Justice Kennedy: Draft Opinion Leak Was "Cowardly, Corrupt, Contemptuous Act."

The former Associate Justice joins those condemning the leak of a draft opinion.

Former Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy condemned the leak of a draft opinion  in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that would over turn Roe v. Wade as "cowardly, corrupt, contemptuous act." Justice Kennedy's remarks were made at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's  300th Anniversary Symposium and were reported by Bloomberg News.

From the report:

The leak from the usually secretive institution "hurt" the court because the justices must be able to debate candidly in coming to their conclusions, said Kennedy, who retired in 2018 after 30 years on the court.

The justices are "so proud that our independence consists of the tradition of talking just among ourselves to have reasons why we decide the case," he said.

Kennedy urged judges across the nation to recommit to "rational, thoughtful discourse."

"The law learns from bad acts," Kennedy said.

Video of the remarks is available here.

Comments

[bernard11]

Kennedy urged judges across the nation to recommit to "rational, thoughtful discourse."

Maybe Alito could start the ball rolling.

[DaivdBehar]

Kennedy, an Ivy indoctrinated weasel and notorious liar, does not have any idea. All utterances at the Supreme Court should be made public, including urinal conferences. The public needs to know every sick thought by those lawyers.

[CindyF]

Why can't anyone discuss the reasoning behind the actual draft decision itself? That it was not Constitutional and that the decision should have been left to the States.

Everyone seems to be arguing as to whether or not it is moral to kill their baby at any time up to (and during?) birth. If the draft is the final decision, then it will be legal in some states, and not in others.

I don't think that is the main issue in the draft decision.

[CindyF]

As to the leak, I don't think it should have been done. I've been in decision-making committees before where when I entered into the discussions with others I had one opinion, but after hearing other's thoughts and looking at the evidence put before me, I changed my mind. There were robust discussions going on during the decision-making process that would not have helped if they were made public.

[Roger S]

Judges usually believe in using all available evidence to make inferences about the motives of litigants in their courtroom. They sure don't like it when they get scrutinized.

[Sarcastr0]

An opinion lays out the judge's process. That's already a lot more transparency than a lot of folks in both the public and private are subject to.

[EscherEnigma]

An opinion lays out the judge's attempt to persuade others it was the right decision, it only shows their process if it's useful to that attempt.

Which is to say... don't confuse the persuasive argument with the reason.

[Sarcastr0]

Not sure I agree - if there's a plausible motive and logic, why go looking for sekret agendas?

Sure, sometimes it's as plain as the nose on your face, and there is also systemic/critical analysis, but I don't think the default should be to assume an opinion is in bad faith.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0 — How can anyone sensibly expect good faith from the Federalist Society vetting process? How about from Mitch McConnell? How about the history analysis in the leaked Alito draft? Those are significant indicators. The conclusions to be drawn are not close calls.

Both sides have lost me. I no longer suppose pro-institutionalist reforms will be permitted. The only default possible seems to be massive partisan court reform. What can be done to make that work constructively—if anything—looks like the right question to be asking now. Spending more time looking for good faith from Trump Republicans just looks stupid.

[Ed Grinberg]

Yeah! And those judges complaining about people exercising their free speech on their front-lawns are hypocrites, right?!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

On the lawns? Sounds wrong.

On the sidewalk? Sounds like freedom of expression.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

It was like a mostly peaceful KKK rally outside a courthouse.

[Cheerio]

It's interesting how the abortion issue is being treated so differently from more recent social controversies...

Although the pro-choice side has long enjoyed a modest advantage in public opinion, and passions indeed flare on both sides...there's always been a widespread (even if begrudging) sense among the media / corporate elites / etc. that both views are nevertheless "legitimate" in some basic sense. If anything, it's an issue where (historically) the pro-choice side has been *more* likely to acknowledge the legitimacy of the pro-life view than vice versa...

