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Author | Topic: Gerrymandering: Another Good Supreme Court Decision | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jon Inactive Member |
Well, they're the same thing, so...
Love your enemies!
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9207 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
So air traffic controllers are a political position?
Do you see the problem with your reasoning?Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9517 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes: Well, they're the same thing, so... If you're point is that judges are appointed by people, you're correct. Otherwise you don't appear to have one.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Jon Inactive Member |
So air traffic controllers are a political position? No, because they aren't involved in running the government. Surely you have a dictionary sitting around somewhere, or, you know, just speak English.
Do you see the problem with your reasoning? Since the 'problem' was one you created by trying to imply my reckoning classifies air traffic controllers as politicians, no, I see no problem with my reasoning.Love your enemies!
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Jon Inactive Member |
If you're point is that judges are appointed by people, you're correct. Otherwise you don't appear to have one. My point is that judges (the real ones, not the ones who judge talent shows) are political officials. The world where we can separate off a portion of the government and pretend it isn't part of the government is the world where pigs fly on invisible pink unicorns. The UK has a different system of filling its political positions than the US, but that doesn't mean that the positions or the process of filling them are any less political. Really, this shouldn't even be an argument. Why vimesey is so opposed to applying the term 'political' to his judges just baffles the hell out of me.Love your enemies!
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 315 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
No, because they aren't involved in running the government. Nor are judges. Stop being silly.
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Jon Inactive Member |
Love your enemies!
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9207 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Surely you have a dictionary sitting around somewhere, or, you know, just speak English.
Evidently, either the dictionaries are different or we read different.Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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Jon, you are playing the buffoon yet again. I am sorry to say that for you such an observation is no longer of any particular note.
This is from vimsey's original post.
On the other hand, they don't end up being the politically partisan institution represented by SCOTUS - effectively, a third legislative body. Clearly the issue here is partisan politics. If one insists that the judicial branch, which is indeed a government function, is of necessity a political function (something I find arguable[1]), then surely you can understand that such politics are not necessarily partisan. And it is partisan politics and the possibility of eliminating that from the selection of judges that we've been discussing with vimsey ever since. Everyone but you seems to be interested in the topic. You, of all the posters seems to insist that there is nothing to discuss. People routinely use political in the way discussed here. For example we might say that one decision or another of the Supreme Court was made on a political basis rather than on the basis of the merits of the case. If your sole input here is to play language police, I would recommend that the other posters take that into account before they bother responding to your nonsense. The rest of us understand vimsey's point. [1] As for the judicial function being of necessity political, by and large that is not the case. I don't expect politics to play into a land dispute between me and my neighbor or a guilty verdict on OJ Simpson. Maybe some people do call such functions politics, but such people are not using the word in the every day sense. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
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Tangle Member Posts: 9517 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes:
My point is that judges (the real ones, not the ones who judge talent shows) are political officials. Then you're just plain wrong.
The world where we can separate off a portion of the government and pretend it isn't part of the government is the world where pigs fly on invisible pink unicorns. In the UK the judiciary are completely independent of government.
The UK has a different system of filling its political positions than the US, but that doesn't mean that the positions or the process of filling them are any less political. Aprarently it does.
Really, this shouldn't even be an argument. Why vimesey is so opposed to applying the term 'political' to his judges just baffles the hell out of me. That would be because judges are not the political appointees of government.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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vimesey Member (Idle past 104 days) Posts: 1398 From: Birmingham, England Joined: |
I notice that Scalia was appointed by Reagan back in the day. Has SCOTUS always been the subject of political appointments, historically, or is this something which has occurred (or perhaps become more pronounced) more recently ?
Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1055 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined:
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The judiciary and the Judicial Appointments Commission have no involvement in politics, and the political parties have no control or influence over them. We don't identify our judiciary as conservative or liberal (or any other shade of political leaning). They aren't appointed by reference to their political views. Nevertheless, they are one of the key institutions in the constitution. Public, yes - political, no. This is a bit of a stretch. The important thing to point out is that the JAC has only been in existence for a decade. Prior to this, judges were appointed by the Chancellor, who is a member of the government and an unquestionably political figure. The Chancellor still has veto powers over many of the appointments of JAC including, most relevantly for the comparison with the US, Supreme Court Justices. There is an attempt to introduce some independent and professional selection process into who gets to be a successful candidate for the position of judge in the UK, so the government cannot just appoint anyone they like, but it's clearly a fiction to pretend judicial selection is completely independent from the government and from political influence. --------------------- In regards the wider, and slightly meaningless, dispute over terminology, we do use the word 'government' differently in the UK. It refers specifically to the executive - the legislature and the judiciary are not considered part of government.
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vimesey Member (Idle past 104 days) Posts: 1398 From: Birmingham, England Joined: |
Granted, the JAC is fairly recent, but even before then, the process operated in an independent manner, notwithstanding the Lord Chancellor's position.
This is an extract from a lecture given by Lord Phillips, one of our recent(ish) senior judges:
Before the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 we did not have an appropriate independent process for judicial appointments, which does not mean that those appointments were flawed. They were made on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor who was a government minister. The Lord Chancellor’s Department made its own enquiries as to the most eligible candidates. Often these had not even applied to go on the bench, in which case the Lord Chancellor did his best to persuade them to do so. Nevertheless, in my time in the law there was no question of the Lord Chancellor being influenced by political considerations in his appointments. He set out quite simply to appoint those who would make the best judges. Appointments to the judiciary were largely based on consultation with that judiciary. They were based on the views that the judges had formed of the abilities of those who appeared before them. We have rightly made matters more transparent with the JAC, but judicial independence from politics has been an ingrained part of our constitution for a very long time. Another example is that whilst our senior appeals judges have always been members of the House of Lords, and technically entitled to take part in the legislative process, they have consistently abstained from all legislative functions, as a matter of constitutional propriety. It hasn't always been as transparent as it ideally should have been, but judicial independence from politics has long been a central feature of the constitution.Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
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Jon Inactive Member |
People routinely use political in the way discussed here. For example we might say that one decision or another of the Supreme Court was made on a political basis rather than on the basis of the merits of the case. Sure; and after we agreed that that was the way in which vimesey was using the term (see Message 14), we were both ready to drop the issue. That Dr Adequate, Theodoric, Tangle, and now you want to start a new argument has no bearing on the first discussion, which was settled several posts ago.Love your enemies!
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Jon Inactive Member |
In the UK the judiciary are completely independent of government. Really? How do they enforce their judgements then?Love your enemies!
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