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Sotomayor on Second Amendment Incorporation
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) recently finished questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about her views on the Second Amendment, specifically her role in the 2nd Circuit's decision in Maloney v. Cuomo, which held that the Second Amendment does not apply against the states. Sotomayor stated explicitly that she and her 2nd Circuit colleagues were following Supreme Court precedent in this decision, that she "accepted and applied" the Court's ruling last year in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. She and Leahy also referenced as precedent the 1876 case U.S. v. Cruikshank, which held that the Second Amendment does not constrain state governments.
While it's true that Heller didn't answer the question of Second Amendment incorporation, the decision was far from silent on the matter. In footnote 23 of his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia observed that while Cruikshank stated that the Second Amendment did not apply against the states, "Cruikshank also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases."
As I've previously argued, this is a very potent statement. Consider that the Court has been protecting First Amendment rights from state and local abuse since 1925's Gitlow v. New York, making Cruikshank a dead letter when it comes to free speech (as Heller clearly notes). So why should Cruikshank still matter for gun rights? That's the conclusion the 9th Circuit correctly reached earlier this year in Nordyke v. King, where it used "the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases" and correctly applied the 2nd Amendment against California. Perhaps somebody on the Judiciary Committee will ask Sotomayor whether she thinks Cruikshank is still good precedent for free speech cases, and if not, why gun rights deserve any less constitutional respect. I'd also like to hear why she thinks Maloney got it right but Nordyke got it wrong.
Watch the rest of the confirmation hearings for yourself here.
UPDATE: As Brian Doherty notes below, George Mason University law professor Nelson Lund took Sotomayor to task for ignoring the Court's twentieth century incorporation precedents.
MNG|7.14.09 @ 10:53AM|#
If there is a 2nd Amendment right of individuals then it strikes me as strange for a liberal to not see it as incorporated. It's not like the grand jury provision (which hell I would have incorporated as well). My fellow liberals need to get a grip on their anti-gun hysteria: the 2nd Amendment is there along with all the Amendments we love (the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th etc), time to stop treating it like a red-headed step child just because we don't like the results of respecting it.
Xeones|7.14.09 @ 10:56AM|#
Right on, MNG. Maybe you could bring that up at the next secret meeting, please?
|7.14.09 @ 11:06AM|#
Poor people, brown people and rednecks are just not competent enough to own guns.
|7.14.09 @ 11:09AM|#
I can understand the arguments for and against incorporation. What it completely untenable is the idea that you can pick and choose. Why not say that only part of the First Amendment is incorporated? States can't abridge free speech, but the portions about religion aren't incorporated. Why not just make the whole thing up from scratch?
*|7.14.09 @ 11:11AM|#
Poor people, brown people and rednecks are just not
competent enough to own guns.
Only when they're Democrats.
|7.14.09 @ 11:16AM|#
I agree with you Lamar. What exactly are the rights necessary for due process? I tend to think all of them are.
|7.14.09 @ 11:16AM|#
That's the beauty of a living document. You don't have to be logically consistent, because that only involves the mere text of it. The Chosen One will tell us our rights as He sees fit.
Theology Liberation|7.14.09 @ 11:18AM|#
Damn MNG you are almost there. If you could just get rid of that thought control micro chip the Union installed in your brain you would be alright.
Warty|7.14.09 @ 11:21AM|#
Speaking of guns, is anyone else going to the National Matches this year? I was at pistol SAFS yesterday. Goddamn, shooting things is fun.
|7.14.09 @ 11:30AM|#
What's with Chuck Schumer almost crying while reading off
Sotomayor's West Side Story prequel upbringing?
Turn off the waterworks and go change your fucking tampon,
Chuck.
Enyap|7.14.09 @ 11:35AM|#
Liberals are against guns for the same reason there against wallmart and smoking. Mainly they despise the redneck types these are often associated with.
Steve Smith|7.14.09 @ 11:42AM|#
Perhaps somebody on the Judiciary Committee will ask
Sotomayor whether she thinks Cruikshank is still good precedent for
free speech cases, and if not, why gun rights deserve any less
constitutional respect.
