The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgiving

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

I think that argues for adoption of a provision to remove her, not a modification of her behavior. It's not her fault that the state didn't plan for this contingency.

I kinda like the idea of a human being opposing a matter of personal conscience to the state and forcing the state to haul her out of there feet first. Davis is a good test case because here is a person whose cause is morally repellent, and that's the thing about rights -- they have to hold for the villains as much as for the heroes.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packag...Behind-Tianamen/20090603-tank-cole-1000px.jpg

No one is saying she doesnt have the right to oppose SSM she totally can. (that dog wont hunt it is a horrid straw man) She can not put herself above the law of the land. She made her protest, the courts ruled and that is that. If she can thumb her nose at her job and the law why should any of us follow the law if we dont like it for religious or moral reasons?

You know what happens to protesters who break laws...they are punished. So should she be period end of story.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

This part is especially true. And why the ACLU defended Nazis in Skokie. Rather, Nazis' right to free speech.

Right, and I support the ACLU doing that...this is not that though. What they did was LEGAL, what she is doing is ILLEGAL. Not the same thing.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Bingo, if she is allowed to not follow the law without any real punishment (she hasnt lost her job) that is tacit approval of her act and completely invalidates the law. She can believe what she wants but her duty and the law supersede that in the work place.

This argues for her removal, but I don't think it addresses what I'm trying to get at.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

No one is saying she doesnt have the right to oppose SSM she totally can. (that dog wont hunt it is a horrid straw man) She can not put herself above the law of the land. She made her protest, the courts ruled and that is that. If she can thumb her nose at her job and the law why should any of us follow the law if we dont like it for religious or moral reasons?

You know what happens to protesters who break laws...they are punished. So should she be period end of story.

I'm not saying she should not be punished. The question is, is there ethical validity in a public official exercising civil disobedience, knowing full well they will be punished? Dr. Mrs. seems to be arguing there is not, while I'm arguing there is.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Right, and I support the ACLU doing that...this is not that though. What they did was LEGAL, what she is doing is ILLEGAL. Not the same thing.

That's what civil disobedience is: deliberately breaking an unjust law to draw attention to its injustice. I'm arguing, albeit tepidly, I don't think you lose that ethical right when you take office. All that happens is you accrue greater penalties if you decide to exercise your conscience.

 

[LynahFan]

That's what civil disobedience is: deliberately breaking an unjust law to draw attention to its injustice. I'm arguing, albeit tepidly, I don't think you lose that ethical right when you take office. All that happens is you accrue greater penalties if you decide to exercise your conscience.

Well, you OUGHT to (accrue greater penalties), at least...

Wonder how long I would keep my job if I told my boss that the FSM forbids me to design airplanes?

 

[burd]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

That's what civil disobedience is: deliberately breaking an unjust law to draw attention to its injustice. I'm arguing, albeit tepidly, I don't think you lose that ethical right when you take office. All that happens is you accrue greater penalties if you decide to exercise your conscience.

I have to agree that one does not lose that right simply because he or she takes public office.

In her case, I hope she gets hammered, but the potential value of conscience should not disappear just because the objector holds office. One could even argue that the value increases in cases where the cog in the wheel is a government official.

 

[unofan]

That's what civil disobedience is: deliberately breaking an unjust law to draw attention to its injustice. I'm arguing, albeit tepidly, I don't think you lose that ethical right when you take office. All that happens is you accrue greater penalties if you decide to exercise your conscience.

I think you do lose it when you take office. Since this whole argument rests on moral grounds, even if her job oath didn't explicitly mention upholding the Constitution, as an elected public official she is morally expected to support it. She refuses to do so. Her moral code should tell her to resign rather than accept money for not doing her job.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

I think you do lose it when you take office. Since this whole argument rests on moral grounds, even if her job oath didn't explicitly mention upholding the Constitution, as an elected public official she is morally expected to support it. She refuses to do so. Her moral code should tell her to resign rather than accept money for not doing her job.

What if she thinks the symbolism and profile of her position means her message will reach more people?

