tribunals provided the following protections for war crime defendents, including:
— the presumption of innocence — the imposition of the burden of proof on the prosecution — the right to counsel, both to a military lawyer provided at the expense of the American taxpayer and to a private attorney if the combatant chooses to retain one — the right to be presented with the charges in advance of trial — access to evidence the prosecution intends to introduce and to any exculpatory evidence known to the prosecution — access to interpreters as necessary to assist in understanding the proceedings — the right to a trial presumptively open to the public (except for portions sealed for national defense or witness security purposes) — the free choice to testify or decline to do so — the right against any negative inference from a refusal to testify — access to reasonably available evidence and witnesses — access to investigative resources as "necessary for a full and fair trial"; — the right to present evidence and to cross-examine witnesses.
At least that is what Andrew McCarthy says in a recent article.
Those may indeed be stated protections, but the reality appears to be closer to the Soviet model, where law is sucked of the substance of justice. During the Stalanist purges in the 1930s, identifying and eventually liquidating enemies of the state followed a meticulous legal path that began with signed search warrants and ended with signed death warrants. The death of each enemy of the state was accompanied by a thick folder of forms, documents, and confessions.
I've been trying to understand why some conservatives still continue to support the amorality of rendition, torture, or incarceration without trial. It may come from a residual loyalty to our last president and a concern that dispensing with such approaches will invite terrorism. Perhaps there is something to be said for that, but that doesn't justify brushing away 700 years of jurisprudence that has developed to promote justice and to prevent despotism under the law.
Morality is subjective. Or at least most of us here think it is.
As for laws, laws at least in the western world do not have a basis on any sort of objective morality.
As for their application, when it comes to judgment, it's arbitrary.
blah, I'm speaking gibberish again.
I appreciate your admission that you're speaking gibberish.
You state as a principle that "morality is subjective". But it therefore follows that the principle you stated that is subjective must itself be subjective. That is enough to at least introduce a glimmer of skepticism in your assertion.
May I suggest an objective foundation to morality-- your existence and the existence of other humans. To quote Shakespere's Shylock: "I am a person, too. Hath I not eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as you are? If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, do I not die?" Thus, our reality as sentient beings gives us a commonality from which to derive ethics, and these ethics are consistent through time and in every culture. Through time and in every culture, there are applications that are different-- the tolerence of slavery and the subordination of women, for example. But foundational concepts of "right" and wrong" or "truth" and "falsehood" are not arbitrary at all, deriving as they do from objective concepts of pleasure, pain, individual, family, tribe, life, and death.
And nor do I accept your claim that law is arbitrary. Whether it is the law of Micronesia or the Supreme Court of the United States, it is anything but arbitrary as it flows out of precedence (or tradition) and competing arguments. No judge or tribal chief rolls a dice, for the moment they did that, they would cease to be a judge or a tribal chief. Jurisprudence is inherently rational and thusly a non-arbitrary and an objective process. We may not care for the rulings or the laws, but we are merely expressing our opinion in contrast to the weight of law that jurists have formulated over time.
I must admit to mixed feelings about MSNBC's "To Catch a Predator." While entertaining and also successful in casting a spotlight on some dangerous and despicable people, I question whether this exercise is just. They work with an organization called "Perverted Justice", a forum that tries to lure predators by pretending to be 13 year olds. Their FAQ tries to answer two of my main objections, that first, a crime does exist that secondly it is not entrapment.
Let's put it in terms we can all agree with. If I go to what I think is a hitman to order a murder of my wife, I've committed a crime. Even if that "hitman" is an undercover person posing as one for the purposes of catching people conspiring to murder. So why would anyone believe there needs to be an "actual minor" when it comes to solicitation? All that needs to exist is the record that the solicitor was informed that the person was a minor. After that, conspiring to have sexual relations with a minor is applicable. Just as the charge is the same for a person conspiring to murder with a "fake" or "real" hitman, the charge is philosophically the same for conspiring to have sex with a "fake" or "real" minor.