Hopefully, her answer will be that free speech, being more
important than the right to keep and bear arms, and drafted in more
unequivocal and absolute language, should be granted a more
privileged position when it comes to the states.
|7.14.09 @ 11:45AM|#
To expand upon Enyap's statement, guns tans to be KULTUR WAR
cyphers, like weed is often treated. Liberals associate guns with
rednecks with gun racks in their trucks, and conservatives
associate weed with dirty rotten hippies. So both try to beat up on
the other's symbol.
Luckily both associations seem to be diminishing as the KULTUR WAR
baby boomers get older and older.
Peter|7.14.09 @ 11:53AM|#
"guns tans"
That was a weird typo. I meant "guns tend".
Call me a redneck, but in the right accent that sounded just
right.
Peter|7.14.09 @ 11:59AM|#
Oh, why thank you X, I was hoping someone would.
I see you are back to your wasteful ways with the 6-digit
name...
Mike M.|7.14.09 @ 12:00PM|#
Liberals are against guns for the same reason there against
wallmart and smoking. Mainly they despise the redneck types these
are often associated with.
What's funny is that some of the biggest "gun nuts" I personally
know are diehard lefties.
In my experience, one trip to the local firing range is usually all
it takes to cure a liberal's irrational case of hoplophobia.
Convincing them to go is the hard part, but the rest takes care of
itself.
Xeones|7.14.09 @ 12:01PM|#
I see you are back to your wasteful ways with the 6-digit
name...
I'm expecting a bailout next month.
Mike T|7.14.09 @ 12:01PM|#
Hopefully, her answer will be that free speech, being more important than the right to keep and bear arms, and drafted in more unequivocal and absolute language, should be granted a more privileged position when it comes to the states.
The second amendment, if read with absolute literalism, pre-14th
amendment bans state prohibitions on firearm ownership. Unlike the
first amendment, which explicitly mentions Congress, the second
amendment unequivocally says "the right to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed."
Period. Not by Congress, not by the states, technically not even by
business owners. If you took the text literally as written, the
second amendment prohibits anyone from interfering with your
right.
|7.14.09 @ 12:04PM|#
"To expand upon Enyap's statement, guns tans to be KULTUR WAR
cyphers, like weed is often treated. Liberals associate guns with
rednecks with gun racks in their trucks, and conservatives
associate weed with dirty rotten hippies. So both try to beat up on
the other's symbol."
That is very true. Political parties are brands as much as anything
else. Obama managed to brand himself as something young and cool.
It didn't matter that his policies where just warmed over 60s
leftovers or that he planned to screw everyone under 30 to buy off
the baby boomers. Young people wanted the cool brand so they bought
Obama. In the same way, it doesn't matter that weed can help cancer
patients or that most conservatives hate the federal government,
creating the DEA and going after hippies is the conservative brand.
So conservatives who ought to know better buy off on the drug war.
Guns are no different. The fact that gun control has roots in Jim
Crow doesn't matter. Hating guns is the liberal brand.
JohnJ|7.14.09 @ 12:06PM|#
But what if Incorporation is bad for individual rights? Did
speech become more free after Gitlow? The Supreme Court doesn't
seem to do a good job at protecting individual rights. Instead,
they seem to use the sophistry of rights in order to protect the
Justices' particular favored special interests.
Isn't there a good case to be made for federalism as a better
protector of individual rights? Why allow the Supreme Court to set
national policy?
Peter|7.14.09 @ 12:09PM|#
Period. Not by Congress, not by the states, technically not
even by business owners. If you took the text literally as written,
the second amendment prohibits anyone from interfering with your
right.
So we should just let suicide bombers walk right into the building?
I know this sounds like fear-mongering, and I'm not trying to be
sensationalist, but it seems like at some point you would have to
draw the line. At what point are people no longer bearing arms to
protect themselves but instead to show off and/or hurt others? And
is it necessary to allow the latter to happen in order to align
with the intent of 2A?
