September 4, 2015

"Imagine what it takes to live your whole professional and personal life as a 'justice-in waiting.'"

Josh Blackman and Randy Barnett say in a Weekly Standard article titled "The Next Justices/A guide for GOP candidates on how to fill Court vacancies."
Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan was viewed by many on the left as a dream candidate for the Supreme Court. However, in light of her well-documented record of supporting various hot-button liberal causes, she was never even nominated for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Karlan was the antithesis of the “Little Supreme.” But did she regret it? Not at all: “Would I like to be on the Supreme Court?” she asked rhetorically. “You bet I would. But not enough to have trimmed my sails for half a lifetime.” We are not suggesting that Karlan should be a Supreme Court nominee, but she exposed the truth about SCOTUS-wannabes who “trim their sails” and limit their potential based on a fear of a future confirmation hearing: Such persons lack the character a justice needs.

Karlan explained this with her characteristic forcefulness: “Courage is a muscle. You develop courage by exercising it. Sitting on the fence is not practice for standing up.” Imagine what it takes to live your whole professional and personal life as a “justice-in waiting.” These SCOTUS-wannabes spend their careers seeking the approval of others, in the hopes that one day they will be nominated because of their friendships across the political spectrum....

60 comments:

Bayoneteer said...

She's why all judges should have term limits and require periodic recomfirmations.

Tinderbox said...

By it's very nature, the Supreme Court should not be composed of activists.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Professor Barnett's essay makes me want to go to the Capitol Building, drop acid, and look at John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence until the Founding Fathers start moving around and talking to me.

Michael K said...

After Robert Bork, they all realized what the left could do to them. And, of course, Clarence Thomas.

Left wing opinions like Ginsberg's not so much. Or the "Wise Latina."

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Sounds like she would approve of that Tennessee divorce court judge. Right?

Curious George said...

She could have been the first open lesbian on the court. Well, assuming Kagan didn't come out of the closet before she was sworn in.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Miguel Estrada could not be reached for comment.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Wow, I hit Wikipedia to look for the date of the filibuster against Estrada and read this from his "background" section there:

"Estrada was married to Laury Gordon Estrada until her death at age 46 on November 28, 2004. She died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills, having also miscarried during the nomination fight.[1]"

Jim in St Louis said...

Hey Judge- We would like you to interpret what the law says. Don't be brave, don't be courageous, don't be political. Just tell us what the law means.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

having also miscarried during the nomination fight

That's awfully sad, but she was 43 if my math is right.

Bay Area Guy said...

They should pick Paul Clement for the next opening on SCOTUS.

Sebastian said...

"Courage is a muscle"

The one that makes liberal knees jerk?

Mistakes Prog reflex for "courage."

Hagar said...

How old is Kimba Wood now?

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Amalya Kearse is an example of a different kind of justice-in-waiting. She went onto the Second Circuit in 1979 and might have gotten elevated to the Supreme Court if Jimmy Carter had been reelected, or if Bill Clinton hadn't passed her over in favor of Breyer and Ginsburg. She compensated by playing bridge.

Scott said...

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in the high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain.
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be


a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America

SteveR said...

The environment sets these people up, not just to have leanings, but to be proud idealouges. Takes all the fun out of it but makes voting for a presidential candidate easy. At least for all democrats and not so many republicans.

Nonapod said...

I wish I understood on a psychological level what factors incline people toward liberal and/or progressive and/or socialist lines of thought. If one assumes the worst of people, it's not difficult to understand why certain personalities would be very attracted to becoming a Supreme Court Justice. The power of such a position, while not absolute, must be hugely compelling to certain personality types. You have to play a great deal of politics to get in, but once you're in, you're in for life with very little chance of removal. It's not entirely unlike being a top level official in an authoritarian regime. Your will is law. You are the decider. You don't have to answer to anyone provided you don't do anything obviously and blatantly criminal that can be incontrovertibly attached to you.

Real American said...

no one on the left is capable of being an unbiased judge. To a leftist, every job entails being an activist for the cause. Look how they act and talk all the time. Everything for the cause. Those that is even seen as disagreeing must be severely punished. Why would we want judges that act like that? We don't.

n.n said...

