STANNARD IS A CLOWN

[matt stannard]

Doyle, I doubt Sparky will understand your arguments:

1.  They are based on original research.
2.  They contain no name-calling.
3.  They suggest he might be wrong about something.
4.  They are made by someone who isn't part of his self-defined elite.
5.  You probably don't make enough money for him to consider you a credible
source.

stannard


>From: Doyle W Srader <doyle at NETDOT.COM>
>Reply-To: doyle at netdot.com, dsrader at sfasu.edu
>To: EDEBATE at LIST.UVM.EDU
>Subject: Re: STANNARD IS A CLOWN
>Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 20:55:41 -0500
>
>Ryan, you're making nonsensical arguments. Stannard is right on the money
>when it comes to the Supreme Court justices argument. It's silly.
>
>1. If you think Breyer is a doctrinaire liberal, then you don't know
>anything about what he's done on the court. Go do some reading. Breyer's a
>line-crosser on a whole array of issues. Know what Breyer thinks of
>church-state, for example? That one's kind of important down Texas way,
>where we've got more and more people whipping up the Lord's Prayer at high
>school football games.
>
>2. What recent history teaches far more than any nonsense about better
>"vetting" is that there will never be another Scalia. An attempt to
>nominate
>another Scalia would result in another Borking. It's just too easy to work
>up the momentum to defeat the nomination of a justice who's too far to
>either end of the spectrum. And to address your silliness about "Since Ike,
>they've learned to vet justices," I'll point out that Souter is joined by
>O'Connor and Kennedy as Reagan-Bush justices who are firmly planted in the
>way of any overrule of Roe v. Wade. So actually, there are just as many
>conservatives who've zagged left as your entire coterie of people who
>stayed
>on course -- three to three. Remember my previous argument that
>anti-abortion sentiment was even stronger when these justices were
>appointed? Remember Operation Rescue and when clinic harassment was at its
>worst? Remember when the Human Rights Amendment actually made it into
>campaign speeches? That was the political climate, and Ronald Reagan was
>the
>president who produced ... O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter. And a full
>quarter
>century after Ike.
>
>3. The only justices who will act in defiance of precedent and good sense
>and prevailing societal belief on controversies other than abortion,
>rolling
>back civil rights protections and devolving all political power to the
>states are Scalia and Thomas. Rehnquist talks big, but balks more of the
>time than he acts. Compare the fiery dissents with the big swing votes and
>you'll find a huge ratio of the former to the latter. That means the next
>president would have to appoint three more Scalia-Thomas justices to the
>bench to change things. Odds are greater that they could summon an asteroid
>to land squarely on Democratic headquarters.
>
>I have to admit I'm glad to see Gore get his head out of his hiney and back
>on the campaign trail. But the "we've got to vote for him or the Supreme
>Court will be nine Limbaugh clones" was a stupid argument the day it was
>first unveiled, and stupid arguments get twice as obnoxious when they're
>ramrodded through with arrogance.
>
>(I really am not going to get lured back into eDebate banter. I really am
>not, I really am not ... )
>
>Doyle Srader
>Lecturer, Speech Communication
>Stephen F. Austin State University
>http://www.netdot.com/doyle/
>
>"If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant
>  us to stick it out." -- Arthur Koestler

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