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Antonin Scalia, a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, has died:
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - one of most conservative members of the high court - has died. Justice Scalia's death could shift the balance of power on the US high court, allowing President Barack Obama to add a fifth liberal justice to the court. The court's conservative majority has recently stalled major efforts by the Obama administration on climate change and immigration.
Justice Scalia, 79, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He died in his sleep early on Saturday while in West Texas for [a] hunting trip, the US Marshall service said. Justice Scalia was one of the most prominent proponents of "originalism" - a conservative legal philosophy that believes the US Constitution has a fixed meaning and does not change with the times.
Justice Scalia's death is, unsurprisingly, now being widely reported.
From the San Antonio Express News:
According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.
[...] The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation. Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.
A gray Cadillac hearse pulled into the ranch last Saturday afternoon. The hearse came from Alpine Memorial Funeral Home.
Most major news outlets are covering this story, including CNN [video autoplays], The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:45PM
Why some folks will rejoice.
However, this man had a wife and nine children. I think it's sad that a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father. He led a long, full life and has gone the way of all life.
I didn't and don't agree with Justice Scalia's politics, and often, his jurisprudence.
At the same time, although it's likely that the court without Justice Scalia will produce rulings which are more in line with what I believe, maybe we could acknowledge his humanity for just a moment, rather than dancing on the tears of his family.
Just sayin'.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:49PM
He believed in original construction, and that the constitution meant what it said in words.
If you celebrate a constitution formed only of "whims of the moment", you could well get your wish, and live to regret it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:52PM
He believed in original construction, and that the constitution meant what it said in words.
That's a half-truth at best. Much of his jurisprudence on the SCOTUS reflected his personal and political beliefs and had zero to do with "original construction."
But it's a pretty story. maybe you should read it to your kids at night.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:56PM
And maybe you should review his actual record and try to tone down the hate.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:02AM
try to tone down the hate.
And this by you is hate?:
However, this man had a wife and nine children. I think it's sad that a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father. He led a long, full life and has gone the way of all life.
[...]
maybe we could acknowledge his humanity for just a moment, rather than dancing on the tears of his family.
Really? Are you so entrenched in your political divisiveness that you can't even see what's written on a screen?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:04AM
Yeah, whatever. He had an agenda. For example, he would not uphold peyote use in Native American religious practices despite sincerely held religious belief, but let Hobby Lobby use sincerely held religious belief (in this case the same as his) to get out of covering the pill.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/scalia-v-scalia/361621/ [theatlantic.com]
Anyway, here's a complete list of his decisions with links to the text:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/author.php?Scalia [cornell.edu]
And yes -- I'm count myself amongst those glad to read his obit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:08AM
Yeah, whatever. He had an agenda. For example, he would not uphold peyote use in Native American religious practices despite sincerely held religious belief, but let Hobby Lobby use sincerely held religious belief (in this case the same as his) to get out of covering the pill.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/scalia-v-scalia/361621/ [theatlantic.com]
Anyway, here's a complete list of his decisions with links to the text:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/author.php?Scalia [cornell.edu]
And yes -- I'm count myself amongst those glad to read his obit.
And while all that is true, and we may revile his views and his actions. He was still human, and I still have empathy for his family, who did and said none of those things.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by r1348 on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:18AM
I believe we must summon a Speaker for the Dead.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:41AM
Good idea, were it possible--I suspect that we need a Speaker for divisive figures more than for most.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:16AM
I'm not so sanguine that the passing of a dick like Scalia doesn't brighten my mood.
As for his family, my empathy is balanced by the far greater number he harmed and unless demonstrated otherwise, I'll presume his family was supportive of him.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:56AM
Because if they weren't, they should have killed him earlier, right?
</troll>
(Score: 2) by naubol on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:17AM
Publically eulogizing him as an awful man may heal many more wounds than the wounds they inflict on his family.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:11AM
People who react with this kind of hate are just as bad as the ones over whose death they're rejoicing.
Typical though, of immature, entitled people. Sad.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:22AM
That's the problem with using hypocrisy as a defence, it means both sides are bad. And since one side is reacting to the actions of the other....
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:40PM
Heh. The best part of that argument is that if you follow that logic through your hate of those rejoicing at his death means you are even worse than them!