This explains the popularity of the pro-choice principle, that is based on neither a legal code, moral philosophy, or any other reproducible standard. The need to reconcile diametrically opposed positions in the pursuit of social status and material compensation creates a progressive obstacle that denies a uniform application of standards. A corollary to the pro-choice principle is the congruence principle, with a selective modulus (e.g. right to life, right to marriage) arbitrarily determined and enforced by a minority.

Qwinn said...

I still think it's hilarious that no one, and I mean no one, ever questioned for a millisecond how the 4 liberal justices would vote on Obamacare or Gay Marriage. No one, on the Left or Right. The legal facts underlying the cases were utterly irrelevant to them, and *everyone* knew it. Their utter ideological partisanship was considered both expected and acceptable, by everyone. Meanwhile, what about those extremist partisan conservatives, eh? Eh?

It's nauseating. "Rule of law", my ass.

tim in vermont said...

If you are Souter, you spend your life trying to fool a conservative into nominating you so that you can nullify an election.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Souter is exactly the Justice I would have expected George H.W. Bush to nominate when he won the Iowa Caucus in January 1980. Justice Kennedy was the surprising choice, if you accept the notion that Ronald Reagan was a conservative. But he wasn't, he was a liberal. No elections were nullified by the appointment of Kennedy or Souter.

In Canada and Europe, it's understood that conservatives have to ally with liberals against the socialists. We just haven't reached the point where that can be publicly acknowledged in the United States. As a result, from time to time Republicans have to lose a national election they didn't have to lose.

The interesting thing about Trump is that he is also a liberal. And he's managed to maneuver the Republican Party into promising to get behind him if he should win its nomination.

Lewis Wetzel said...

“Courage is a muscle. You develop courage by exercising it. Sitting on the fence is not practice for standing up.”
Any person who would write in such a vapid platitudes has forfeited his or her chance to become a justice of the supreme court. The courage to make people behave the way you want them to behave? The courage to shape the republic to suit yourself? The courage to instruct the peoples representatives which laws they should and should not pass? This is the courage of a tyrant.

Ann Althouse said...

From the Bork confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Joe Biden. Here's where Biden wrecked Bork:

BIDEN: Well, let's talk about another case. Now let's talk about the Griswold case. Now, while you were living in Connecticut, that state had a law that made - I know you know this, but for the record - that a crime, that it made it a crime for anyone, even a married couple, to use birth control.

And you have indicated you thought that law was nutty, to use your word, and I quite agree. Nevertheless, Connecticut, under that nutty law, prosecuted and convicted a doctor and the case finally reached the Supreme Court. The Court said that the law violated a married couple's constitutional right to privacy.

And you criticized this opinion in numerous articles and speeches, beginning in 1971 and as recently as July 26 of this year. In your 1971 article, ''Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems,'' you said that the right of married couples to have sexual relations without fear of unwanted children is no more worthy of constitutional protection by the courts than the right of public utilities to be free of pollution control laws.

You argued that the utility company's right or gratification, I think you referred to it, to make money and the married couple's right or gratification to have sexual relations without fear of unwanted children were. . .identical.

Now, I'm trying to understand this. It appears to me that you're saying that government has as much right to control a married couple's decision about choosing to have a child or not as that government has a right to control the public utility's right to pollute the air. Am I mistating your rationale?

BORK: With due respect, Mr. Chairman, I think you are. I was making the point that where the Constitution does not speak, there's no provision in the Constitution that applies to the case, then a judge may not say, ''I place a higher value upon a marital relationship than I do upon an economic freedom'' - only if the Constitution gives him some reasoning.

And I said a judge - once a judge begins to say economic rights are more important than marital rights or vice versa and. . .if there is nothing in the Constitution, the judge is enforcing his own moral values, which I have objected to.

BIDEN: . . .It seems to me that what you're saying is ... that ... if it were a constitutional right, if the Constitution said, anywhere in it, in your view, that a married couple's right to engage in the decision of having a child or not having a child was a constitutionally protected right of privacy, then you would rule that that right exists. You wouldn't leave it to a legislative body, no matter what they did.

BORK: Yes. That's right.

BIDEN: . . .Does a state legislative body, or any legislative body, have a right to pass a law telling a married couple or anyone else that behind a married - let's stick with a married couple for a minute - behind their bedroom door, telling them they can or cannot use birth control? Does the majority have the right to tell a couple that they can't use birth control?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Buck Vs. Bell has never been overturned, Althouse.
Biden has great skill in convincing people that what is right must be legal, and what is not right must be illegal. Not should be legal or illegal, but is legal or illegal.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Ann Althouse said...