Warty|7.14.09 @ 12:17PM|#
So we should just let suicide bombers walk right into the
building?
Bombs aren't arms. The second amendment doesn't mention
ordinance.
At what point are people no longer bearing arms to protect
themselves but instead to show off
Who cares?
and/or hurt others?
How's having guns hurt anyone? You seem to be confusing having guns
with using them badly.
|7.14.09 @ 12:23PM|#
"So we should just let suicide bombers walk right into the
building?"
I'm fine with that, seeing how he's only made of straw.
|7.14.09 @ 12:25PM|#
"So we should just let suicide bombers walk right into the
building?"
I don't get how a law is going to stop that from happening?
MNG|7.14.09 @ 12:29PM|#
I take time to patiently argue with all my liberal friends about
this. I've found one common theme: they have absolutely no
experience with guns. None. They have never fire one. They actually
seemed to feel that a gun will at any moment just magically
discharge and kill everyone in the immediate area. It's amazing
really. I think there you could graph a correlation between one's
familiarity with a gun and one's opposition to gun rights and it
would be so linear.
My dad raised me to shoot guns. We had three .22's, a pump, a bolt
action and an automatic. When we got older we shot the 410 gauge
single shot. Then the 12 gauge. For my 16th birthday I got a
Savage-Stevens 12 gauge pump (hey, we were poor). I'm constantly
amazed at how liberals think about this stuff...It's not
Kryptonite...
|7.14.09 @ 12:33PM|#
So we should just let suicide bombers walk right into the
building?
I think I feel safe in saying that most rational people can make a
distinction between a citizen exercising Constitutional rights and
terrorists.
At what point are people no longer bearing arms to protect
themselves but instead to show off
At what point are people no longer speaking to advance an idea, but
instead to show off? And would this be an argument for restricting
free speech if it could be shown it was happening?
or hurt others?
Is anybody arguing that the 2nd amendment guarantees a right to
hurt others?
|7.14.09 @ 12:34PM|#
Just a note that reason does a great job of explaining legal
issues...
Now you need to get Tim to stop writing in Chinese when he talks
about economic issues and you guys would be golden.
|7.14.09 @ 12:42PM|#
I think there you could graph a correlation between one's
familiarity with a gun and one's opposition to gun rights and it
would be so linear.
I completely agree, MNG. Support for gun control is based on an
irrational fear of weapons, and, I think, some kind of inner
feeling of inadequacy that drives people to want to give up
responsibility for themselves to an authority figure.
|7.14.09 @ 12:43PM|#
Isn't there a good case to be made for federalism as a
better protector of individual rights?
Perhaps you'd like to make it. You'd be the first if you
succeeded.
Having a litany of individual rights that cannot be infringed by
any government in the United States can hardly be bad for
individual rights.
That litany ought to be a lot longer than it is.
On a daily basis, I am impacted more greatly by state and local
laws than Federal ones. Local laws seldom, if ever, EXPAND on
individual freedom, and local government tends to have few real
checks and balances for various reasons. See Chicago...
|7.14.09 @ 12:50PM|#
"Perhaps somebody on the Judiciary Committee will ask Sotomayor
whether she thinks Cruikshank is still good precedent for free
speech cases, and if not, why gun rights deserve any less
constitutional respect."
It sounds to me like she was relying on Supreme Court precedent,
and not the 9th Circuit's ruling. According to what you've written,
Gitlow v. New York addresses the 1st Amendment and not the 2nd. Is
there a Supreme Court ruling which does for the 2nd amendment what
Gitlow did for the 1st?
So I wouldn't say it is a matter of respect, but of precedent.
JohnJ|7.14.09 @ 12:53PM|#
"Isn't there a good case to be made for federalism as a better
protector of individual rights?"
"Perhaps you'd like to make it. You'd be the first if you
succeeded.