Unless, of course, you're not actually following that logic. Last I checked, logic doesn't mean "back at you".
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:24PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:32AM
Amen. They talk about the brilliance of his "legal logic". "Legal logic" is an oxymoron - that's why no mathematician goes into lawyering.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:52PM
Much of his jurisprudence on the SCOTUS reflected his personal and political beliefs and had zero to do with "original construction."
Except as original construction was part of his personal and political beliefs. I note elsewhere [soylentnews.org] that he did a spirited defense of the interpretation of the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right (rather than a collective right). That includes some typical analysis of similar phrases elsewhere in the Bill of Rights which is as well as analysis of similar legal documents of the era. That's all original construction approaches.
Second, not every case is relevant to original construction. Just because a lot of his jurisprudence doesn't mean he wasn't applying original construction when he could.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:11AM
The founding fathers never intended for the constitution to be a dead document like Scalia wanted and allowing reinterpretation served us very well over the interceding time period. A document that was literally as written completely without any contemporary interpretations would be thousands of pages long and completely impossible for the layperson to even roughly understand.
It also ignores the complexities of reality where two similar cases can have differing results and situations where the constitution doesn't give specific guidance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:37AM
Your wrong of course.
The founding fathers intentionally wrote a framework rather than prescription.
But that doesn't mean the framework was intended to be rewritten by every fad blowing in the wind. The amendment process is intentionally difficult. The role of government is not to rewrite the constitution with every new administration. There is noting but tyranny down that road.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Reziac on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:57AM
The people who want to change the Constitution assume that they'll also be the ones enforcing it, and that it will always be enforced according to their vision and within their perception of consequences. Never, ever do they consider the result of a changed Constitution being enforced by parties hostile to their beliefs, let alone consider any unintentional consequences.
"You should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
-- Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the U.S.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:26AM
Well, no, I'm not wrong and your post is bullshit.
You're confusing changes to the constitution with changes in the interpretation of the constitution and those are completely different things. The problem with Citizen's united is that they changed the definition of person to include things which are definitely not people and that could be fixed in the near future if the court gets competent jurists rather than right wing ideologues appointed to it.
The founding father's intended for the Supreme Court to be the final say on the interpretation of the laws and the constitution which is exactly what you're decrying here. They aren't rewriting the constitution, they're adjusting the interpretation to match the current climate. Trying to guess what exactly the founding father's meant with the verbiage they used isn't always easy. You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:18AM
**sigh**
Words develop new meaning with time, and old meanings go out of style. The militia is every male from roughly age 12 to 60. It doesn't mean the national guard. The word "regulated" means accurate, capable, and similar. It doesn't mean restricted by law. Even if this were not so however...
You need to be good with English grammar. The sentence construction works like this: "Because we think X is important, the right to Y is allowed." Note that the first part is merely a justification. It has no bearing on the law. It's no different from the first part of "Because blind people suffer, they get a tax credit of $XXXX per year." (which is NOT a law requiring blind people to suffer or making the discount only available to those who do)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:09PM
Bullshit. Then why can't I own a rocket launcher? It's because the second amendment was never intended to be an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Also that's a restrictive clause. It's not a matter of explanationtion, it's a restriction. What's more it definitely did have a bearing before the right rewrote it in order to suit their agenda. It is a group right so that the states could have armed police and guard troops.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:41PM
By our constitution, it looks like you can in fact own at least a hand-held rocket launcher if not more. (do you "bear" a truck-mounted one or even a silo?) We probably should have put a stop to rocket launchers via a constitutional amendment, but instead we let judges get away with reinterpreting our constitution to deal with the issue.
It's wishful thinking, or a failure to understand English, that leads some to think that the 2nd amendment starts with a restrictive clause. That just isn't how English works.
Where our constitution reserves rights to the states, it actually says so. This isn't the case with the 2nd amendment. You might as well say that the 1st amendment is a collective right so that states can, via their senators, speak their mind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:52PM
You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
Which is a silly claim to make. After all, individual gun ownership was universal to all the states and came with the colonies. It was used to help enforce the individual right to self defense. And the Second Amendment clearly states that there is a right to keep and bear arms. Everywhere else such a right is stated in the Bill of Rights, it is always an individual right not a collective right.