Here's where Biden wrecked Bork:

It's sad that being right disqualifies someone from being on the Supreme Court.

Bay Area Guy said...

AA: "From the Bork confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Joe Biden. Here's where Biden wrecked Bork:"

Jeez, Althouse, you must be joking. Too many hours yapping in front of scared law students, not enough in a real courtroom.

Bork was wrecked, politically, by Ted Kennedy, who simply slandered him:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy… President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

Ted Kennedy, Biden, and, I guess, you and your ilk, simply opposed Bork because he rightfully observed that the US Constitution was silent on whether abortion should be legal or illegal. Very, very, simple Constitutional issue. Based on his numerous writings, service as Solicitor General, stellar career as a Yale Law Professor, and high ranking Federal Judge, Bork was perhaps the most qualified SCOTUS nominee ever. y'all simply didn't like his opinion. I think that's called, viewpoint discrimination, or something.


So, fearing that Bork would be the 5th vote to overturn Roe, Kennedy et al simply resorted to character assassination.

Your Biden quote was the equivalent of a pin prick.

But, alas, Biden did win this battle and it was a big victory for the left, but not for justice. Life goes on.

Anonymous said...

Karlan explained this with her characteristic forcefulness: “Courage is a muscle. You develop courage by exercising it. Sitting on the fence is not practice for standing up.”

Was something inadvertently edited out between "forcefulness" and "courage" here? The word "forcefulness" doesn't seem to go with the limp bromides immediately following.

Michael K said...

"It's not entirely unlike being a top level official in an authoritarian regime."

You mean like the US government ?

Yes, it is.

Biden did worse to Thomas. He lied to him and then maneuvered the Anita Hill caper.

Bork was a wise guy, in addition to being a brilliant judge. He liked to speculate. Professors do that all the time.Judges didn't used to do so.

Sebastian said...

@ Bay Area Guy: "Kennedy et al simply resorted to character assassination"

Indeed. Surely AA covers that in Con Law?

Biden's pin prick was par for the Prog course. If the Constitution is silent, the legislature, not the judge prevails: can't have that! Prog correction: If the Constitution is silent, and legislatures or the people have spoken clearly but mistakenly, of course the judge can make the Constitution speak. "Privacy," abortion, SSM, "substantive due process": anything goes, if the outcome is right.

Bay Area Guy said...

Reagan was a huge success in many things, but his failure to defend Bork from the slanders of the left was a huge miscalculation. At the time, he was more engaged in the nuclear disarmament talks with Gorbachev, but he could have and should have done both.

readering said...

It's hard to make generalizations about Supreme Court nominations, given how few there are. Bork's publishing and speaking history after his defeat confirmed Democrats' view that underneath his curmudgeonly charm he was indeed a far-right nut. (Although I suspect it was the confirmation ordeal that turned him into one.) Ginsburg was derailed because he admitted to smoking pot as a Harvard Law professor. The young, African-American Thomas was a stealth candidate until his attitude to women subordinates became an issue. Souter was picked over Starr, who was judged to be a less reliable conservative. The brilliant and charming Roberts should have been on the DC Circuit, accumulating opinions for a decade, under Bush '41, but was filibustered by Democrats who foresaw his elevation to the Supreme Court. Instead he got both appointments under Bush '43. Conservatives finally rebelled against the notion of stealth candidates by derailing unpolished SMU litigator Miers. The real effect of which appears to have been to require that all successful nominees (Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan) attend Princeton.

Maybe President Trump will change that. I think he'd appoint Judge Judy.

tim in vermont said...

John Sununu appears on talk radio around here a lot, and he seems pretty adamant that he was fooled by Souter.

Saint Croix said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Saint Croix said...

More practically, zeroing in on a single issue, whether it is abortion, the war on terror, or same-sex marriage, has proved to be a miserable predictor of future judicial behavior.

One day a Supreme Court nominee will be faced with the obvious-and-awful question: "Do you know what a person is?"

And I feel so sorry for the hapless nominee who tries to repeat Supreme Court case law, and tries to explain how Microsoft is a person, and Google is a person, but a baby in the middle of birth is not one.