Having a litany of individual rights that cannot be infringed by
any government in the United States can hardly be bad for
individual rights."
well, there's the first problem. As I noted, the Supreme Court
doesn't protect individual rights. The Supreme Court is a branch of
government, and routinely grants the federal government new and
expansive powers.
For example, after the Gitlow decision incorporating speech, the
Supreme Court exempted all kinds of speech from protection,
including offensive speech, incitement, broadcast speech, and, most
recently, hate speech.
While "having a litany of individual rights that cannot be
infringed by any government" sounds good, Incorporation simply does
not do this. Incorporation allows the Court to declare that certain
"kinds" of speech, or arms, or assembly, etc. are not protected by
the Constitution.
I think making the case that Incorporation is a better protector of
individual rights would be the more difficult task.
|7.14.09 @ 1:00PM|#
At what point are people no longer speaking to advance an
idea, but instead to show off? And would this be an argument for
restricting free speech if it could be shown it was
happening?
To be fair, I believe the courts have placed limits on "free
speech" if the speech is deemed as not advancing ideas but intended
to merely whip people into a frenzy or entice violence or hate
speech -- also there are more limits placed on "commercial
speech".
I don't agree with the limits that have been placed on free speech,
but let's not pretend like the 1st is treated as absolute
either.
|7.14.09 @ 1:03PM|#
I think there you could graph a correlation between one's
familiarity with a gun and one's opposition to gun rights and it
would be so linear.
I would be an outlier.
I have no experience with guns (the one time I went with some
friends to a fun shop that had a shooting range, I couldn't do
anything since I didn't have a FOID card) -- but I still believe in
the 2nd amendment and the right to bear arms. Sadly, I live in a
town where we aren't allowed to have a gun in our home. I do hope
that when it comes back to the supremes they incorporate the
2nd.
|7.14.09 @ 1:15PM|#
ChicagoTom,
Just got back your from neck of the woods. Sorry about all the
librarians all over the place.
|7.14.09 @ 1:20PM|#
Support for gun control is based on an irrational fear of
weapons, and, I think, some kind of inner feeling of inadequacy
that drives people to want to give up responsibility for themselves
to an authority figure.
I dunno.
I don't think it's a fear of the weapon, but a fear of the person
wielding the weapon. I think there exists the belief that if people
have a weapon they are more likely to opt to use it in
circumstances that have nothing to do with self defense.
Many people believe that although they are rational, the person
next to them isn't. And if you let that person have a deadly weapon
the consequences could be dire. And having a weapon yourself is
cold comfort to someone who doesn't have any desire to get into a
shootout.
I can't say I blame people for having such beliefs. I see too many
stories in the news where people have violent (and deadly) reaction
to things like being cheated on by a lover (or as a response to
advances to your lover by another), being "disrespected", as a
response to a conflict or just to get what the other person has
that you don't.
Personally my support for gun rights is based on a couple of
things. Mainly a distrust of government (they shouldn't be the only
ones to have arms), and respect for the Constitution and the
knowledge that our country wouldn't exist if we didn't have arms.
It also makes no sense to me to believe that gun rights are a
collective right ("militias can have guns but not the individuals
that make up the militia -- People with guns band together to form
the militias)
It's not because I think the idea of my crazy neighbor having guns
is an inherently good thing, nor do I believe in the deterrent
effect (irrational people wont be deterred by the knowledge that
their victims might have guns...much the same way murderers aren't
deterred by the death penalty or by facing life in prison)
|7.14.09 @ 1:21PM|#
Just got back your from neck of the woods. Sorry about all
the librarians all over the place.
Hey SF, I hope you enjoyed yourself in Daley's little fiefdom. I
didn't even notice an influx of librarians -- so no apologies
necessary :)
|7.14.09 @ 1:24PM|#
Well, they are indistinguishable from your basic over-weight
Midwestern housefrau tourist, so you might've have trouble picking
them out from the other milling sows on Michigan Ave.
I mostly stuck to Wrigleyville used bookstores, so I avoided them
too...
|7.14.09 @ 1:30PM|#
There's binding precedent in the Second Circuit that the 2nd
isn't incorporated v the states.
