ajax18 wrote: ↑Tue May 17, 2022 10:57 pm
I could go on and on about consistency in rules and standards, but it would be boring as hell. When it comes to political speech, I doubt you and I would agree on what's happening today, although I suspect we would agree on many things in principle.
Well if the capital riot was in fact an insurrection and an attempt to overthrow the government, what is protesting outside the private homes of supreme court justices? And why is nobody being prosecuted for leaking this opinion in the first place? Imagine if Bill Barr were to respond to the 2020 riots with the same heavy handedness as Merrick Garland has responded to parents/domestic terrorists who have gotten a little too loud on parent/teacher night?
I've been a ball of outrage for 20 years now. I haven't even attended a protest much less destroyed property or shot anyone. What people like Dylan Roof and this latest guy have done was a disgrace and worthy of the worst condemnation. I can't condemn it in strong enough terms. That's certainly not what I'm about. It's not what George Washington was about and 'it's not what the Confederates were about either. That being said, there will come a day when the working income taxpayer must be emancipated and I can't see it happening through democracy.
I can’t even begin to grasp why you think peaceful protesting is equivalent to the use of force to change the result of an election. Are the protesters breaking into houses to use physical violence to force Clarence Thomas at gunpoint to resign and be replaced by Merrick Garland?
Clearly, there’s a whole bunch of folks who slept through high school civics. Americans have the Constitutional right to speak, to assemble, and to petition their government for the redress of grievances. That’s what protesting is.
Americans do not have Constitutional rights to focibly enter buildings and physically attack law enforcement to try and override the Constitutional process that governs elections and the succession of governmental offices. Unless protesters armed with weapons and handcuffs are breaking into Alito’s house to force him to abdicate his position in favor of, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the two are in no way comparable.
There is a law on the books that the protest arguably violates. However, it may not be Constitutional. Consider the Constitutional rights of abortion protesters to scream at and harass women seeking medical care. Why don’t the Justices have to run a similar gauntlet when they go to work every day? Even if it’s Constitutional, the protesters are not attempting violent overthrow of the government.
As for why no one has been arrested for leaking the draft opinion, I suspect it’s because the leak violated custom and practice as opposed to an actual law. The Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, and it has jurisdiction over its internal procedures. The other two branches have no authority to pass laws about or regulate how the Court goes about deciding cases, including the circulation of drafts. I haven’t looked into it, but I’m not sure any law was broken. If breaking customs and norms were grounds for arrest and prosecution, poor Mitch McConnell would be locked away forever.
So, the Court is responsible for any investigation. If it has asked the DOJ for assistance, then I assume it would do so. If it was intentionally leaked by an employee, they’ll be fired. If it was a Justice, the Court will have to figure out how to handle the situation. The Court itself does not have the Constitutional authority to fire a Justice. It could ask the Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings, which I think is the only way to remove a Justice. Good luck finding 60 votes in the Senate for that, regardless of who leaked it.
I’m also out of patience for silly imagine if games. Exactly how is the Justice Department involved in rowdy school board meetings? Are they grabbing parents of the street and throwing them into unmarked vans? Tear gassing and pepper spraying? Putting their eyes out with rubber bullets? Beating them with riot batons? Knocking them down? Trampling them with horses? How heavy handed are we talking here?
The last time you played the victim card on behalf of conservative parents, your facts were wildly exaggerated. Do we have to do that again?