Perhaps it's because this is a controversy that got entrenched in our society *before* the left got so much cultural power and started simply 'deeming' things they feel strongly against as 'illegitimate' regardless of public opinion percentages...

It relates to a few posts ago, where EV discussed (in a strictly *non-1A* sense, of course...) certain cultural/societal considerations for views perceived as "mainstream" vs. those truly going against a consensus. Of course, according to most polling, we're still quite far from anything that could be called a consensus on pro-life vs. pro-choice, as well as on traditional vs. progressive views on gender or sexuality. Thus, mutual tolerance and civil discourse remain the only acceptable paths...

[Krychek_2]

Once side views the other as mass murdering baby killers. The other side views the first side as Simon Legree, enslaving women. It's a little tough to have civil discourse with those presuppositions. Civil discourse would require that both sides turn down the volume.

[Jerry B.]

But turning down the volume is the same as surrendering, in the minds of the fanatics on both sides.

[Cheerio]

"It's a little tough to have civil discourse with those presuppositions."

Right, but it's *possible*...IF we keep the sort of social contract we used to have, whereby if a substantial portion of the population believes something then we (grudgingly) accept that they're at worst merely 'very wrong' or some such but not necessarily evil or insane.

Hence the connection to EV's post about the cultural/societal relevance "mainstream" views vs. truly fringe views. Once you get a consensus, you THEN get the option of dismissing/vilifying any opposition. (When and whether it makes sense to do so is another matter, of course.) But unless/until you get that consensus, civil discourse is simply your only permissible option.

If we let people on one side decide whether the other side is legitimate or not, people would simply 'deem' each other as out of bounds whenever they felt strongly about something...

[Sarcastr0]

Some ineffable sense that both sides are legitimate is the *brand* of the papers of record. True on gay marriage, transgender rights, poverty, prayer in schools, you name it. (The one exception may be guns)

The NYT has a full-time person they recently hired to understand and listen to Trump voters.

The successful deployment of the politics of delegitimization are not really a left-wing phenomenon. The right increasingly indicates they believe non-Trump voters don't deserve the franchise, to win elections, and to have those they voted against still try and help them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/06/the-rise-of-donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-delegitimization/

[Bored Lawyer]

Give me a break. The left has engaged in the politics of deligitimization for decades. How many people have been called "racist" merely for disagreeing with one policy or another?

[Stephen Lathrop]

BL — When folks spout racist advocacy, they get anti-racist pushback. Trumpism has made that kind of spouting almost mandatory. When TV interviewers ask Republican office holders to repudiate replacement theory, they will not do it. They hem and haw and change the subject. Then they go out on the hustings to praise Tucker Carlson.

Here is what you do not get to do. Decide in your heart that black people are fine. Then go out and run for office by mobilizing racial hatreds against black people. Then claim your good heart saves you. That cannot save you from responsibility for racist conduct you actually practice. More the opposite.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bored Lawyer — Do you suppose it is the left which is deligitimizing Replacement Theory; the Big Lie Election ploy; QAnon? That stuff was factory-new with full delegitimization included as standard equipment. Worse, at least some people understand crap like that sticks around not because folks pushing it believe it, but because they can use it to raise money by deluding people they pretend to represent.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Yeah, the right has been really bad about screaming, "Nazis!", "Fascists", "Mysoginists!", "Racists!", etc., etc. at anyone they disagree with the past few years. Oh, wait....

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think birtherism was, chief?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

What do you think birtherism was, chief?

It was a dumb belief about a single politician. It was certainly none of the things I listed...you dipshit.

[Sarcastr0]

Truly, you are a great example of not screaming at the other side.

But of course, everyone can see that birtherism was absolutely about the right attacking the legitimacy of the Democratic side.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Truly, you are a great example of not screaming at the other side.

