Today in Supreme Court History: September 1, 1823

9/1/1823: Justice Smith Thompson takes judicial oath.

Justice Smith Thompson

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

So nice, it's posted twice.

[Internet sloth]

Maybe he took the oath twice?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I figured it out.

One of them was named Thompson, the other was named Thomson.

[Mr. Bumble]

Welcome to VC's separate but equal format.
This thread is reserved for conservative comments only.
See below duplicate post for comment thread for wacky ultra leftists.
Thank you.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 141 S.Ct. 2949 (decided September 1, 2021): Court denies motion to stay enforcement of Texas law S.B.8 (allowing bounty hunting against women getting perfectly legal abortions); admits “serious questions” as to Constitutionality of the law but procedurally nobody is in the case who can be stayed; the State does not enforce this law. Roberts, Breyer, and Kagan dissent, arguing that the status quo ante should be preserved so that the question of whether Texas has the power to even pass such a law could be litigated; Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan add that the law itself causes imminent harm to women who would be exercising a Constitutional right (this was before Dobbs removed that right); in a separate dissent these three call the Court’s order “stunning”: as to “a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to evade judicial scrutiny” the majority “buries its head in the sand”; in yet another dissent these three note that the Court is making its decision without full briefing after less than 72 hours

Divans v. California, 439 U.S. 1367 (decided September 1, 1978): Rehnquist denies stay of murder trial; defendant argued Double Jeopardy, alleging that in earlier trial prosecution deliberately provoked mistrial, but produces no actual evidence of prosecutorial misconduct

General Council on Finance and Administration of United Methodist Church v. Superior Court of California, 439 U.S. 1355 (September 1, 1978): Rehnquist denies stay of California lawsuit against Illinois based church for fraud and securities violations arising out of operation of hospitals and retirement homes; California court’s analysis of long arm jurisdiction was not clearly wrong, this was not an intrareligious dispute so court involvement did not violate First Amendment; and delay in seeking this stay was “inexcusable”

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm feeling déjà vu.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It's déjà vu all over again.

[Magister]

Poor Bumble. Has to check two posts obsessively for fear of missing the chance to complain about a mention of sex.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Checked" nothing. Mine was the first comment pointing out the duplicate posts. As for "mention of sex" you are confusing me with captcrisis.

[Magister]

You're the one who loves to complain.

[Mr. Bumble]

Just what do you think you're doing?
By the way, this is the conservative comment thread. Move your comments to the wacky ultra leftist, separate but equal thread below.

[Magister]

I was commiserating, not complaining.

[ducksalad]

10am and still no movie review. What is the world coming to?

[Mr. Bumble]

Your wish is the capt's command.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: Jesus Christ Superstar, 1973

In first century Palestine there was a man who preached that the end of the world was at hand, who said some interesting things, and who was crucified by the Romans, which means he was considered a threat to Roman rule. That much, the historical record supports. The rest is later fabrication, or at best exaggeration of historical facts the specifics of which are lost to us.

This film gets derided as lightweight and trendy but its “take” on Jesus is at least as valid as most. Certainly it improves on the moral absolutes of medieval portrayals and, though mid-20th-century Hollywood was willing to give Judas some sympathy, here he is one of the three main characters (together with Jesus himself and Mary Magdalene) and is forefronted as a tragic figure.

There are many unappreciated touches. One critic held this lyric up for ridicule:

“Always wanted to be an apostle Knew that I could make it if I tried And when we’ve retired we can write the Gospels So they’ll still talk about us when we’ve died.”

This is actually a canny observation on the self-absorption of the apostles, thinking of their own future reputations (e.g., Mark 9:34) while at the same time being of little help while Jesus was alive.

Having Jesus being hauled away by hard hats was a very political statement in 1973.

The depiction of Herod as a spoiled sybarite surrounded by hipsters was a stroke of genius, masterly played by Joshua Mostel.

“If you are the Christ, the great Jesus Christ, Prove to me that you’re no fool Walk across my swimming pool!”

In fact Herod led a cushy life as a puppet king.

The music is 1970-era pop/rock and roll but this is not a reason to criticize. Nobody gets on Bach’s case for composing the St. Matthew Passion in baroque style.

The degeneracy of Temple life, though historically questionable, is well portrayed (gyrating females singing “there is nothing you can’t buy!”).

The shocked look on Caiaphas’s associates when he says Jesus must die. Yet Caiaphas has a point – Jesus is developing such a following that it might cause a Roman crackdown.

“I see bad things arising. The crowd crown him king; which the Romans would ban. I see blood and destruction, Our elimination because of one man. …

Fools, you have no perception! The stake we are gambling are frighteningly high! We must crush him completely, So like John before him, this Jesus must die.”

