Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says torture—specifically slapping suspects during interrogations--is, or ought to be, legal. This is justified, he explains, as part of the Meme That Won't Die: the absurd, totally impossible, "ticking bomb" scenario popularized by the TV series "24."
A law student made news a few years back by asking Scalia if he'd ever sodomized his wife. (This was a way of illustrating the idiocy of Scalia's support for laws criminalizing common sexual behavior.) I think now someone will have to ask him if he tortures his wife before he sodomizes her.
ReplyDeleteYou are incorrect in your "analysis" of Scalia's dissent. It had nothing to do with his opinion of sodomy. What it did have to do with is the Supreme Court reaching out and knocking down laws made by the legislative branch of a state that are not a violation of the Constitution. In addition he wrote the decision revised the standards of stare decisis.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who studied the supreme court intensely for a year, I urge everyone to go read any of his dissents or opinions. You will actually turn red in embarrassment for him, and our country, every time.
ReplyDeleteBy far the worst supreme court justice in history. He makes no secret of his extreme conservatism.
Yet another reason Reagan is "turning crispy brown" right now.
If you can provide me with an example of Scalia saying it's absurd for states to outlaw such private consensual sexual conduct you might have a point, edward, but I don't think you'll be able to do that. Scalia is an authoritarian by nature, and a brutal thug with strict social conservative views. There is no reason to think my analysis of his character is wrong. He does indeed support such laws.
ReplyDeleteThe Ticking Bomb Scenario is so absurd. The argument is that if only you know about an impending threat, you can/will act to stop it. September 11, 2001 shows that's false, since the Bush group ignored the intelligence they had about bin Landen's desire to attack within the US.
ReplyDeleteTed,
ReplyDeleteIt's our patriotic doody to refrain from questioning our own civility when we face threats to our survival.
Unless that threat isn't something the military can solve, like Global Warming, and then solutions posed are un-American for challenging our way of life.
This is the Maginot Line theory of mine: when you invest the majority of your resources into a monolithic form of protection, you become psychologically incapable of seeing solutions outside the realm of that monolith, as well as threats that fall outside its capacity.
In other words, when you give someone a hammer, everything suddenly needs hammering.