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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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:29AM
As long as you don't mind when people cheer when someone you like or admire dies then I guess it's all good, albeit in somewhat bad taste.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:08AM
People admire Scalia? The man was a psychopath that would rather send known innocent people to be slaughtered than to admit that the law isn't perfect and sometimes requires some common sense. I mean seriously, anybody that morally bankrupt ought not be allowed out in public, let alone in a position where they're literally holding people's lives in the balance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @09:38AM
People admire Scalia? The man was a psychopath that would rather send known innocent people to be slaughtered than to admit that the law isn't perfect and sometimes requires some common sense.
No he firmly did admit that the law wasn't perfect and despite acknowledging that fact, he still was happy to send innocent people their deaths. That's even worse.
“Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect ... One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly.”
Kansas v Michael Lee Marsh, 2006 [supremecourt.gov]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @11:11AM
No he firmly did admit that the law wasn't perfect and despite acknowledging that fact, he still was happy to send innocent people their deaths. That's even worse.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @11:09AM
The man was a psychopath
No, he wasn't. Words have meaning.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:59PM
Of course he was most attorneys are. At least the ones that are successful at it. You seea lot of psychopaths showing up in business as well as the legal system.
Also psychopath isn't s technical term. Somebody that would conduct himself like Scalia did is fairly described as psychopathic.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:09PM
Also psychopath isn't s technical term.
Actually, yes, it is. Not only is it a technical term, the people [hare.org] who designed the scales of psychopathy urge us not to use the term without proper training.
The potential for harm is considerable if the PCL-R is used incorrectly, or if the user is not familiar with the clinical and empirical literature pertaining to psychopathy.
And I don't agree that Scalia "conducted himself" in a manner that could be described by the term, psychopathy. You're just hurling an empty slur.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:18AM
No I don't, in fact they do already and there is nothing anyone can do about it and nor should they be able to.
Also your definition of taste is your own personal opinion and thus matters as much as any one person's opinion does - not that much.
Personally I have always found it ridiculous that when someone dies all of a sudden they must be spoken of as a saint or its "bad taste". People are what they are and dying changes nothing except that you are dead.
Speaker for the Dead.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:38AM
That's based upon a misunderstanding of why we don't generally speak ill of the dead. We generally don't speak ill of the dead because they aren't there to defend themselves which means that the rumors about them are likely to be wrong and we're likely to reinforce a set of bad choices based upon what they did in life.
It's not because there's something wrong with speaking ill of the dead, it's that it's not generally good for us personally to do so.
That being said, there are definitely times when it's the only healthy thing to do, like in this case the deceased was a pretty horrible person as far as his professional life goes. People who commit suicide likewise shouldn't be put up on a pedestal, a more human view of them is best for everybody involved, even if they did some horrible things.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:27AM
We often speak about people when they are not there to defend themselves all the time. Since when has ANYONE expected Scalia to turn up on these forums to defend himself in a comment? I STILL fail to see how their status of alive or dead is relevant.
I also think you assume far too much introspection into the behaviours of the average person on this subject.
"likely to reinforce a set of bad choices based upon what they did in life"
Because pointing out what they did wrong will encourage people to do it so they too can be held accountable when they die as opposed to having everyone ignore their bad actions? Yes, that makes absolutely perfectly logical sense.
"there are definitely times when it's the only healthy thing to do,"
And then you unwind your argument by giving almost arbitrary examples where its ok because...well just because it "makes sense" (to you) and is "healthy".
Honestly, that is a product of dishonest thinking and a generally dishonest social norm.
A person is what they were and your opinions on them are as valid whether they are alive or dead. I have no problem with people feeling they have to lie to themselves due to a person's death (freedom and all that), just don't try to shit all over people who are just calling it as they have always seen it with the exceptionally weak and irrelevant argument of "because they are dead you have to respect them no matter what".
Anyways. It matters not. We shall all say what we want anyhow...at least until people like Scalia run the world and nobody is allowed to!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:59AM
First off, the fact that somebody is still alive means that it's possible to go to the source on it, not that one does. But, if there's allegations about him having sex with donkeys now, that's not something that's likely to be resolved. Previously, he could at least defend himself in court and get to some sort of resolution on the matter.
Once somebody is dead, there's nothing you can do to enforce any sort of accountability on them. I'm curious why you'd think otherwise. All it does is breed ill will that does have a very real impact on the lives of people that are still here. My grandmother was a sociopath, being angry at her and spreading a lot of talk about her is largely a waste of energy. People went along with it and they'll refuse to acknowledge it whether or not anybody speaks ill of her. That's how people are.
As I said, there are times when it is appropriate to do so, but they're restricted to times when we're trying to avoid repeating the past. Just because you choose to deliberately misread what I've posted doesn't change the fact that there are occasionally times when speaking ill of the dead is appropriate. But it doesn't mean that the cultural aversion to badmouthing the dead is wrong or that my argument has unwound, it just means that your logic sucks.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:41PM
Not really. I think you are just trying to reverse reason a truism and doing a bad job of it. I find your arguments weak but you don't believe they are.
Its fine, there is no requirement for us to agree and cultural norms that are blindly followed do not always exist for good reasons.
We will just have to beg to differ.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:03AM
As long as you don't mind when people cheer when someone you ...
No... Stop....
There is a HUGE difference between someone like Scalia and some nobody like myself or yourself. Scalia was a public figure. His actions, or inactions resulted in major changes to people's lives. Cheering that some nobody died is tasteless. But cheering that some public figure is dead, whose actions could have affected your life for the last 2 decades, well, sorry, but that comes with the job.
Scalia was not a saint. He was not some do-gooder. Some of his actions ruined people's lives.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-scalia-so-called-torture-ok/ [cbsnews.com]
So I'm sorry, but Scalia removal through old-age from the SCOTUS is a good thing. Having someone there that believes torture is a-ok, is just bad. It's bad for US. It's bad for everyone.