Not on any level. First, entrapment is a term created and judiciated against law enforcement officials. We are not law enforcement officials. Secondly, these people IM our names first. We don't IM them. They choose to say the things they say, to agree to the things they agree to, and to give their phone number for the verification call. Entrapment is a situation where you go out of your way to entice a citizen as law enforcement to commit a crime they otherwise would not commit. For example, if a department sent around female police pretending to be prostitutes to knock on the doors of private citizens offering sex, that's entrapment. We don't do the figurative "knocking on doors." Rather we sit, wait, and allow them to knock upon our online "door." And when they do, they're in for a surprise. As the law states regarding entrapment, the defense fails when it can be shown that the person being charged had a predisposition to the crime in question. Dozens and dozens and dozens of convictions... zero successful entrapment defenses.
I'm still not persuaded. To combine both objections into one, it's a bit like scattering counterfeit dollars on the sidewalk and then arresting someone when he bends to pick them up-- surely a good way to rid the community of potential thieves. Proof, PJ/MNBC says, of the predisposition to commit the crime lies in the willingess of these people to travel sometimes hundreds of miles to have a relationship with this phony 13 year old. But it seems to me that much of the predisposition was fueled by the racy interaction of the pretend kid and the perp, which, in the case of PJ, is a middle-aged man, where as an aside the information that the kid is 13 is disclosed. Given that much of the banter that preceeds and follows that is sexually-charged blarney, why should the perp give credence to a single statement of claimed fact which is not fact? It all seems kind of perverted to me. I have my reservations about the group as well. My problem lies mainly with the fact that this is an untrained and unprofessional group of volunteers, answerable to no one, highly secretive about their own identities, and most with a very serious axe to grind. I think they rely on the fact that no one is going to defend someone chatting up an apparently underage person and use it as an excuse to engage in what is to them a very satisfying persecution of any such person. Unfortunately, they don't know how to conduct a sting or how to gather useful evidence---they do not always seem to realize what is and isn't criminal activity, either---which means that from a practical standpoint, they do not preserve any evidence of a crime for law enforcement. Worse, they very well could be tipping off actual criminals and giving them ample time to destroy evidence before law enforcement can do anything.
I hate vigilantism for precisely the reasons above: average citizens substitute moral outrage for policework and wind up making it hard or impossible for real law enforcement to do their job.
I agree that the entire exercise strikes me as extra legal fantasizing-- Captain Underwear rescues the children of Ameica. There's also a dangerous civil liberties aspect, somewhat like as portrayed in Speilberg's Minority Report, where crimes of the future are prevented before they occur or in Orwell's 1984, where the thinkpol punish thoughtcrime. Of course, the ultimate example of this is Bush's preventive attack of Iraq under the Bush doctrine where presumed intentions are given as much weight as actual actions in determining war policy. Stalinist Russia thrived on this conflation between thoughts and deeds, where dissent was traitorous sabatage and two dissenters was a conspiratorial center of terrorism.
We could argue 'till we're blue in the face about whether attempted solicitation of a minor should be considered a criminal act or not, but, legally, most jurisdictions in the U.S. do. That's not a matter of opinion; it's simple fact.
That's not my argument at all. I think the attempted solicitation of a minor should be considered a criminal act. I just have my doubts that the attempted solicitation of someone who claims he is a minor but is not a minor should be considered a criminal act, especially when that person who claims he is a minor takes an aggressive effort in soliciting someone who will solicit him.
The particular actions in question, however, do not fit into the traditional definition of a "thought crime". A "thought crime" is usually taken to mean one in which no action at all has been undertaken.
But I don't think any criminal action has been taken. Let's break it down. At what point has the criminal act occurred? At the point where randy intranet postings are sent and received? No, as that would fall under the protection of the First Amendment. At the point when the perp gets into his car and drives to what he thinks is a tryst? No, since his driving is not illegal. At the point where he enters PJ's house? From what I can tell, in most times, he is waved in or invited. This isn't criminal trespass, so that cannot be the crime. The only reason that person has been arrested is because of his intentions-- his thoughts. But his twisted notions are directed against a phantom, a falsehood, a non-existent being. It's like something you would find in the Sharia or the Salem witch trials. Like the Nazis in Skokie and the pedophile web designers in California, these people are as far from my values as night is from day. But a line is crossed when you start arresting people-- not for criminal conduct-- but for criminal thought, for perhaps someday the arrests will be for political or religious thought.