As a matter of fact, I am. If you think you can find instances of me accusing the left of being a bunch of commies, baby-killers...or whatever right-wing analogs of "Nazis!"/"Fascists!"/whatever you're imagining then feel free to post links to them here. Either that or admit what a lying sack of shit you are.

[Leo Marvin]

Your lack of self-awareness is mind-boggling. Everyone you disagree with is a lying sack of shit, yet because you only insult one person at a time you think you're not screaming at the other side? Lol. Your animosity is more toxic to productive discourse than all the generalized, over-the-top shouts of "nazi" and "commie" combined.

I argue frequently with people who think everyone on my side is a commie, and sometimes with leftists who think everyone on "my side" is a right wing fascist. I think these people are as nuts as they think I am, yet typically we make our points, occasionally convincing the other of something, finish our meals, and part friends. On the other hand, if one of them ever called me a lying sack of shit, or vice versa, that would be the last argument we ever had.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

But of course, everyone can see that birtherism was absolutely about the right attacking the legitimacy of the Democratic side.

Of course everyone must be able to see that thing that you imagine to be true.

[Social Justice is neither]

It was a political ploy from the Clinton camp to attack her opposition.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

A Hillary Clinton talking point?

[Krychek_2]

Nope:

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/birther-movement-founder-trump-clinton-228304

[Brett Bellmore]

"The NYT has a full-time person they recently hired to understand and listen to Trump voters."

You mean, this person?

"Dear A.G.,

It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.

I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.

...

But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

...

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bari Weiss is a loud misfit who has left essentially every organization she has been affiliated with since high school (or was it junior high) by self-pitying, whiny tantrum. Everyone eventually regrets transacting with her. The New York Times erred when it thought it might succeed where everyone else had failed -- trying to develop a productive, pleasant, sustainable relationship with professional malcontent Bari Weiss.

[Bob from Ohio]

"NYT has a full-time person they recently hired to understand and listen to Trump voters"

Here's the start of the first article:

"Here we are in the dark jungle. I approach the gathering of chattering natives carefully."

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Was that from the book, "Heart of Dark MAGA-ness"?

[Sarcastr0]

The key is for you to be as supercilious as possible in arguing the superciliousness of the other side.

[Cheerio]

"The successful deployment of the politics of delegitimization are not really a left-wing phenomenon."

I don't mean to say that right-wingers are somehow 'above' doing it. Either extreme would do /does it whenever they have the power to, as the temptation is irresistible. But these days, the far left happens to control the culture (media, academia, entertainment, big tech, corporate boards, etc.), and hence they're the ones flexing their muscle...at least until their current pendulum swing gets dampened a bit.

[Sarcastr0]

The left does not control any of these things.

[Cheerio]

The City of Atlanta would beg to differ...among countless other victims of corporations caving to cancel-mobs nowadays, over routine left-right debates that have been going on for decades in some form...

C'mon, man!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The left does not control any of these things.

LOL! Insert .jpg image of Kevin Bacon screaming, "All is well!!!!!"

[Lee Moore]

Except that there are more than two sides. There are plenty of people - possibly more than those occupying the fervently pro-choice or pro-life wings - who are qute happy to divide the baby, so to speak, and go for an answer round about the end of the first trimester. Making them both mass murderers and Simon Legree-y women enslavers.

But they seem fairly comfortable there all the same.

[Bored Lawyer]

That's actually a good example. Slavery and abortion are moral issues that do not easily lend themselves to compromise. The New England states almost seceded in the early Union over tarriffs, but that is not a moral issue, and one that can be compromised.

[Bored Lawyer]

Whoops. Meant to respond to Seamus.

[Bored Lawyer]

"There are plenty of people - possibly more than those occupying the fervently pro-choice or pro-life wings - who are qute happy to divide the baby, so to speak, and go for an answer round about the end of the first trimester."

You think that position (which it seems that the Chief Justice wanted to be the opinion of the Court, to no avail) would satisfy either side?