Cf. John 11:49 – 50. This is not to excuse the “blood libel” against Jews (though John’s gospel is unmistakably anti-Semitic) but to show that, if the Sanhedrin handed Jesus over the Romans, they might have done it to save their nation. The Romans did finally destroy the nation in 70 C.E., or at least scattered it. Roman rule was pretty smart, which is why it was so successful and long-lasting: so long as you paid your taxes and didn’t rebel, they left you alone. You could live the way you wanted, you could practice your religion. Aware of how dedicated the Jews were to their ancient monotheism, they exempted them from giving the standard (pro forma) loyalty oath to the gods. But Jews kept rebelling! All they wanted (some say this was all Jews ever really wanted) was to be left alone in their Israel and be Jews. Under Roman rule it was not to be.

Back to his movie — the portrayal of Mary Magdalene, criticized as adopting 70’s-style promiscuity:

“I’ve had so many men before In very many ways He’s just one more.”

In fact Jesus hung out on the outskirts of society. And what about his upbringing? Today’s Christians, fighting their one-sided culture war, celebrate Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a model of the nuclear family. But it wasn’t exactly nuclear . . . who donated the sperm here? The Catholic Church would have a problem with that!

This movie does share one thing in common with most portrayals, namely the emphasis of the identity and purpose of Jesus to the almost total exclusion of his teachings on ethics. It’s interesting to read Jewish sources on this; their view is mostly sympathetic, even as to what he said about following the Law to the exclusion of ethical behavior. Even atheists would cheer what Jesus said about hypocrisy, greed, taking care of the “lesser” among us, and ostentatious public prayer. Always sit in the back. When you pray, go alone to the closet and close the door. Failing to help those in need is failing to help God. Why do proselytizers so rarely hit on these points? Maybe it’s because they don’t believe in them? With conservative Christians, for example, I get the impression that the only way they would care about people in desperate need is if they could somehow be stuffed back into their mothers’ uteruses. Anyway — a portrayal of his life that fully integrates the teachings is yet to be made.

[apedad]

"Even atheists would cheer what Jesus said about hypocrisy, greed, taking care of the “lesser” among us, and ostentatious public prayer."

I don't know about that.

There are greedy and hypocritical and selfish atheists too.

[Magister]

Hypocrites often cheer for things they don't practice.

[Dan Schiavetta]

What I meant was that one can reject Jesus’s claims of divinity while approving of his teachings. As Clement Attlee put it, in typically laconic style, “I agree on the ethics. Reject all the mumbo-jumbo.”

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The people who lovingly recite Jesus’ solidarity with “the least of these” omit the sting in the tail: those who helped “the least of these” go to heaven, while those who *didn’t* help get this: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt. 25:41) (KJV)

Jesus seems to have mixed up the ethics and the mumbo jumbo

[Dan Schiavetta]

He says the sane thing elsewhere without the sting.

Why things are added or subtracted, or phrased differently, within the same Gospel or across Gospels, is a fascinating topic.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"You could live the way you wanted [in the Roman empire], you could practice your religion."

I'd like to see the citations on those.

"Even atheists would cheer what Jesus said about...taking care of the “lesser” among us"

What would Nietzsche do? Or Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.?

"Failing to help those in need is failing to help God. Why do proselytizers so rarely hit on these points?"

Again, I'd like to see a citation.

[Magister]

Religious tolerance in Rome seems up and down, but mostly up with polytheistic religions.
https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-13-4-b-religious-tolerance-and-persecution-in-the-roman-empire

Atheists are more likely to think that government aid to the poor does more good than harm; religious people believe that religious charity is better. But here's a study that religion makes kids more selfish.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2015/11/05/religion-morality/?sh=326e14e37aea

The proselytizers I recall from university life generally were about what's in it for you: threat of damnation for non-believers and salvation for believers, with little about helping others. (I don't encounter proselytizers much since.) Faith healers are offering healing to the people they want to convert, and not about converting to heal others. The sort of proselytizing that doesn't do that, like religious charities, is much lower key on selling their religion, so most people don't think of them as proselytizing.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"so most people don't think of them as proselytizing"

What happened to "when necessary, use words"?

The study you linked to from 2015 says religious kids are less likely to give out stickers to imaginary children of the same ethnic group. This may or may not prove something.

They're also more likely to harshly judge so-called minor behavior like pushing or bumping - also known as bullying, though the article doesn't use this term. And

"Overall, religious children are less tolerant of harmful actions and favored harsh penalties."