Whether or not that's legally correct, it is binding and it's up to
the SCOTUS, not the 2nd, to overrule.
|7.14.09 @ 1:35PM|#
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38 percent of U.S. voters now favor her confirmation while 44 percent are opposed.
|7.14.09 @ 1:39PM|#
How Long Until 'This Is Not the Sonia Sotomayor I Knew'?
Sotomayor, on whether the Supreme Court should have gotten involved
in Bush v. Gore in 2000: "As a judge, my instinct is not to
criticize it or judge it because I don't take a position on that .
. . Some good came from that discussion. There has been and is
continuing enormous electoral process changes in the states. That
is a tribute to the greatness of our American system. Whether you
agree or disagree with the decision, all of the branches get
involved with the discussion of how to improve things."
Punt!
Sotomayor on Kelo v. New London: "It is now a precedent of the
court. I am bound by it. As a judge, I must give it the deference
it warrants. The reach has to be examined in the context of each
situation . . . I understand the concern citizens have expressed on
whether or not it respects property rights, but the question in
Kelo was a complicated one . . . but they determined that it was a
blighted area."
Punt!
|7.14.09 @ 1:48PM|#
Not by Congress, not by the states, technically not even by
business owners. If you took the text literally as written, the
second amendment prohibits anyone from interfering with your
right.
Um. No. Well, o.k., I suppose, if you want to go ahead and just
come up with whatever meaning you want to create from the words
used. But as good ol' Thos. Jefferson wrote: "On every question of
construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to
the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of
the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out
of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in
which it was passed."
If you want to play the game the "living document" people do, you
can selectively pull words out in isolation and then argue for
whatever interpretation suits your current purpose, but to more
fully understand what it actually was intended to mean, you have to
look at what the whole document was for - who wrote it, why they
wrote it, and who and what it was meant to apply to.
The Framers understood individuals to have rights as against
government. They did not fear encroachment or usurpation of
individual rights by other individuals or businesses - they feared
it from the new federal government they were creating. I've heard
this argument before, that the Second Amendment, or other
Amendments, always applied to the states from the very get-go.
Problem is, there isn't a whole lot of historical support for that
supposition. In reality, the Bill of Rights was intended and
understood to limit the power of the federal government, at the
time it was passed. The 14th Amendment was meant to rectify that
and apply the BoR to the states, but of course SCOTUS screwed that
all up by the Slaughterhouse Cases and inventing the bizarre and
nearly infinitely malleable "incorporation" doctrine.
it is binding and it's up to the SCOTUS, not the 2nd, to
overrule.
Actually, no. An Circuit Court of Appeals can reverse itself and
overrule its own precedent. Stare decisis does not require blind
adherence to every single precedent, no matter how flawed the
precedent or without regard to changed law or changed conditions.
Unlikely in this case, yes, but the 2d Circuit certainly has the
power to overrule its own precedent and change the law of the
circuit.
|7.14.09 @ 1:52PM|#
SugarFree,
Did you happen to partake in the many extra-curricular activities
this Washington City Paper article seems to be
describing?
It sounds like there's quite a bit of kink flowing through the
librarian ranks.
|7.14.09 @ 2:00PM|#
My wife was reading me those tweets all weekend. They were
mostly just trying to freak out the blue hairs. About 40% of
librarians need to retire; making their precious convention out of
be an orgy is a good first step.
American Library Association is all talk, but watch out when the
Special Libraries Association gets into town. They tear shit up,
get drunk, and fuck like rabbits on meth. SLA is all law, medical,
and other corporate librarians. They are better looking, younger,
richer, and less repressed than the public librarians of the
ALA.
I've partied with those motherfuckers and they are hardcore.
JB|7.14.09 @ 2:14PM|#
This dumb cunt is going to cite Cruikshank as evidence against
incorporating a fundamental right?
Fuck her and fuck dumb latinas everywhere.
Peter, not Tony or one of his |7.14.09 @ 2:27PM|#
Geez, I didn't think you guys would blow up so much just because
I asked a freaking question.