[Lee Moore]

I wasn't particularly talking about the decision of SCOTUS. I'm one of those piggies in the middle myself, but I would like SCOTUS to strike Roe because it's an offense against the rule of law, never mind an insult to the intelligence of the public. I'm thinking more of where abortion law would likely finish up, if and when SCOTUS let's the genie out of the bottle and leaves it to State Legislatures.

We piggies in the middle hold the casting vote, so our position will mostly win. And no, I don't expect "the two sides" to like it, but unless the courts jump in to shortcircuit the voters, most States are going to finish up in the middle. Maybe the pro choicers will win total victory in NY, California etc, and maybe theres a few deep red States where the pro-lifers will win outright. But on the whole, though the battle may never end, the piggies in the middle are in charge.

[Seamus]

Before the Civil War, there were people (we call them abolitionists) who viewed their opponents as Simon Legrees, literally enslaving Africans and the descendants of Africans. Would you have advised the abolitionists to turn down the volume?

[Krychek_2]

I actually wasn't stating my opinion at all, merely articulating the difficulty in having civil dialogue when each side views the other as a monster. I myself fit into the third camp that Lee Moore describes; fine with abortion on demand until viability.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"I myself fit into the third camp that Lee Moore describes; fine with abortion on demand until viability."

Why do you consider that the "third camp"

"Abortion until viability" (24 weeks) is actually extremely liberal from a worldwide perspective. You like to point out nationalized medicine a lot from the rest of the world...how does the rest of the world treat abortion?

Within most of Europe, 12 week is the norm. A few are at 14 weeks. Only the UK is as 24 weeks. In fact, if we're being honest, 24 weeks is the "minimum" number in the US. There are a number of states where you're allowed to have an abortion for any reason you want up till the moment of birth.

So, let's have an honest conversation. Why not have the cutoff be 12 or 14 weeks in the US, so we more closely match the rest of the world? We know at 14 weeks the child's brain impulses have started to fire.

[Krychek_2]

And to whatever extent slavery is otherwise a valid analogy, since it could not be resolved peacefully, it resulted in a bloody civil war. I hope that history is not repeated with abortion. (And another difficulty is that the two sides of the abortion divide disagree as to who, as between the fetus and the pregnant woman, is the master and who is the slave. At least that wasn't in dispute when slavery was on the table.)

[Cheerio]

Thankfully we've achieved consensus on that issue. But before we did, Lincoln and other abolitionists did indeed engage in civil dialogue on the matter...because the fact is that's more effective at persuading people than just asserting something (even if right!).

It also relates to the issue of not judging people by the standards of a different era; 'most' people are still willing to honor George Washington, for example, while fully recognizing his serious flaws.

[ReaderY]

That works when you have a single society conducting a single discourse. But when you have two separate societies wach conducting two separate discourses, what is mainstream consensus obviousness in one society could easily be the epitome of evil in the other.

You have a problem when representatives of each society obtain power and try to pretend, as people like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Donald Trump did (they agreed completely on this point), that they and people like them are America and the other side aren’t really Americans.,

[raspberrydinners]

The same Kennedy who retired under auspicious circumstances?

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-son-of-former-supreme-court-justice-anthony-kennedy-helped-trump-secure-loans-at-deutsche-bank/

Yeah, I think we can take morality lessons from someone better than him.

[Publius_2020]

This is just nonsense. Stick to the space lasers.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/05/23/justice-kennedy-draft-opinion-leak-was-cowardly-corrupt-contemptuous-act/?comments=true#comment-9506409
We don't need any morality lessons! Not from anyone! We're the best, most-decent generation ever!

[David Nieporent]

No. There is no Kennedy — well, maybe JFK — who retired under suspicious (or did you actually mean auspicious?) circumstances.

[Orbital Mechanic]

Draft Opinion Was "Cowardly, Corrupt, Contemptuous Act."

There fixed it for you.

Cowardly: Alito so willing to stand by his opinion in the face of political blowback.