The Supreme Court actually has no definition of the word at all. That's why the question is so awful! Imagine the poor sputtering nominee who has to avoid saying that a person is a live human being. You want to uphold Roe without reminding people of Dred Scott. Good luck with that.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Of course, Saint Croix doesn't know what he is talking about:
1 U.S. code Section 1:
"In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—
. . .
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;"
Notice the qualifiers (which Saint Croix does not). The definition only applies to acts of congress, and then only if the context does not indicate otherwise.
Gosh I wish this absurd notion "that the supreme court says corporations are people!" would die.

Saint Croix said...

Now let's talk about the Griswold case.

It's laughable how the left always wants to switch the subject away from abortion and onto birth control.

And it's idiotic how the right just plays along.

Three Republicans wrote Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and they wrote this...

It should be recognized, moreover, that in some critical respects the abortion decision is of the same character as the decision to use contraception

Now that's a really stupid sentence. How do you write a sentence like that?

Maybe that's what happens when you get liberals who talk over and over about birth control, instead of abortion. They create this fantasy world where Republicans hate birth control. They want to outlaw my birth control! And of course what's really going on is that you're a liberal who hates to say "abortion." Every time a liberal speaks about birth control, or Griswold, they are actually avoiding the subject of abortion, and Roe. Why is Bork attacked? For Griswold? Shit. That's theater. That's make believe. That's bullshit fantasy time. He was attacked for Roe. All of these fights are about Roe, the subject that cannot be named.

If you're not nimble enough to embarrass the Catholic Joe Biden for his inability to recognize the humanity of a baby, then you don't deserve any political authority at all. You let him beat you up over condoms? You moron.

Saint Croix said...

Of course, Saint Croix doesn't know what he is talking about:

I know that I'm talking about the United States Constitution, and more specifically the 14th Amendment.

I also know that I'm not talking about how to construe a federal statute.

You understand the difference?

Saint Croix said...

The definition only applies to acts of congress,

The Supreme Court has been defining corporations as persons for over 100 years.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"You understand the difference?"
Then tell me the decision where the supreme court said that Microsoft was a person, and Google was a person, Saint Croix. You now seem to be saying that this was found in the context of the 14th amendment, which is true as far as it goes, but you never bother explaining why this upsets you. Everyone, including the SC, knows that a corporation is not a biological human being. Legal personhood for corporations is an important way to keep individuals free of tyranny. It is the Left, not the Right, that wants to pit individuals against the state with no intermediaries. The Left wants to do this because they know the state will crush individuals. When you pit the Federal government against individuals you get Ruby Ridge or Waco.

Saint Croix said...

"Under the designation of person there is no doubt that a private corporation is included."

Pembina Mining v. Pennsylvania.

That case was decided in 1888.

rcocean said...

"Souter was picked over Starr, who was judged to be a less reliable conservative."

Wrong. Souter was picked for several reasons. One, Republican Sen. Rodman knew he was liberal and wanted a liberal on the SCOTUS. Two, Sunnu, either because he was an idiot or because he didn't care sold Bush I on the idea that Souter was "Conservative enough". Three, because Bush I had told everyone he didn't want to fight for his SCOTUS nominees. IOW, he wanted someone who could fool the base and sail thru the Senate without a fight. Bush I wanted to save all his energy for the important stuff like raising taxes.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Saint Croix wrote:
"That case was decided in 1888."
And the decision says:"2. Nor does the clause of the Constitution declaring that the "citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States" have any bearing upon the question of the validity of the license tax in question. Corporations are not citizens within the meaning of that clause."
There is that context thing specifically mentioned in US code section 1! Gosh, it's almost as though the world makes sense and Terry knows what he is talking about!
But continue your rant, Saint Croix, if it makes you feel better. By a strange coincidence I am currently located at a hotel in the Saint Croix river valley.

Saint Croix said...

you never bother explaining why this upsets you.

We fought a Civil War so that the humanity of people would no longer be denied. Over 600,000 Americans died to amend our Constitution.

And then nine attorneys go into a room and start making shit up.

Corporations are people! Babies are not people!

Everyone, including the SC, knows that a corporation is not a biological human being.

So it's shameful that they keep telling this lie, isn't it? And these are the same authoritarians who insist that biological human beings might not be people, after all.