Second, what's a collective right and how can we have collective rights without individual rights? For example, what does it mean to you to have a collective right to keep and bear arms? What does that collective right mean for the individual?
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:53PM
You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
Sorry, virtually every constitutional scholar disagrees with you.
The pre-existing right to gun ownership by citizens was PRECISELY what the 2nd amendment had in mind. And having just overthrown one dictatorship, and not wanting another, it made perfect sense historically to preserve the right to bear arms. (In fact there is a well reasoned school of thought that the 2nd Amendment preserves the right of people to keep and bear ANY similar weapons that an individual soldier might carry into battle.)
Further, you betray a very broken understanding of the constitution by your phrase "the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights". The second amendment, like all amendments, restricts the government from abridging a right. It does not grant a right. The rights precede the government. This is probably at the root of your misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution limits and controls Government. Not People. You've managed to fundamentally miss the point all these years,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @09:45AM
> But that doesn't mean the framework was intended to be rewritten by every fad blowing in the wind.
Do you understand what you are doing by framing it as an extreme?
You say "framework" but then, without a single example, you talk as if any modernization is a "fad blowing in the wind" and "whims of the moment" - you base your argument on the extreme case of some non-existent hypothetical. You make it a choice between black and white when the entire world lives in the greys. Your position is based on something that doesn't exist. In that way you invalidate your argument from the very start.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:00PM
You say "framework" but then, without a single example, you talk as if any modernization is a "fad blowing in the wind" and "whims of the moment" - you base your argument on the extreme case of some non-existent hypothetical.
Well, let's look at an example [soylentnews.org] then.
The problem with Citizen's united is that they changed the definition of person to include things which are definitely not people and that could be fixed in the near future if the court gets competent jurists rather than right wing ideologues appointed to it.
150 years of law on corporate personhood are ignored here.
You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
Except of course, there was widespread individual firearm ownership, historically to the origins of the pre-US colonies. That's a huge support for individual gun ownership and use rights. It's also worth noting that there are a number of other times when "the people" are granted rights by the Bill of Rights. Each of these times, the right was an individual one not a collective one. This incidentally is an argument [soylentnews.org] that Scalia made!
Next, Scalia turns to the language of the Second Amendment, once again arguing along the same lines as the libertarian individualists. He begins his analysis by dividing the amendment into two clauses: the prefatory clause (“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”), and the operative clause (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”). Scalia believes the prefatory clause simply announces the purpose of the Amendment and does not limit the operative clause (District of Columbia v. Heller 2008, 3). He writes that while “this structure…is unique in our Constitution, other legal documents of the founding era, particularly individual-rights provisions of state constitutions, commonly included a prefatory statement of purpose” (District of Columbia v. Heller 2008, 3). For Scalia, the prefatory clause may offer clarification regarding the operative clause, but it in no way restricts its meaning. After defining several key phrases found in both clauses, Scalia offers a conclusion regarding the meaning of the structure of the amendment.
Scalia begins his analysis of the operative clause with an examination of the phrase “the right of the people.” The Bill of Rights uses the phrase three times: in the First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause, in the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause, and in an analogous phrase in the Ninth Amendment (District of Columbia v. Heller 2008, 5). According to Scalia, each of these examples refers to the protection of an individual right, not a collective right. The use of the words “the people” by themselves is found three additional times in the Constitution, each regarding the reservation of power, not rights (District of Columbia v. Heller 2008, 6). The phrase “right of the people,” when used in its entirety, always refers to an individual right. “The people” used in these six examples has been read to describe the entire political community. Therefore, according to Scalia, the amendment does not just protect a subset of people, in this case the militia consisting of adult white males. Instead, it protects the rights of all Americans.
Not only does Francis in this post, reinterpret the Constitution to fit his whims twice, he reinterprets history as well in order to reach the desired conclusion. Unfortunately, we don't agree on what should be the law, not everyone is virtuous, and our interests are not identical. So extending this sort of subjective, fleeting reinterpretation of law and history to current law is sure to be disaster.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:38PM
It's also worth noting that there are a number of other times when "the people" are granted rights by the Bill of Rights.
That too is a fundamental mistake of understanding the US Constitution.
The bill or rights, or rather the entire constitution does not GRANT rights to the people.
The people are assumed to have these rights, and the constitution restricts the government from taking them away.