Corrupt: Those signed on to the opinion flat out lied in their confirmation hearings.

Contemptuous: Using 17th century doctrine to strip civil rights from a majority of Americans to service bronze-age religious prejudices really lends credibility to the court.

Yep. It's all there.

[Joe_dallas]

Orbital Mechanic
May.23.2022 at 11:29 am
Flag Comment Mute User
"Corrupt: Those signed on to the opinion flat out lied in their confirmation hearings."

by your definition, That would include every justice confirmed since the NIxon administration.

They have all said that Stare decisis should be respected ... (or something similar)

[Bored Lawyer]

You really do not understand the function of the Supreme Court in a Constitutional democracy, do you?

[Orbital Mechanic]

I am sure you will tell me. And I am equally sure you will give me the wrong answer.

[Seamus]

Contemptuous: Using 17th century doctrine to strip civil rights from a majority of Americans to service bronze-age religious prejudices really lends credibility to the court.

Pretty sure that when the early Christians showed themselves to be counter-cultural by condemning abortion and infanticide, they were living long after the Bronze Age had given way to the Iron Age.

[Don Nico]

"flat out lied"
You are flat-out lying in your post. Save you fake outrage for your friends

[DaveM]

"Using 17th century doctrine ... to service bronze-age religious prejudices"

I just love how these moderns believe so deeply that they're the first people in recorded history who are "Correct".

"Honor your father and your mother"
"You shall not murder"
"You shall not steal"
"You shall not bear false witness"

Yeah, just are just a bunch "bronze-age" prejudices. The modern man need to heed any of them, they're too old to be useful. Like, they didn't even have smartphones. How could they possibly have any correct thoughts?

[Purple Martin]

Yeah, there are few thing we both support ("Don't Kill, Don't steal, be faithful, etc."). I don't see how my lack of faith in a Deity lessens my ability to abide by such a moral code.

Tell you what, let's just both agree that "Six Commandants" capture some of a decent and fairly universal moral code.

Please feel free to keep the other four of them inside your own belief system. I'll continue to work to keep them out of government.

[David Nieporent]

Corrupt: Those signed on to the opinion flat out lied in their confirmation hearings.

What lie or lies do you think they told?

[Ed Grinberg]

a cowardly, corrupt, contemptuous act

Sounds like something a self-righteous millennial would do...

[wolfefan]

Given that it's Kennedy, I'm surprised he didn't say it violated the dignity of the Court.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

Yeah? So what is the court going to do about it?

[Lee Moore]

I have a horrible feeling that he's hazy on the distinction between "contemptuous" and "contemptible". Which would explain why his opinions were so often riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas.

[Bored Lawyer]

He was the Descartes of the Supreme Court. "I feel, therefore I rule."

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

That doesn't really distinguish him from any other justice in the last 100 years.

[John F. Carr]

According to some guy being interviewed on NPR within the past few days, in the normal course of deliberations the draft would have been watered down to gain majority support for its language in addition to its result.

Now we hear endlessly about the end of women, denial of science, and so on. Does the final decision hold the line to avoid rewarding a pressure campaign?

[J. Denny]

There is not really going to be a way to water down overturning Roe and Casey. They also already have a majority 5 justices on the bench.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"The law learns from bad acts."

!!

Of course I'm mixing metaphors, but we have a "pregnant pause" here.

[Jimmy the Dane]

If there were right wing activists in front of the justice's houses demand saying the gun case get decided a particular way, we wouldn't hear the end of it from the corporate owned media. Also, they would be arrested and charged with a slew of federal crimes the first day it happened (then thrown in jail right next to all the other political prisoners).

Here though, it has become a complete non-story. At first some outlets were covering it, but then when those became the subject of controversy the corporate owned media answered by just cancelling ANY coverage. "If it ain't on TV then it ain't happening!"

How much longer can this charade go on for?