This is alleged to be on account of a lack of nuance and fundamentalist rigidity, but the linked article doesn't detail the minor bullying behavior portrayed. No definition of "harsh," either.

[Magister]

What happened to “when necessary, use words”?

No idea what this has to do with my comment. Please use words to explain.

Regarding the Forbes article, you could have read a little further.

History backs-up the scientific evidence that secular people are more moral, as reviewed by Israeli psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. Most white supporters of the US Civil Rights Movement were non-religious, for example, while the apartheid regime in South Africa was led by devout Christians and opposed by atheists.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Who were the Rev. Martin Luther King and Bishop Desmond Tutu? Chopped liver?

If churches were unimportant, why did southern legislatures limit blacks' religious activities? Why did the Klan burn black churches?

"Without the role of the Black Church, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, with King by his side at both, and future congressman John Lewis, himself an ordained Baptist minister, present in 1965 — would never have been enacted when they were. There is no question that the Black Church is a parent of the civil rights movement, and today’s Black Lives Matter movement is one of its heirs."

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/03/the-history-and-importance-of-the-black-church/

(To be sure, I don't regard BLM as positively as Dr. Gates does, nor am I convince it's a Christian movement. But as for the civil rights movement, the church connection is fairly hard to miss, except by people willfully keeping their eyes closed.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

On the proslavery side, while slaves’ religious activity was limited, the Unitarian John C. Calhoun and the liberal Christian and “physiological materialist” (Wikipedia) Thomas Cooper were among the most eloquent defenders of slavery.

On the white side of the civil rights movement, other than Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans, and "the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history" in a St. Augustine civil-rights protest (Wikipedia), there were no white religious people for civil rights.

"One natural implication of the Jewish origins of Christianity for many white nationalists who worship their race first and foremost is the rejection of Christian religion. Sometimes this takes the form of Neo-Paganism (see Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism). But often atheism is the default state once they have rejected their traditional religious beliefs. In short, atheist Americans are probably less likely to be avowedly racist than most Americans. But, the hard-core racists are much more likely to be atheists than most Americans....the probability of someone being an atheist if they are a hard-core white nationalist is far higher than the general population."

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/atheist-racialism

[Magister]

Who were the Rev. Martin Luther King and Bishop Desmond Tutu? Chopped liver?

Magister: In the United States, there are more people named Smith than people named Jones.
Margrave: Who were [lists famous people named Jones]?
I could just quit with pointing out the logic failure, that "more A than B" is taken as "no B", but no matter.

Rev. Martin Luther King was a major leader of the civil rights movement, who is revered with a national holiday and frequently misquoted or quoted out of context by right wingers.

Bishop Desmond Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop best known for his anti-apartheid and human rights activism.

I think Chopped Liver is the stage name of a Yiddish rap artist, but maybe I'm just making that up.

If churches were unimportant, why did southern legislatures limit blacks’ religious activities? Why did the Klan burn black churches?

Again, nobody said churches were unimportant, and the quoted statement was about white supporters of the civil rights movement, and apartheid was supported by (white) religious people. It is fair that "opposed by atheists" may claim too much; I don't take it to mean only atheists or all atheists, but perhaps it reads as either to others. Certainly there were some significant anti-apartheid atheists, like Joe Slovo.

Clearly churches were a major organizing force for blacks in the South, since any other kind of organization would be more easily banned. Black owned businesses were shut down, and not just in the South. I expect southern legislatures restricted black religious activity when they perceived churches as stirring up blacks for civil rights or other uppity demands, but I'm not sure exactly what restrictions you are referring to, so it could be something else.

The Klan burned black churches to terrorize blacks. That was much like why Willie Sutton robbed banks to steal money.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"frequently misquoted or quoted out of context by right wingers"

He said some good stuff which gets quoted more than the bad, contradictory stuff. Given his heroic status as a foe of Jim Crow, his martyrdom, and his eloquence ("content of their character"), he has a national holiday, but that doesn't mean he's being honored for his socialist flirtations.

"the quoted statement was about white supporters of the civil rights movement"

I addressed the part about whites - Rummel and the jailbird rabbis were white.

I think the atheist opponents of apartheid you had in mind were members of the South African Communist Party. Good on them for opposing apartheid, but too bad they wanted to replace it with another form of tyranny.

Calhoun was as religiously liberal as it was possible to be and still remain in politics. Cooper was even more religiously liberal than that. It didn't abate their eloquent defenses of slavery.

Slavery-sympathetic Christians had the habit of saying opponents of slavery were all anti-Christian. The New Atheists seem to have adopted this proslavery talking point.