It was precisely because this was misunderstood that Amendment 10 was added:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Many states (5 or 38%) ratified with conditions (demands, really) that amendments be added to make perfectly clear that specific things left unsaid in the original constitution be added to the Constitution, (not changing any of the original text, simply adding the bill of rights). Even at that early date, people understood the likelihood of a federal power grab and over reach.
To that end, almost the first order of business was the construction by congress from those demands, the first 12 amendments to the constitution and the submission of those to the states.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:04PM
The bill or rights, or rather the entire constitution does not GRANT rights to the people.
The people are assumed to have these rights, and the constitution restricts the government from taking them away.
It was precisely because this was misunderstood that Amendment 10 was added:
That's pretense. We've seen that Amendment 10 is toothless and that the presence of the Bill of Rights has turned out to be necessary to preserve those rights which we supposedly have automatically.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @01:51AM
Well you are exactly correct.
There was argument at the time (Federalist Papers) that the bill of rights was unnecessary, because the body of the constitution would itself prevent government from usurping all rights and powers.
Turns out what little freedoms we have today are almost wholly dependent on and hang by a thread from those first ten amendments, each of which is watered down daily. What should have been a mere redundancy turned out to be an absolute necessity.
One wonders if we would not be better off has the Original First amendment had also passed. The Original Second Amendment did pass. In 1992, as the 27th.
The First amendment [teachinghistory.org] would have limited the size of a US Representative's constituency to about 40,000 people. Had it passed the house would be composed of 8074 representatives.
Of course that's too big to get anything done. Oh, wait......
It might also be too big to bribe.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @11:33AM
The founding fathers never intended for the constitution to be a dead document like Scalia wanted and allowing reinterpretation served us very well over the interceding time period.
The obvious rebuttal is twofold. First, which reinterpretation gets to be selected? And second, how do you keep the tyrants from reinterpreting the Constitution in a way that suits them?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:41AM
> If you celebrate a constitution formed only of "whims of the moment", you could well get your wish, and live to regret it.
Conversely if you believe in a constitution frozen in time you could well get your wish and die because of it.
"This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent"
-- dissent in Troy Anthony Davis's Petition for Habeas Corpus, 2009 [supremecourt.gov]
Yeah, he really did argue that proof innocence is not enough to stop someone from being executed. Hard to top that for evil.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @11:57PM
He is a political hack who used cases, read "other people's lives," as stepping stones to enact his political will. Therefore it is almost expected for people to do the same to him. I give his humanity the same amount of regard as I saw him giving to that of others. Too bad I can't tell his family to their faces, the same way he had on many occasions.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:32AM
There's no hate like radical left wing hate...
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:43AM
...except reactionary right wing hate...
:)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:33AM
Except I don't hate him for his politics, I hate him for what he did. There are people even worse on the other side and I hate them even more.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:57AM
It's not like his wife/children are left unable to support themselves in this world.
Besides, everybody dies at a point, that's as sure as taxes.
As the human empathy has limits (otherwise anyone would go crazy for the amount of suffering/death in this world), I prefer to direct it towards others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:12AM
I think it's sad that a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father.
It's not like his wife/children are left unable to support themselves in this world.
Besides, everybody dies at a point, that's as sure as taxes.
As the human empathy has limits (otherwise anyone would go crazy for the amount of suffering/death in this world), I prefer to direct it towards others
Whether or not his family is left destitute, they've lost a loved one. That, to me at least, is sad. Do you have an understanding of that? Or is everyone and everything to you just a means to an economic end?
I don't tell other people how they should think or feel. However, I don't believe that empathy is a limited resource. I've lost my parents and several siblings. I miss them, and do understand how such a loss can hurt. As such, I do feel for those who now need to go on without someone who was an important part of their lives.
I don't especially mourn Scalia's passing. He wasn't a good guy. But my antipathy for him doesn't extend to his family.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:05AM
I'm reminded of a story...
R.I.P. Justice Antonin Scalia--for fair or foul, you made a mark on your country.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:29AM
Is it better?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:47AM
Yes, I do.
I think the world is a bit poorer, no matter which human dies. And this includes the children dying because of war in Yemen [wikipedia.org] or Syria, or famine in Ethiopia or anywhere else: not only the humanity is losing them but it also loses their potential.