[Sarcastr0]

Jimmy uncovers yet more hypothetical hypocricy!

[Jimmy the Dane]

You don't understand the words that you type sometimes, do you?

[DaivdBehar]

Queenie. Missed you. What is your preferred pronoun, Honey?

[Brett Bellmore]

I thought he was citing it as a point in the NYT's favor. When the reality is that they ended up hounding her out of the job because they couldn't tolerate having somebody on their staff who really disagreed with them.

[DWB]

Not even a "fetus," queen? You took the black folks all the way back to "zygote."

The more Democrats change...

[Cheerio]

The "equating" that right-to-life folks engage in is simply for *all* human life, regardless of age OR race.

You may disagree of course, but smearing people with insinuations of racism is not helpful.

[Brett Bellmore]

That doesn't sound much like "a full-time person they recently hired to understand and listen to Trump voters." Which IS exactly the job Bari Weiss was hired to do.

In fact, it doesn't sound even a little bit like "a full-time person they recently hired to understand and listen to Trump voters."

They're just trying to figure out how to make people trust them without actually having anybody on staff who isn't a left-winger.

Which of these people meet Sarcastr0's description?

[DWB]

What pray tell do you equate them with?

You know that I used to be a second trimester fetus?!? And so did my black wife!

[Krychek_2]

I wasn't aware that Senator Bill Cassidy is a Democrat:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/19/why-louisianas-maternal-mortality-rates-are-so-high-00033832

The amazing thing about what Cassidy said isn't that some Republicans think like that -- we've known that for a long time -- but that one of them would actually say it in public.

[Sarcastr0]

Wrong newspaper. Same deal:

https://twitter.com/WashPostPR/status/1513884976357560335?s=20&t=54IWehoEOlEISEmq_Ej4HQ

Job posting: The Washington Post is looking for an enterprising reporter based in Texas to document life in red state America and develop a new beat mapping the culture, public policies and politics in a region shaped by conservative ideology.

[Brett Bellmore]

Different newspaper, but it will likely work out the same in the end.

[Brett Bellmore]

"And what people have the trust issues with the Times, Brett?"

To paraphrase, you can't cover a nation you don't live in. A long list of media outlets have systematically blinded themselves to what they look like to half their potential market, because they can't bear to actually have anybody on staff who isn't 100% on board with the group-think.

[bernard11]

you can't cover a nation you don't live in

Is it your opinion that NYC is not part of the United States? I mean, I know you sort of think city dwellers should enjoy lesser rights than sturdy down-to-earth country people, but I didn't think it went that far.

It is interesting that the NYT does occasionally send reporters out to small towns to hang around diners and see what the locals think. They also conduct focus groups with GOP voters.

Whatever you think of these efforts, I wonder how hard media in other places try to understand how the urbanites their readers have such contempt for think.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Is it your opinion that NYC is not part of the United States?"

It's a paraphrase of the title of Dana Loesch's book, Flyover Nation: You Can't Run a Country You've Never Been To.

I don't mean literally that the NYT isn't located in the US. And, sure, you can cover a country you've never been to. Badly.

The point is that they've constructed SNL's "Bubble" and retreated to it. And now they're so disconnected from half the country they have to hire foreign correspondents in an effort to try to understand their own countrymen. Only to be, as Weiss discovered, so horrified that they drive away the people they hired to relieve their ignorance.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not saying it's a good project, I'm noting the amount that these papers bend over backwards bothsidesing despite the constant bile being thrown their way.

I think it's actually a pretty dumb idea.

But it certainly makes this 'the liberal media trades on the illegitimacy of the other side' argument and trashes it pretty well.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Bernard,

"I wonder how hard media in other places try to understand how the urbanites their readers have such contempt for think"

In regards to this...they don't have to "try to understand". They're doused in it. Every major media center is dominated by these urbanite liberals who have a massive presence that they rural areas are continually bombarded with.