Bombs aren't arms. The second amendment doesn't mention
ordinance.
Then how would you define arms? What if my definition exceeds
yours, who gets to decide what arms I can or can't have?
How's having guns hurt anyone? You seem to be confusing having
guns with using them badly.
I don't remember saying that. If you would rather police someone's
thoughts and only allow good people to have guns then I'm sure no
one here would have a problem with that...
I think I feel safe in saying that most rational people can
make a distinction between a citizen exercising Constitutional
rights and terrorists.
So if rational people decide you are a terrorist you are no longer
protected under the 2nd Amendment?
Is anybody arguing that the 2nd amendment guarantees a right to
hurt others?
Hurt others in defense of yourself, but obviously that's not what I
brought up so I don't understand the point of this question.
At what point are people no longer speaking to advance an idea,
but instead to show off? And would this be an argument for
restricting free speech if it could be shown it was
happening?
What happens when someone's right to bear arms, conflicts with
someone's right to association, such as only with those who choose
not to bear arms on my property?
And I don't need the calls of straw men and red herrings, whether
you believe something is pertinent to your current discussion
shouldn't preclude you from answering the question.
|7.14.09 @ 3:05PM|#
This via the sports blog Hugging Harold Reynolds, a 2002 clip of
"baseball's Chief Justice" Bob Costas blowing out Sonia Sotomayor
over her ruling ending the baseball strike. As HHR notes, Costas
would make an interesting witness at Sotomayor's confirmation
hearings. And of course, Sotomayor's baseball credentials have
already been called into question. Despite Obama's statements to
the contrary, Sotomayor is no baseball fan.
http://huggingharoldreynolds.blogspot.com/2009/07/hhr-exclusive-from-dc-bureau-bob-costas.html
|7.14.09 @ 3:20PM|#
"What happens when someone's right to bear arms, conflicts with
someone's right to association, such as only with those who choose
not to bear arms on my property?"
Freedom of association includes the right not to associate.
|7.14.09 @ 3:27PM|#
Sotomayor fancies herself an advocate for racial equality and advancement. Well, according to Jon Lott in "More Guns; Less Crime" and "The Cultural Bias Against Guns," minorities, women and the economically disadvantaged have the most to gain from more gun rights. These groups of people are more likely to be victims of violent crime: something guns are proven to help deter (not that liberals listen to silly little things like numerical and statistical facts). Some of the first modern gun control laws were written in the Jim Crow South to keep guns out of the hands of black people, making it harder for black people to fight for their rights and defend themselves against klan attacks and lynchings.
|7.14.09 @ 3:53PM|#
Most liberals I know flipped on their gun stances during the Bush years. Everyone just needed a small dose of authoritarianism to remind them why the citizenry needs to be armed.
JB|7.14.09 @ 4:15PM|#
All those dreaded 'lynchings'. I still laugh that they aren't put into perspective. More white people were murdered by black people in the US during the past 10 years than in all the years of lynching.
|7.14.09 @ 4:35PM|#
Whether or not that's legally correct, it is binding and
it's up to the SCOTUS, not the 2nd, to overrule.
In Heller, the majority opinion pretty explicitly
instructs the lower courts to revisit the issue. Further, the
precedent cited was based, in turn, on a line of SCOTUS cases that
have been superseded.
I don't think it's a fear of the weapon, but a fear of the
person wielding the weapon.
Unfortunately, their rhetoric and legislation is based on the
weapon, not the wielder. So I'm unconvinced.
Many people believe that although they are rational, the person
next to them isn't.
If only they would hold this belief when the person next to them is
a legislator.
|7.14.09 @ 4:47PM|#
There's binding precedent in the Second Circuit that the 2nd
isn't incorporated v the states.
No such thing as binding precedent. If a previous court said to do
something unconstitutional, the current judge interpreting the
Constitution has not just the right but the duty to overturn that
precedent.
Including a lower court overturning (or more precisely, refusing to
abide by) an unconstitutional SCOTUS decision.