 

[alfablue]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

That's what civil disobedience is: deliberately breaking an unjust law to draw attention to its injustice. I'm arguing, albeit tepidly, I don't think you lose that ethical right when you take office. All that happens is you accrue greater penalties if you decide to exercise your conscience.

I certainly can't fault one being admiring, even disagreeing with her point.

But, to me, that ends with her, and any of her employees who voluntarily do it as well.

Once she ordered that nobody can comply with the law, even though they would like to give out the licences, that takes it too far, and become abuse of power of her position.

I think you do lose it when you take office. Since this whole argument rests on moral grounds, even if her job oath didn't explicitly mention upholding the Constitution, as an elected public official she is morally expected to support it. She refuses to do so. Her moral code should tell her to resign rather than accept money for not doing her job.

I don't think I totally agree. Lets date this back 150 years, and she decided that she would not give ownership licences to slave owners. Or 60 years ago, and she decided to help someone who was wrongly in the "whites only" line. Those are also moral questions that question the constitution. Just that we already know the answer.

Again, if the protest ended with the person, and others who willingly participated, that seems to be a right of free speech.

Once the ORDER goes out to people not willing to participate, that's abuse of power. As is ignoring a court order after the proceedings take place. I may miss my procedures- but once the question surrounding the protest enters the court systems, then it can travel the proper routes to reach the SCOTUS. At that point, one must then proceed with their pledge to allow legal items to take place under their watch.

Where she takes it too far is the attempted elevation in pop culture. The recent Pope incident is a good example- they say that she met with him- which implies a lot. They reply- that she was one of many, and her case is not known by the Pope. That attempt was to try to justify her work, when the Pope can comment on marriage in a religious context, where she is applying marriage in a civil context- totally different areas.

 

[unofan]

What if she thinks the symbolism and profile of her position means her message will reach more people?

Too farking bad. Civil servants may not lose as many rights as a person in the military does, but they lose almost any right to privacy they might otherwise have (emails and documents are subject to public disclosure - most salaries are made public, etc.). Public officials fall in between.

I think public officials can be conscientious objectors so long as it's questionable whether what they're doing is legal or not. Once it's clear they're legally wrong, then their position requires them to resign if they can't abide by the law.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Too farking bad. Civil servants may not lose as many rights as a person in the military does, but they lose almost any right to privacy they might otherwise have (emails and documents are subject to public disclosure - most salaries are made public, etc.). Public officials fall in between.

I think public officials can be conscientious objectors so long as it's questionable whether what they're doing is legal or not. Once it's clear they're legally wrong, then their position requires them to resign if they can't abide by the law.

Then there seems to be a clear path: she refuses to resign, somebody brings suit, she refuses to appear, the court finds her in contempt, she refuses to comply with the terms, the court puts her in the hoosegow and her replacement takes over and starts granting the licenses. She gets to be Thoreau, people get their licenses, the law is upheld, everybody wins.

Seems reasonable to me.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Too farking bad. Civil servants may not lose as many rights as a person in the military does, but they lose almost any right to privacy they might otherwise have (emails and documents are subject to public disclosure - most salaries are made public, etc.). Public officials fall in between.

I think public officials can be conscientious objectors so long as it's questionable whether what they're doing is legal or not. Once it's clear they're legally wrong, then their position requires them to resign if they can't abide by the law.

Absolutely.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Somebody linked a story about the Pope meeting with Mrs. Davis on his way out of town, showing her support. Well, the Vatican has a different account of the meeting and its significance.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Friday distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis, the focal point in the gay marriage debate in the U.S., saying she was one of dozens of people the pope greeted as he left Washington and that their encounter "should not be considered a form of support of her position."

After days of confusion, the Vatican issued a statement Friday with its version of Francis' Sept. 24 encounter with Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis met with "several dozen" people at the Vatican's embassy in Washington just before leaving for New York.

Lombardi said such meetings are normal on any Vatican trip and are due to the pope's "kindness and availability." He said Francis really had only one "audience" in Washington: with one of his former students and his family.