[Brett Bellmore]

Conservatives Are Better At Pretending To Be Liberals Than Vice Versa

"Conservatives and moderates understand liberals better than liberals understand them.

Those who identified as "very liberal" performed notably worse than anyone else."

It was a survey done by Jonathan Haidt, a fairly large number of subjects were asked to identify themselves on a conservative/liberal scale, and then answered questions. But they were randomly assigned to answer them as they would, or as they thought the other end of the scale would.

The right-wingers could accurately predict how left-wingers would answer the questions, but the left-wingers were bad at predicting how the right-wingers would answer, and the more left-wing they were, the worse they got at it.

It's not a symmetric problem.

[Brett Bellmore]

And, here's the actual survey.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm aware of the study. And you're rather overstating the asymmetry.

How is that relevant to the thread here?

[DWB]

Cassidy acts more like one every day -- he is welcome to leave the abolitionist party if he wishes.

[Brett Bellmore]

I guess that makes you an anti-pendant, whose point depends on getting the details backwards, rather than right.

[DaivdBehar]

Queenie, what neighborhood reared you? They did a great job.

[Krychek_2]

Dude, the GOP has not been the abolitionist party for a very long time, about as long as the Democrats haven't been the party of Jim Crow. This is not a hundred years ago, or even fifty. Perhaps you could evaluate the parties based on what they are now rather than what they were before almost anyone here was born. Neither George Wallace nor Lester Maddox nor Orville Faubus nor Strom Thurmond would be welcome in today's Democratic Party.

[DWB]

Abolishing abortion, dude.

And Byrd was in your party not 5-10 years ago?????

[not guilty]

George C. Wallace is the godfather of today´s Republican Party.

Governor Wallace, to his credit, repented of his racism. His progeny have not done so.

[Krychek_2]

If those segregationists came back from the dead, today they would be wearing MAGA hats and voting Republican. Today, not a single one of them could win a Democratic primary.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

There is nothing wrong with consensual pedophilia.

[DWB]

There was no more a right to own a slave than there is is to murder a child, period.

[bernard11]

I agree, but then why do so many conservatives glorify and admire the Confederacy, whose prime reason for existence was the defense of slavery?

[DWB]

bernard11: The ideology of the Democrat Confederacy was RACE ABOVE ALL is the most important thing and proceeded from there.

The idology of the modern Democrat party is RACE (and gender, and sexuality) ABOVE ALL and proceeds there.

Except for choosing a different color to hate, I'm failing to see the difference. Racism is stupid ... ALL racism is stupid.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm going to guess it's because you have a definition of "glorify and admire" that's got precious little to do with glory and admiration.

[DWB]

Don't polish that halo for the Democrat party that it does not deserve.

Jim Crow democrats claimed black people were XYZ and give us power and we'll protect you.

Modern Democrats claim white people XYZ and vote for us and we'll protect you. Sorry, but I will excuse NEITHER case of racism and it use to divide and gain power by perpetuating hate.

You do not solve one injustice to an innocent person by punishing another innocent person.

[Brett Bellmore]

Queenie, the truth is that the party of racial spoils saw its chance, and switched client races. But to this day is still the party of racial spoils.

[DWB]

And an infant is quite different from an elderly person, and yet....

Your argument is with science and reality ... sorry -- those do not bend to your will or "inconvenience."

[Cheerio]

I just don't see what "similarity" has to do with it...human life is human life, no matter the difference (to paraphrase Dr. Seuss).

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Are you trying to claim that Hillary, as a habitual liar, is ill suited for public office?

[DWB]

There is more to science that sight observation!

Your argument is poor.

All humans are worth of protecting equally -- Democrats just tried to pass a bill that would legalize abortion of a full term child for any reason.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, but in this case, instead of being in service of bronze age values, you've got iron age values being defended against a reversion to bronze age values like infanticide.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

That's his idea of a witticism.