Scalia's family has my sympathy but not my empathy. Scar or mark on his country, at least Scalia had his chances. Those children haven't and won't.
Do you have an understanding of that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:04AM
Yes, I do.
I think the world is a bit poorer, no matter which human dies. And this includes the children dying because of war in Yemen or Syria, or famine in Ethiopia or anywhere else: not only the humanity is losing them but it also loses their potential.
Absolutely. I agree completely.
Scalia's family has my sympathy but not my empathy.
So you feel bad for them, but don't understand their loss or pain?
I guess you've never lost anyone close to you. You should count yourself lucky. Sadly, even if you haven't yet, you will. Obviously that assumes that you care about others.
Scar or mark on his country, at least Scalia had his chances.
And I could say the same about you. Or me. Or just about everyone else on this site. Your point?
Those children haven't and won't. Do you have an understanding of that?
Absolutely. It's a travesty.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:35AM
I understand their loss and pain, this is why they have my sympathy (generated by the intellectual/analytical side of my brain and past life experiences). I just don't have enough empathy to feel for them after I feel for the dying kids.
I have. While a teenager. And it was my kid brother. Probably this is why I'm only sorry for the death of an old man and feel deep sorrow for the death of kids.
As I would, if somebody asks me. And I don't give a dam' if you are saying this about me (and I won't speak for others).
Two actually:
* don't require me or expect me (or other SN community members) to have empathy for Scalia's family and don't try to make me (or anyone else) guilty for not having it; (clod I may be, but) I'm not insensitive - just limited in my capacity to feel for all the loses on this planet.
* and definitely, don't climb a high horse over the others - they may not be insensitive either, even if they don't feel for Scalia family's loss.
(and don't tell me you didn't mean any of the above. Read your posts and see if, on a cursory reading, these interpretations can be excluded)
Sorry, can you rephrase? It's a what? In what sense?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:40AM
So you feel bad for them, but don't understand their loss or pain?
I understand their loss and pain, this is why they have my sympathy (generated by the intellectual/analytical side of my brain and past life experiences). I just don't have enough empathy to feel for them after I feel for the dying kids.
empathy (n) [merriam-webster.com]:
the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings
sympathy (n) [merriam-webster.com]:
the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else's trouble, grief, misfortune, etc. : a sympathetic feeling
Your point?
Two actually:
* don't require me or expect me (or other SN community members) to have empathy for Scalia's family and don't try to make me (or anyone else) guilty for not having it; (clod I may be, but) I'm not insensitive - just limited in my capacity to feel for all the loses on this planet.
I don't require or expect anything from anyone. As I explicitly said [soylentnews.org]:
* and definitely, don't climb a high horse over the others - they may not be insensitive either, even if they don't feel for Scalia family's loss.
Believe what your like. I will do the same. If advocating for simple kindness and respect for human dignity is getting "on my high horse" then I'm guilty as charged. I have my own beliefs and sense of ethics. I don't really care if others agree. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to keep my mouth shut just because you (or anyone else) doesn't like what I have to say. Don't like it? Ignore me. Or respond to me. Or do whatever you like. That's your choice, not mine.
(and don't tell me you didn't mean any of the above. Read your posts and see if, on a cursory reading, these interpretations can be excluded)
I think I just did. And I have read my posts -- heck, I even wrote them. If you took what I said as anything beyond my expression of my thoughts and ideas, the fault lies either with your comprehension, my exposition or both.
Again, as I explicitly stated, I don't attempt to prescribe how others should think, feel or speak. I do, however, feel free to use speech to express how I think and feel.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:53AM
I'm cool with that. Heck, I respect that, even.
Most probable with both, methinks. Ta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:58AM
I honestly would not be surprised if his family, or at least his children, were actually almost as happy about his death as some of the posters here are. Just because they are in his family doesn't automatically mean they loved him.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:01AM
All right, I can go along with that. I'll refrain from dancing on his grave--at least, until he's buried in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:37AM
However, this man had a wife and nine children. I think it's sad that a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father.
As far as they're concerned [wikipedia.org] their spouse/daddy just got a promotion. Heck, they surely believe he'll sit right next to Their Lord, deciding who gets in and who goes to Hell.
Maybe they'll throw him a departure party?