As far as religious antislavery people in the North, they were often described (by contemporaries and by many historians) as fanatics who contributed to sectional divisions.

As my source indicated, the deeper someone goes into hard-core racism, the stronger the chance of that person becoming atheistic or at least pantheistic.

[Magister]

Your shotgun approach over many replies is too tiresome to reply to. You keep leaping at particular people - Nietzsche, Holmes, King, Tutu, Calhoun, and on - to rebut broader statements. Apparently this topic hit a huge nerve so you can't fashion logical responses or answer questions (which is also typical of your other mania).

Also, I talked to Chopped Liver, and they trashed you with some awesome freestyling before requesting that you stop name checking them.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I’m sorry if I used too many examples for you to follow.

You relied on brief conclusory statements, one of which you partially walked back – atheists in South Africa – though you failed to clarify that they were totalitarian atheists, they simply wanted to replace one form of oppression (apartheid) with another (communism).

My “other mania” is against a state duopoly for the Dem and Rep political parties – which comes under the same principle as a state monopoly for one party – so I guess it’s not surprising that you’d be sympathetic to totalitarian atheists who wanted a one-party state.

And if this seems harsh, recall that you’ve called me a racist and a Republican – the former accusation is basically a reflex action on the part of your ilk, so maybe I can brush it off, but the latter accusation was more deliberate and calculating, and of course equally false.

So I’ll hang it around your head that by endorsing government monopolies for particular parties, you are morally indistinguishable from the advocates of a single-party state.

[Magister]

You make up lies when you can't make a real argument. I have no preference for totalitarians of any sort, and have not expressed that now nor at any other time. I never called you a racist; I pointed out that one of your favored "improvements" for elections was introduced in Georgia by a racist with the opposite goal, to demonstrate that it doesn't necessarily improve elections. You expressed your preference for the Republican party, the party that is the champion of dirty election tricks (voter suppression, election denial, ghost candidates and fake candidates), and you want election changes that will make more such tricks likely -- preferring the Republican party is what makes you a Republican.

You tried here to rebut statements that are general but not universal with an irrelevant number of exceptions.

Margrave is a liar who fails at basic logic.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

As usual, your projection is obvious.

You did call me a racist, but realizing that this was a lie, you’re too ashamed to avow it now. Your attempt to walk it back is utterly ridiculous and only goes to show your bad conscience.

It’s still a lie to call me a Republican. In fact, I made the ultimate insult against the Republicans, by saying they were approaching even the Democrats in their badness.

I believed I called you a jackboot-licking fascist, and I’ll repeat that. Your advocacy of a two-party state could easily be used to justify a one-party state. What is the difference in principle?

Go off to Russia or China so you can enjoy the benefits of the authoritarian principles you support.

[Magister]

Margrave is a liar who fails at basic logic, and also cannot provide citations for his extreme claims.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You're full of shit, you lie, you lie about your lies, and you would be far more comfortable hanging out with Putin or Xi than with anyone who loves American principles.

[Magister]

Margrave is a liar who fails at basic logic.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Addendum on alleged religious fanatics of the antebellum North: Whether people praised or condemned them, the religious character of their beliefs was acknowledged (even if slavery-fanciers thought they took it to "fanatical" extremes.)

[Mr. Bumble]

"With conservative Christians, for example, I get the impression that the only way they would care about people in desperate need is if they could somehow be stuffed back into their mothers’ uteruses."
Never heard of Samaritan's Purse?
https://www.samaritanspurse.org/

[Frank Drackman]

saw JC-SS at the Minot AFB Base Theater 1974, that opening scene still cool as (redacted) and that Yvonne Elliman (Hey Now!) must have rubbed my palms raw (clapping! clapping!) and was Carl Anderson the baddest Judas ever? Just casually jogging away from the Israeli Tanks (OK, Dr. Ed2, that's your cue to give us all the details on the Tanks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXO8e5LOEY

Frank

[Internet sloth]

Hopefully US passion plays will follow the example of Oberammergau and make the necessary revisions to reduce the antisemitism.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A tall order!

[ducksalad]

“the almost total exclusion of his teachings on ethics….. Even atheists would cheer what Jesus said about hypocrisy, ….Why do proselytizers so rarely hit on these points? Maybe it’s because they don’t believe in them?”

Come on, man. Do you or those atheists think you need Jesus to not be a selfish hypocrite? If a Branch Davidian told you they’re against hypocrisy, would you consider that a sufficient reason to sign up? Every society, even way back then, had various figures telling people – especially the lower classes – to be humble and do more giving than taking. Ancient Palestine/Judea was literally swarming with such figures. The ethics preaching was nothing new or interesting then, and nothing new or interesting now.