"The pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects," Lombardi said.

 

[unofan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Then there seems to be a clear path: she refuses to resign, somebody brings suit, she refuses to appear, the court finds her in contempt, she refuses to comply with the terms, the court puts her in the hoosegow and her replacement takes over and starts granting the licenses. She gets to be Thoreau, people get their licenses, the law is upheld, everybody wins.

Seems reasonable to me.

So if a pacifist signs up to be an infantry soldier, that's a-ok because he'll wind up facing a court martial? Never mind that he could declare his objections up front and be assigned to a medical or logistical unit instead?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

So if a pacifist signs up to be an infantry soldier, that's a-ok because he'll wind up facing a court martial? Never mind that he could declare his objections up front and be assigned to a medical or logistical unit instead?

What do you mean by A-OK?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

As Marx said "[Religion] is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness."

It seems to me that either you and I read a different translation of the German text*, or you are using the statement out of context.

It appeared to me that, in the overall context of the passage in which Marx observed, "Religion is the opiate of the masses," he said it more with compassion than with disdain: that people's lives were so oppressed and so downtrodden that they needed something like opium to dull the pain and cope somehow with an otherwise unbearable existence. He did not appear to want to "abolish" religion as much as replace it with something better. Just the same thing as an intervention: you have a friend who is drug-addled, you get him to a detox / treatment center.

The first part was not hostile it was sympathetic. The prescription to many might seem a bit harsh, and at the same time withdrawal feels harsh to the junkie going through it.

It is more likely that the concept of religion as a positive organizing metaphor for one's life was beyond his experience and perhaps his comprehension. In the context, he was not against all religion, merely those that instructed their adherents to endure suffering for the sake of suffering itself. It was primarily those religions which taught "the more you endure suffering now, the more you will be rewarded in the afterlife" that he railed against.

From my readings of what Marx actually wrote (not paying attention to what interpreters of Marx said about his work), he actually would have welcomed a religion that said "everyone deserves a life of dignity and respect and all shall be empowered equally in this life right now" as an ally not as a threat.





* One of the translations I read of Das Kapital kept talking about "means of production" over and over, and for awhile I struggled a bit to follow his meaning. As soon as the word "technology" occurred to me, everything clicked into place with incredible clarity. It can be quite instructive sometimes to look at two different translations side by side.

 

[unofan]

What do you mean by A-OK?

Whatever you're defining as ok about the whole Kim Davis scenario.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Whatever you're defining as ok about the whole Kim Davis scenario.

Then yeah, I guess?

 

[unofan]

Then yeah, I guess?

Let let me see if I can rephrase and make sure we're on the same page:

You're arguing Kim Davis doesn't lose her right to be a conscientious objector simply by virtue of her position as an elected official. If her moral code conflicts with her job duties, she doesn't resign, and the system isn't setup to fire her (at least in any reasonable speed), then that's the system's fault and not her concern, and she has no moral obligation to mitigate or avoid the situation in the interim.

I disagree. I believe being a public servant requires people to give up certain rights. At the bottom, civil servants give up privacy rights, and some give up political rights (some positions are nonpartisan and prohibit partisan activity). At the top are soldiers, who basically sign their whole lives away. Somewhere in the middle are elected officials. I think people lose their right to object to the duties of their job so long as said employment is itself voluntary. So a draftee can conscientiously object, since he's coerced. The army accommodates that by assigning him to non combat roles. A volunteer cannot, since he signed up willingly. I don't see how the fact that the military can court martial him for doing so makes the initial objection morally ok when he placed himself in that situation in the first place.

I guess I'm trying to see if there's any situation where you think a person ever loses the right to be a conscientious objector.

I'd also ask if you think Wallace standing in front of the school doors was an act of conscientious objection. Or if President Obama actually pulled any of the stunts flaggy and his ilk accuse him of doing, but said he was obligated to do so by his moral code, would that also be kosher because the system, in theory, could impeach him?