Marbury vs. Madison be damned -- the Constitution isn't what 5 out
of 9 SCOTUS judges says it is, or was.
|7.14.09 @ 4:49PM|#
P.S. The entire Bill of Rights should be incorporated upon the states and local governments. This should be a no brainer. That this is even a topic of discussion among SCOTUS judges indicates an undue reverence for previous bad decisions.
|7.14.09 @ 5:30PM|#
Unfortunately, their rhetoric and legislation is based on
the weapon, not the wielder. So I'm unconvinced..
Come on RC -- you are playing dumb right? The idea is that since I
can't control your actions, I want to limit the ability of harm you
can do by restricting your access to dangerous weapons.
Most gun control advocates don't believe guns kill people, but
people with guns kill people [or at the very least they kill people
much easier than people without guns.]
Your characterization is as bad as the gun control advocates
attacking gun rights supporters as a bunch of unstable gun nuts who
are a threat to society at large
Peter|7.14.09 @ 6:02PM|#
Freedom of association includes the right not to
associate.
Duh. So why would it be wrong for a business or school to disallow
firearms on their property?
|7.14.09 @ 6:14PM|#
Why do so many Republicans and so-called Libertarians tolerate
racists?
"JB | July 14, 2009, 4:15pm | #
All those dreaded 'lynchings'. I still laugh that they aren't put
into perspective."
Reason.com: the Lynching friendly web site where discourse is
elevated.
What a pathetic thing it is to be a
Republican/conservative/Libertarian: maybe you can run that photo
of Obama as "Spook Eyes".
|7.14.09 @ 11:24PM|#
Sotomayor, 55, told the Senate Judiciary Committee: "I
understand how important the right to keep and bear arms is to many
people; one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. I have
friends who hunt."
What a racist comment for a sitting judge to make!
What if I were to say that, "I understand how important the right
to non-discrimination is to many people; one of my godchildren is a
member of the NAACP. I have friends who are Hispanic."?
Our rights are important to all of us. To imply that rights only
apply to some who are directly affected by them or that having
friends who belong to a certain group makes one open-minded is
outmoded thinking and unacceptable for a Supreme Court justice
today.
JB|7.15.09 @ 1:06AM|#
tj, I see another person that can't read.
Where did I say that lynching is a good thing?
I just find it hilarious that people get all in a lather about
crimes that happened 80+ years ago, but really don't care about
crimes that happened two days ago.
So it's now racist to point out facts? Please kill yourself or
learn how to read, you illiterate fuckbag. Stupid knows no race and
you are proof of that.
|7.15.09 @ 11:12AM|#
When slavery ended in America after the Civil War, no civil right was more important for black Americans than the right to keep and bear arms. For those disbelievers, research the Deacons for Defense and Justice.
|7.16.09 @ 1:18AM|#
He laughs at lynching's, which were a de facto governing tool to
enforce segregation and the terrorization of black Americans in the
South.
JB "laughs" at lynchings and no conservative takes her or him to
task because conservatives are racists.
Even if we allow for a false equivalency, that "Lynching's are
hilarious because blacks today commit crimes against white people",
JB is a racist and un-condemned here, because Hit and Run is a
racist friendly place.
As Audra Shay would say, "lol, go get 'im JB!"
I suppose the crimes that blacks commit today that made lynchings
so "funny" include when Susan Smith killed her children and blamed
the crime on blacks and when brave Young Republican Ashley Todd was
"mutilated" by Obama Workers.
The stink of racism by a JB should be condemned by all of you, but
you have a conformist chamber where dittoheads meet in fear to joke
about the shameful terrorism officially and unofficially inflicted
on black people in America.
JB, you are a racist, pure and simple. The rest of you are the
Audra Shay's who make the so-called "Libertarian" brand so vile in
the yes of young Americans.
RustyShackleford|10.5.09 @ 12:45PM|#
Well, it looks like the Court has granted cert. on a case that will answer this very question: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/.....-gun-case/
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