In essence what they are saying is that the word "person" is whatever they say it is, in whatever situation. Any citizen should be upset when our legal authorities start acting like lawless autocrats. But we should be particularly upset when they start denying the humanity of human beings. When humanity is denied, we get atrocities.

readering said...


Support for notion that Souter was picked over Starr because Starr too liberal. Sen. Kennedy strongly opposed the Souter appointment, as did many liberal groups. But Biden supported him.

http://joshblackman.com/blog/2015/02/27/calabresi-on-the-inside-dirt-behind-the-appointments-of-justices-oconnor-kennedy-and-souter-and-non-appointments-of-starr-posner-and-wilkinson/

n.n said...

Saint Croix:

That seems to be the case.

3. The application of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution to the statute imposing the license tax in question is not more apparent than the application of the clause of the Constitution...

Under the designation of person there is no doubt that a private corporation is included. Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose


The rights of "person" are conferred on the corporation upon meeting the requirements of jurisdiction and licensing.

As for babies, there are two parties named to the contract: "We the People" and "our Posterity". It seems that not only did Roe arbitrarily redefine an actual human life, but it excised one of two named parties to The Constitution.

n.n said...

the word "person" is whatever they say it is, in whatever situation

The pro-choice doctrine basically reiterates the traditional philosophy of might makes right. It specifically avoids reconciliation of moral standards and natural imperatives. Its establishment was a simple maneuver to nullify the letter and intent of The Constitution at will.

Saint Croix said...

Terry, you are confusing the word "citizen" with the word "person." The Supreme Court has never said that corporations are citizens. Of course, if they did, millions of Republicans would nod their head and say "of course corporations are citizens!" I am dismayed to find out that Republicans can be just as dishonest about our Constitution as any liberal.

Anyway, citizen is a legal designation. You can give up your citizenship. You can stop being a citizen of one country, and start being a citizen of another. You can become a citizen.

The word "citizen" references a smaller group of people within humanity. The 14th Amendment speaks of people born in our country as "citizens." Also a person can be a naturalized citizen. I have argued that Congress, under the 14th Amendment, has the authority to make an unborn baby a citizen of the United States, since they can naturalize people and make them citizens.

The equal protection clause specifically and pointedly uses the word "person" so that states would have no authority to start kidnapping, raping, killing or otherwise mistreating non-citizens. We wanted to avoid all the political games that states can play with the word "citizen," so we adopted the broader term, "person."

Saint Croix said...

The pro-choice doctrine basically reiterates the traditional philosophy of might makes right.

I think many pro-choice people are quite sincere and believe that they are fighting for liberty. They think of it in terms of freedom.

I question how many people on the Supreme Court genuinely feel that way.

There are people on the Court who think that Roe was wrongly decided. They will even admit that innocent babies have been killed. Nonetheless, they won't overrule Roe, because to do so will hurt the Supreme Court's authority. (Planned Parenthood v. Casey makes this argument explicit).

n.n said...

many pro-choice people are quite sincere and believe that they are fighting for liberty

I don't doubt that they have a sincere belief or rationale. However, my characterization is that pro-choice doctrine is a wicked solution to a "wicked problem". And the application of this quasi-religious doctrine is not limited to establishment of human life and value, but extends to diversity/institutional discrimination, congruence/selective exclusion, etc. Abortion/indiscriminate killing is just the most obvious violation of human rights and what they purport to be their principles. It is a policy that cannot be reasonably reconciled with individual dignity, intrinsic value, and natural imperatives. It is simply the easiest approach to defer judgment and reduce the problem set.

they won't overrule Roe, because to do so will hurt the Supreme Court's authority

They have overturned precedents before. There is more to upholding abortion rights and pro-choice doctrine generally than preserving authority.

enacting laws to promote the life of the unborn and to ensure respect for all human life and its potential
...
to progress in knowledge and understanding and in the attainment of some degree of consensus


A moral, perhaps sustainable, legal philosophy is about normalizing or promoting orientations and behaviors that preserve the exceptional dignity and value of human life in order to sustain individual and collective viability.

Consensus comes in many forms, not limited to democratic will.

Pro-choice... They think of it in terms of freedom.

It is, in fact, an absolute freedom. The problem is that, logically, and practically, liberty is only suitable and possible for men and women capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior. Abortion rights is merely a symptom of sexual license and other dysfunctional orientations and behaviors. They wanted liberty, but instead found libertinism.

