Supreme Court Justices

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thought I would start a new thread for this rather than continuing the discussion that we had in the Obama thread.

I'm curious to know what those of you who think of Justice Stevens as the "most liberal" justice and are worried that Kagan will somehow move the court to the right if she is confirmed think of his joining the majority in court's decision today upholding a law that prohibits all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities. The decision was 6-3 with Stevens joining the usual conservative majority, and Justice Breyer writing a scathing dissent, which he read from the bench. Given that Kagan defended the law as solicitor general its not a bad guess that she would have also sided with the majority (although it can be difficult to predict since it was her job to defend the law), the fact that Stevens sided with the majority suggests that he is not the absolute liberal lion that some people think he is, and that in fact one center-left justice is being replaced by another.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme- ... 249&page=2

[Cerin]

I think one center-left judge is being replaced by one center-right judge. The fact that Stevens is often referred to as a liberal simply illustrates how much the political template has been moved to the right since Reagan. As you've pointed out before, Voronwë, Stevens was called the leader of the liberal wing of the court, and I think 'liberal wing' is used there as a comparative term. It means liberal as compared to the conservative wing, rather than as an absolute.

I'm sorry I can't give you any substantive reasons for my characterization of Kagan as more right leaning. It's based on what I've been reading, but I have not been keeping track of what I've been reading, nor have I retained the pertinent details. I suppose we'll all see in time where she falls.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

All of the substantive information indicates that she is center-left, probably leaning a little bit more to the left than Stevens on issues like abortion and first amendment, and maybe a little to the right of him on executive power. Yet certain elements in the "progressive community" wish to paint her as conservative in order to attack President Obama.

[Cerin]

Or perhaps they wish to paint her conservative because they view her as conservative, from where they stand.

edit

People don't necessarily attack Pres. Obama for the sake of attacking him (I can attest to this personally). They attack him because they strongly disapprove of the things he does.

edit

One of the reasons they might strongly disapprove of the things he does is because they are more left of center than he is. These things are all relative.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't mean to suggest that you, personally, are calling Kagan conservative in order to attack President Obama, but I think that that explains some of the things that you have read that have led you to form that opinion. The fact of the matter is that there is no real evidence that Kagan is overall more conservative than Stevens, and quite a bit that points to the opposite (which is why we have people like Robert Bork actively campaigning against her).

[Cerin]

It just doesn't make sense to me that people would knowingly write misleading things about Kagan so as to give themselves an excuse to attack the Pres.

Being one of the people who strongly disapproves of this President, it is easy for me to think it far more likely that people write the things they write about Kagan because from their more left-leaning point of view, she seems conservative and they are fearful of the kind of justice she will be, knowing how already skewed to the right the court has become. So they attack the Pres. because it is one more decision in a long line of decisions with which he has bitterly disappointed them.

Of course Judge Bork would view Kagan as liberal from his perspective. It makes just as much sense that people on the left would view her as conservative from their perspective.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It just doesn't make sense to me that people would knowingly write misleading things about Kagan so as to give themselves an excuse to attack the Pres.

It doesn't make sense to me either, and I don't think it is necessarily done consciously, but the things being said simply are not objectively true.

[Holbytla]

Oh I believe there are people out there that will do anything, including mislead, to bring down the opposite party.

On the other hand, it seems to me that there are maybe 3 or 4 issues out there that tend to paint justices in a certain light even though there are many issues before them.

Will we forever be held in judgment based on abortion and gay rights issues, especially since the abortion issue is decades gone by? Is that our biggest threat and worry still to this day?

I move that most of the issues before the Supreme Court don't relate in any way to abortion or any other "litmus" type of case, and their views on those specific divisive issues do not correlate to what is actiually before them.

[axordil]

Will we forever be held in judgment based on abortion and gay rights issues, especially since the abortion issue is decades gone by? Is that our biggest threat and worry still to this day?

No, but those are what have kept people coming to the polls for those decades. Abortion in particular is an issue the GOP never wants to win on in any final way, since they know it would cost them a lot of single issue voters/contributors. They tried grooming gay rights for to be its successor, but society has changed too fast to stop and it's turning into a cul-de-sac.