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The Center for American Progress reports
After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) decision to prevent a president of the opposite party from nominating anyone to the Supreme Court, it's doubtful that any justice will ever be confirmed again when the presidency is controlled by a different party than the Senate. That means America will lurch back and forth between extended periods with a understaffed Supreme Court, followed by massive shifts in the law as one party fills a backlog of vacancies.
[...] Several states have shown that there is a better way [than what, it appears, will happen at the federal level from now on].
The Missouri plan
As America struggled through the Great Depression, Missouri's courts were a den of partisanship and corruption. As former Chief Justice of Missouri Michael Wolff explains, judges were "selected in elections in which nominees were chosen by political parties under a patronage system." In much of the state, judges were selected by a single machine party leader, "Boss" Tom Pendergast. Throughout Missouri, "judges were plagued by outside political influences, and dockets were congested due to the time the judges spent making political appearances and campaigning."
Frustrated with their politicized judiciary, the people of Missouri passed a ballot initiative replacing the state's corrupt process with a non-partisan coalition--at least for the state's top judges.
When a vacancy arises on the state's supreme court, a seven person commission consisting of "three lawyers elected by the lawyers of The Missouri Bar . . . three citizens selected by the governor, and the chief justice" submits three candidates to fill that vacancy to the state's governor. The governor then has 60 days to choose among those three names. If the governor fails to meet this deadline, the commission selects one of the three.
Finally, after a year of service, the newly appointed judge must survive a retention election, where a majority of the electorate can cast them out of office--though this only happens rarely.
This method of judicial selection, as well as variants upon it, was adopted by many states since its inception in Missouri.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:20PM (13 children)
How many times do we keep having to explain that "arms" refers to man-portable weapons. We're not talking about right to bear nukes.
Hell, back around the Revolutionary War "one individual could wield enough weaponry, by himself, to take out an entire city block" (of people). Give him a musket, line up all the people, and give him about a half hour.
We can not base our judgments literally, today, on standards that were developed over 200 years ago.
So the bedrock principles our country was founded on are no longer to be taken seriously. Marvelous.
I'll point out that it took a hell of a long time for people to pay attention to the "created equal" clause, and I'm sure you wouldn't complain about that being taken literally.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:28PM (10 children)
How many times do we keep having to explain that "arms" refers to man-portable weapons. We're not talking about right to bear nukes.
So? What happens when we have man-portable nukes?
Oh wait... we do have those...
http://www.businessinsider.com/9-facts-about-the-uss-backpack-nukes-2014-2?op=1 [businessinsider.com]
Hell, back around the Revolutionary War "one individual could wield enough weaponry, by himself, to take out an entire city block" (of people). Give him a musket, line up all the people, and give him about a half hour.
That requires quite a bit of cooperation from the people being taken out. That's kind of precisely why the comparison fails.
I'll point out that it took a hell of a long time for people to pay attention to the "created equal" clause, and I'm sure you wouldn't complain about that being taken literally.
And we're still up shit creek when it comes to realizing that most of the constitution talks about "persons"; yet most American's including much of the law evidently think most of the rights only apply to "citizens"; despite only a very few specific clauses applying to citizens.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:33PM (3 children)
And we're still up shit creek when it comes to realizing that most of the constitution talks about "persons"; yet most American's including much of the law evidently think most of the rights only apply to "citizens"; despite only a very few specific clauses applying to citizens.
Sounds like you're arguing against yourself here: if we took the Constitution at face value of what it literally said, this wouldn't be a problem.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:50PM
Sounds like you're arguing against yourself here:
I'm not 'arguing' a point; I'm simply observing that we (collectively, including the courts) aren't all that consistent in how we've interpreted the constitution, and we never have been. The literalists seem to have some pretty big blind spots too.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday April 14 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)
Nobody wants to take the Constitution at face value. Everyone wants some speech outlawed and everyone wants some people prevented from owning and bearing arms.
No one wants to declare that all electronic stuff isn't covered by the bill of rights either. A printer is not a press, a keyboard is not a pen and electronic documents are not papers. A strict reading says that they're not covered as they weren't even thought of.
No one seems to seriously want to amend the Constitution either. Take the illegal Air Force, no where does the Constitution give the government the right to form the Air Force and passing an amendment to allow it would have been easy, instead the conservatives just mutter about the Constitution allowing for defence without stopping to think that it actively discouraged even a standing Army while encouraging a Navy.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 14 2017, @02:50PM
Hey, speak for yourself.