If you're a proselytizer, the novel marketing points for Jesus are the virgin birth and the miracles. The promised benefits aren’t that you’ll be marginally less greedy and preening, it’s stuff like being saved from eternal damnation.

With your attitude you’d be an utter failure coming up with a new religion. Your deity would look and sound like Lizzy Warren. Your eschatology would be about fairer inheritance taxes.

[SRG2]

Neither virgin birth nor miracles were USPs, though.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“To assert that ‘God is love’ is to believe that in love one comes into touch with the most fundamental reality in the universe, that Being itself ultimately has this character.” (Robinson, Honest to God, 1963, at p. 53.) Robinson’s influential book holds up Jesus as uniquely demonstrating this connection — he was “The Man for Others” (pp. 64 – 83).

There have been Christians who dismiss the miracles as later fabrications. And many do not believe in the virgin birth. In fact if one compares the Gospels with a critical eye one has to reject it.

To go further, one can be a “Christian” and follow the non-divine Christ in the same way that one can be a Freudian and follow the non-divine Freud.

[Ridgeway]

"To go further, one can be a “Christian” and follow the non-divine Christ in the same way that one can be a Freudian and follow the non-divine Freud."

No, you really cannot.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Then what would call such a person?

[Magister]

Many of them are called Unitarians, who are Christians.

[Bob from Ohio]

Modern Unitarians are not Christians, they are members of a social club who skinned John Adams' Unitarians and wear the skin as a coat.

[Magister]

Was John Adams a Christian? Did he reject the divinity of Jesus?

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes and yes.

[Magister]

That is not consistent with your other comment.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/09/01/today-in-supreme-court-history-september-1-1823-5/?comments=true#comment-10221493

Norman, coordinate.

[Mr. Bumble]

A fraud.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, in capt's world if you are 1024% American Indian you can claim membership in the group, or like Dolenz and Talcum X be as white as snow and claim to be black, or be any one of 57 genders no matter what your genetic sex soto him there is no need to believe in Christ as God to claim to be a Christian.

[Bob from Ohio]

"one can be a “Christian” and follow the non-divine Christ"

No they cannot. A "Christian” is a person who believes Jesus is God or at least the son of God to be technical. A "Christian” can probably reject the Trinity but not the divinity. Its the fundamental belief.

[SRG2]

Alternatively, a Christian is one who follows the teachings of Jesus, not just someone who follows the teachings of the churches that follow Jesus.

[ducksalad]

Sure, one can follow Christ’s ethical teaching. It’s mostly sound and nice and all that, if not taken too literally, but to be blunt, it’s not particularly original or distinctive. Someone who’s decided to try and be less hypocritical or greedy could equally well claim that they’re a Buddhist or a Baha’i or a Sufi or just “atheist guy that decided to be less hypocritical and greedy”.

The numinous stuff, or lack of it, is what distinguishes them. It’s also what makes them interesting as topics for a movie, evangelizing, or debate.

I mean, you’re against hypocrisy and greed also, but they’re not going to make a movie called “Life of Captain Crisis” consisting of you going through your day as a lawyer, occasionally stopping to mention that hypocrisy and greed are undesirable. You need a bit more plot and drama in there.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Based on some of his posts, it sounds like cap'n crisis could have an interesting movie based on his life.

[ducksalad]

You're right. I was thinking major studio and a R or lower rating.

Wonder if he's still good enough to play himself or if he'd have a preferred ....er, actor to represent him.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I could re-create the “intimate” scenes but they would have to be speeded up considerably in post-production. Also they would need a fisheye lens.

[Mr. Bumble]

Would it claim to be based on true events or a work of fiction with no relationship to any living person?

[Syd Henderson]

I’ll move this here since this is a better room party:

Thompson ran for President (briefly) in 1824, they year just everybody was running, and for Governor of New York in 1828, both while serving on the Court. After he lost the Governor’s race, he got the message. Who was the last Supreme Court justice to run for office while he was on the Court? was it Hughes (who of course resigned his seat to run for the Presidency)?

Thompson and Thomson also also gave a strong dissent in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, a case that proved even John Marshall could nod. Probably Thompson’s finest moment.

He was also involved in the Amistad case both as Circuit Judge (apparently riding circuit) and as a Supreme Court Justice, where he was in the majority. As was Taney, fifteen years before Dred Scott. Though he, Taney and the rest of the Supreme Court upheld the (1793!) Fugitive Slave law in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Yes, I do look at the case summaries sometimes.

I don’t know of any major cases he wrote for the court, but since he was there for 20 years, he presumably wrote some decisions. Or maybe Thomson did.