Nichevo said...

Why get so hung up over a mere word?


http://languagehat.com/a-mere-word/


Also, n.n., just so you know, you have been using "wicked problem" and "wicked solution" as if they were well known philosophical catchphrases. I have no idea where you get this or exactly what it means, and I bet no one else here does either. That's part of your problem, you are so stuffed with jargon and cliche that your actual meanings are obscured.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"That's part of your problem"

That is part of your problem bro.

n.n said...

Nichevo:

A "wicked problem" is a common phrase to classify a critical issue where limited insight, resources, or consensus forces an imperfect or incomplete resolution. I use "wicked solution" as a play on words and specifically to emphasize the character of choosing abortion as a solution to the "wicked problem" of unwanted and inconvenient pregnancies. It is pro-choice advocates who describe these pregnancies as a "wicked problem", and it is I who describe elective abortion as a "wicked solution". Although, as all experience has shown, I am unlikely to have been the first.

Saint Croix said...

Why get so hung up over a mere word?

Law is based in words. Words are what we use to form agreements, so that we can avoid violent resolution of conflicts. Every treaty is made up of words. Every statute is made up of words.

When the Supreme Court changes a word, or adds words or subtracts words, it is changing the law. It is, in fact, dictating a new law.

Everyone, including the SC, knows that a corporation is not a biological human being.

We might also add that everyone, including the SC, knows that an unborn baby is a biological human being.

Why, then, did the Supreme Court say that corporations are people? And why does the Supreme Court say that babies are not people?

Because they want to ignore the facts, re-arrange the facts, issue an ideology in lieu of facts. They want to impose their ideas upon the world. And if the facts get in the way, lie about the facts.

Saint Croix said...

We might deduce from what the Supreme Court says about the nature of corporations, and babies, that the Supreme Court likes money. They like money so much they are willing to tell a white lie, and say that corporations are people.

I think much of our fear of babies, why we think of them as "unwanted," is because of financial considerations. Babies cost money. Ergo, we say babies are not people.

Imagine if it was the reverse. What if giving birth to a baby was a financial jackpot? You get a million dollars upon the birth of your baby. Would that change your calculation? What if a baby was a money-making corporation? Would it be a person then?

But babies cost money, and so we reject their humanity.

Make money = person. Cost money = non-person.

Harry Blackmun once argued that the Supreme Court should force the state to pay for abortions because poverty is a cancer.

One might add that the abortion industry is now a billion dollar industry, complete with markets in baby parts and dreams of a Lamborghini.

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." Timothy 6:10

Jupiter said...

Saint Croix, the reason corporations are people is so they can own stuff. OK? So that everything doesn't have to have a human owner, who can die, or go nuts, or meet a floozy in a bar and change his will. Calling them people just means that they have the same economic rights -- and responsibilities -- as humans do. But of course, they don't have the right to marry another corporation of the same sex.

Nichevo said...

Hey Buckley,

If you want my undivided attention, drunky, you can have it, but I don't think it will suit you. If you're going to interfere in matters that don't involve you, at least have the fucking courtesy to read links.

BTW I'm glad you changed handles. WFB was one of the all-time greats and you are as a mockery of him.

Nichevo said...

Oh fuck, irony alert, would everybody who got hung up over my allusion to "a mere word" please read the link i supplied immediately following.

Nichevo said...

And, St. Croix, I respect that you are monomaniacal over the abortion issue, that's your thing, fine, but it's getting a little drastic when you don't realize that the corporations are people rubric started a long time ago, back when the idea of legalized abortion would have been on thinkable. The issues are not related.

As for you, n.n., thanks for replying, can you introduce me to one other published author or thinker of any note who uses the expression wicked problem? St. Augustine, Thomas Moore, CS Lewis, who? I get your riff of "wicked solution" but where does "problem" come from? There are all kinds of problems which can only be solved approximately or in in completely satisfactory fashions but I never recall in math or philosophy the expression wicked problem to describe them. I'm sorry to harp, but I am trying to sincerely engage with you on this. If you invented it that's great, I repeat that I never heard of it and so that's all I'm saying. I deny it is a commonplace, and I'm tolerably well read.

Nichevo said...

Sorry nn I see Wikipedia has it. Carry on. I still don't think you are right, or rather, wise, to flog it as a well known concept that everybody should be down with, however.