Everyone wants some speech outlawed
Not this guy.
everyone wants some people prevented from owning and bearing arms.
Well mentally ill, sure. Otherwise not really. Of course the problem is how one defines mental illness.
No one wants to declare that all electronic stuff isn't covered by the bill of rights either. A printer is not a press, a keyboard is not a pen and electronic documents are not papers.
That a lot of people seem to believe this disturbs me. I would say those things you listed are equivalent and should be treated the same.
No one seems to seriously want to amend the Constitution either. Take the illegal Air Force, no where does the Constitution give the government the right to form the Air Force and passing an amendment to allow it would have been easy,
Heh. Okay, that's fair.
it actively discouraged even a standing Army while encouraging a Navy.
Yeah, it's an interesting discussion about how much military thought has changed since then. IIRC even until WWI there wasn't a standing U.S. peace-time military?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:39PM (5 children)
Oh wait... we do have those...
" rel="url2html-6455">http://www.businessinsider.com/9-facts-about-the-uss-backpack-nukes-2014-2?op=1
According to Wikipedia they were taken out of circulation in 1968. So "have" in the sense of "maybe there are some sitting in a secure warehouse somewhere that haven't completely decayed yet."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:56PM (4 children)
" So "have" in the sense of "maybe there are some sitting in a secure warehouse somewhere that haven't completely decayed yet."
The point is the technology already exists and is 50 years old. So there is really no reason some prepper can't build one himself right? Or for a private group of citizens to place an order with a weapons supplier. Just because the government isn't actively using them, doesn't mean private citizens can't. I mean, the US military doesn't use LOTS of weapons that a private citizen is welcome to procure...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @07:00PM (3 children)
So there is really no reason some prepper can't build one himself right? Or for a private group of citizens to place an order with a weapons supplier.
For a nuke? I'm not going to assume nuclear weapons are things you can easily build in your garage (and not irradiate yourself in the process, and have the thing actually work) or buy from a dude in a 7/11 parking lot at midnight.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday April 13 2017, @08:24PM (2 children)
You are focused on the wrong question; its really not a question of difficulty to do in ones garage.* The point is we have the tecnhology and it qualifies as 'man portable'.
Do you think individuals should be allowed to procure one? It doesn't really matter for the sake of this discussion HOW they procure it. Whether they build it themselves, or order it from Amazon, or if walmart stocks them is immaterial. If we are entitled to have them under the constitution then presumably some sort of supply chain should be legal.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:42PM (1 child)
I suppose the same question would apply if a guy decided to build his own battleship. I'm not familiar with what rules cover private military contractors.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday April 14 2017, @12:08AM
I suppose the same question would apply if a guy decided to build his own battleship.
Or a hand grenade. Which is also prohibited.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 13 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
How many times do we keep having to explain that "arms" refers to man-portable weapons.
That's not the literal definition of "arms" though. You can't advocate a literal interpretation while using a non-literal definition.
arms
ärmz/Submit
noun
1.
weapons and ammunition; armaments.
"they were subjugated by force of arms"
synonyms: weapons, weaponry, firearms, guns, ordnance, artillery, armaments, munitions, matériel
"the illegal export of arms"
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:32PM
That's the *current* dictionary definition. "Gay" didn't mean "homosexual" in the 1770s either.
(4) The U.S. Constitution does not adequately define "arms". When it was adopted, "arms" included muzzle-loaded muskets and pistols, swords, knives, bows with arrows, and spears. However, a common- law definition would be "light infantry weapons which can be carried and used, together with ammunition, by a single militiaman, functionally equivalent to those commonly used by infantrymen in land warfare." That certainly includes modern rifles and handguns, full-auto machine guns and shotguns, grenade and grenade launchers, flares, smoke, tear gas, incendiary rounds, and anti-tank weapons, but not heavy artillery, rockets, or bombs, or lethal chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Somewhere in between we need to draw the line. The standard has to be that "arms" includes weapons which would enable citizens to effectively resist government tyranny, but the precise line will be drawn politically rather than constitutionally. The rule should be that "arms" includes all light infantry weapons that do not cause mass destruction. If we follow the rule that personal rights should be interpreted broadly and governmental powers narrowly, which was the intention of the Framers, instead of the reverse, then "arms" must be interpreted broadly.
http://www.constitution.org/leglrkba.htm [constitution.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"