Gorsuch vs. Kavanaugh

[appleman2006]

Also for what it is worth...this doesn't capture Bork, which is when these SC wars really started.

Democrats claim Abe Fortas as a grievance as well and that was 1968. I think the real issue though is the increasing power and importance of SCOTUS to determine cultural issues. This was begun certainly as far back as Woodrow Wilson but gained real momentum in the Warren and Burger eras. It was a real shift in ideology from a constitutional textualism/orginalism/stare decisis to one of activism/constitution qua "living document". If SCOTUS had not abrogated to itself the power to determine matters of culture and even anthropology, particularly in the liberal Warren and Burger eras but also as recently as Obergefell, confirmation hearings would not be nearly so contentious as the stakes would be much lower.

I totally agree. It has happened here in Canada as well.

[temporal1]

Also for what it is worth...this doesn't capture Bork, which is when these SC wars really started.

Democrats claim Abe Fortas as a grievance as well and that was 1968.

I think the real issue though is the increasing power and importance of SCOTUS to determine cultural issues. This was begun certainly as far back as Woodrow Wilson but gained real momentum in the Warren and Burger eras.

It was a real shift in ideology from a constitutional textualism/orginalism/stare decisis to one of activism/constitution qua "living document".

If SCOTUS had not abrogated to itself the power to determine matters of culture and even anthropology, particularly in the liberal Warren and Burger eras but also as recently as Obergefell, confirmation hearings would not be nearly so contentious as the stakes would be much lower.

I totally agree. It has happened here in Canada as well.

The judges, themselves, could benefit from reading HK’s words.

[Jazman]

the majority of organized offensive incivility, including violence, is on the lib side, which is eventually met with defensive incivility.

Do you have historical proof of this claim? How does a claim like this heal partisan divides?
As I see it, the extremes of both sides are probably equally guilty in this regard, while the majority of both sides neither participate in, advocate for or condone what you term, "organized offensive incivility".

[HondurasKeiser]

Do you have historical proof of this claim? How does a claim like this heal partisan divides?
As I see it, the extremes of both sides are probably equally guilty in this regard, while the majority of both sides neither participate in, advocate for or condone what you term, "organized offensive incivility".

It’s hard for me to convey genuine curiosity via the internet so please take me at my word when I say that I am genuinely curious. Can you tell me where you have seen something akin to organized incivility on the part of the Republican lawmakers? I realize that Trump is an easy target but as this problem predates him by at least 3 decades please give me a few pre-Trump era examples.

[appleman2006]

the majority of organized offensive incivility, including violence, is on the lib side, which is eventually met with defensive incivility.

Do you have historical proof of this claim? How does a claim like this heal partisan divides?
As I see it, the extremes of both sides are probably equally guilty in this regard, while the majority of both sides neither participate in, advocate for or condone what you term, "organized offensive incivility".

Sorry Jazman but in my opinion you have to be extremely partisan not to see the huge difference in the way the left and right have reacted in the last number of years.

When President Obama won both his first and second terms there were a lot of disappointed people but I do not recall even one violent protest Not one. In the last two years you have had many violent protests as well as many extremely loud and boisterous ones. I do not know of a single case where left wing speakers have been shut down at universities. Happens all the time to right wing speakers.
I will grant you that the far left is a much bigger movement than the extreme right and so this may be part of it but to deny that in the past 20 years that the left has been far more militant than the right is to have your head in the sand. How many cases alone just during your last presidential campaign were leftists even found guilty of trying to make it look like the right was instigating riots? That it happened even once is disgraceful.

The same phenomena holds true up here in Canada. The minute a conservative gets into power protests become far more violent. Two very public cases of pro life protesters being physically attacked just in the last couple of weeks. Sorry Jazman but the fact is the left is far far more militant as a rule.

[Valerie]

Not just all these mobs & riots by the left but also the crude & vile women's March where females dressed in very vulgar costumes. Perhaps people are not really aware or see all of this or yes maybe people acknowledge what they want to see-

This morning my mom texted me that a teacher was fired because she tweeted to her students "whose going to take one for the team and kill Kavanaugh". These assassination threats have circulated since President Trump was elected. An Orthodox sister in the Lord posted on fb thankfulness when Kavanaugh was voted in Satuday, many of us commented our praise & thanks to God- we were met with hate filled accusations by women who don't even know us, calling us names. No, when Obama was in we still prayed for him & his family, acknowledged God is Sovereign and this was by His choice for His purposes, (Daniel 7) and chose to pray, not riot over things that were happening that broke our heart.

How to deal with what we are watching?

What say you? We are praying

[appleman2006]

Been thinking a bit more on what I said in the above post and I would like to qualify one aspect of what I said. I fully accept that human beings regardless of their political leanings have the capabilities to become violent. Particularly those on the fringes. I believe the primary reason we see so much more violence on the left is because the far left represents a much much bigger group today than the far right. Hence far more violence coming from them. It is also interesting to me to see which side invariably has their faces covered at protests. That tells a lot IMO.

I do find it alarming that the far left seems to also have crept a lot closer to power as in they seem to more and more actually have elected members that identify with them or at least very close to them. For example socialism used to be a bad word in your country. It was simply understood not to work. Today it is worn as a badge of honour by a large group even though they cannot point to a single time or era where it has worked well. It is taught as a viable alternative in your universities. It saddens me that we simply do not learn from history.

[haithabu]

I have to say that I was glad that Kavanaugh made it through to confirmation. Not so much for his own sake but for the sake of rebuking the tactics used by his opponents. Those tactics were a major escalation in incivility and had they been rewarded by success then we would have seen no end of them in the future.

Implicit in what I am saying is the view that the accusations against Kavanaugh were made in bad faith.

[JimFoxvog]

I have to say that I was glad that Kavanaugh made it through to confirmation. Not so much for his own sake but for the sake of rebuking the tactics used by his opponents. Those tactics were a major escalation in incivility and had they been rewarded by success then we would have seen no end of them in the future.

Implicit in what I am saying is the view that the accusations against Kavanaugh were made in bad faith.

But what if they were made in good faith, out of a sense of being willing to suffer all sorts of attacks because of civic duty? Ford still needs to be living in an undisclosed location for her own safety after many threats.

The details of the place of the attack fit "Timmy's" house where Kavanaugh's calendar placed him, while Ford did not remember it was Timmy's house. The FBI failed to talk with many people who could support the story of bad drunken and sexual behavior.

[Bootstrap]

I have to say that I was glad that Kavanaugh made it through to confirmation. Not so much for his own sake but for the sake of rebuking the tactics used by his opponents. Those tactics were a major escalation in incivility and had they been rewarded by success then we would have seen no end of them in the future.

Implicit in what I am saying is the view that the accusations against Kavanaugh were made in bad faith.

So instead of having a non-political process for finding out what is true and what is false, we should polarize along political lines, each side shouting the loudest possible accusations against the other, with death threats on both sides, mock one of the parties on the campaign trail (while lying about what was actually said), and see if we can get enough political pressure for 51 votes.

And instead of requiring 60 votes as we have as long as I remember, we no longer care about having a Supreme Court justice that a significant majority of Senators are OK with. Why?

Facts matter. It's worth taking time to find out what the facts are. I don't care what your opinion about Kavanaugh's testimony or Ford's testimony is and you shouldn't care what my opinion is - neither of us has access to the facts that would determine the truth.

If 11 months was too short to consider Merrick Garland, we probably could have spent at least a few weeks investigating the facts behind Ford's testimony and Kavanaugh's. Outside of the political circus.