eudaemonia

New toy

Word for blogger is fantastic!!!!!

posted by spelunker @ 4:48 AM 1 comments

Nattering Negatives

Add to the increasingly erratic and consistently incorrect prognostications of the negative class this little gem: The SDI or missile defense initiative is already operational and can strike down incoming ICBMs from Korea and the middle east!!!! Bush took this head on and challenged the scientific community to construct such a system and it is alive. This info comes from the Australian "The US missile defense program, initially written off by skeptics as a waste of money and effort, can already intercept and destroy a North Korean ballistic missile aimed at the US mainland" by Greg Sheridan.

posted by spelunker @ 3:53 PM 0 comments

Qualifications for US Supreme Court

Many arguments have now issued regarding the qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice. Among the myriad of such, is the almost uniformly expressed condition that the person so elevated must posses nearly divine intelligence. Huhhh?!?! To hear Ann Coulter, Laura Ingram, George Will, et. al speak of it, anyone not possessing Noble Prize winning theorizing skill ought not be a candidate. Since when? This is not elitism; this is plain poppycock, for it resides on some false assumptions.

1. The discipline of law is intellectually demanding. Ridiculous. The sheer number of lawyers is a contra indicator, not conclusory mind you, just indicative of the rather low intellectual barriers to entry. Its quite common to hear of individuals choosing law as a back up career, in case every thing else fails. Not that smart people don't choose law, it’s that the discipline does not require very smart people. Lawyers are going to have to come to grips with the fact that a union plumber goes through more training, than a lawyer, and they both deal with shit. One deals with its disposal, and the lawyer serves it up for consumption.

2. If law is not particularly demanding, then the intrinsic occupation of the SC surely requires exceptional intelligence. Baloney, just the reverse is true. The SC is the final word. They can impart political theory straight into the law. All that is required is some fundamental grasp of political theory, ala good high school civics class, and experience with the construction and implementation of contracts. I agree with Justice Scalia in that an original intent theory of constitutional interpretation renders adjudication a rather boring exercise. The justice asks himself/herself: Does the constitution address the issue? Can an irresistible inference be drawn from the constitution’s structure and function to address the issue at bar? One such inference is that the constitution creates a workable government equipped with all power necessary to defend the people. A common sense justice might then consider all proposed constructions that contort this understanding, or grossly encumber it, may suffer a negative presumption against their constitutionality. But this is basic contracts reasoning nothing really exceptional here.

3. Surely then the candidate must be an "expert" in Constitutional law. Carraaamba!! It is a historical fact that no justice on the SC came to their post an expert on all areas of law!!!! Arcane areas of antitrust or patents etc... must be learned, and the justices rely on the briefs, support staff to sharpen the issues. This is the same for constitutional law which is easier that most others. Almost all lawyers have been exposed to it.

4. OK, well...then the intellectual combat at the SC, among the justices themselves and the lawyers at bar, requires super duper intelligence. FUUUUBARRRRR!!!!! A non-original intender at a lower level court may have to suffer through the painful morass of contradictory precedent and legal sophists at bar to execute a decision and hope against reversal on the whim of higher courts. But, just the opposite is true at the SC. At the SC you just address each constitutional case de novo and the original intent provides the consistency of results. All, a justice need do is to ask those really really smart [by reputation] lawyers to justify their proposed departure from OI. No doubt, the justice will be treated to a squirming quasi-inductivist fallacy, premised, unbeknownst to its proponent, on a non-foundationalist's epistemological base, i.e. stare decisis, or evolutionary theory. Predictably, such propositions are nowhere to be inferred from the emphatically foundational basis of the Constitution. The justice might then ask the really really smart lawyer or really really smart fellow justice to show the court the deed and title to his/her house, and demand an explanation why the really really smart lawyer/justice expects that the deed will not "evolve" its way into their neighbor’s or some welfare recipient’s hands. The acid test for all Humeian skepticism is to ask its propagator to, like Socrates, live by their philosophy. Unlike the great Socrates who suffered execution for his philosophy, these charlatans run for the hills!!!!!

In conclusion, Harriet E. Miers will be just fine for the SC. Nothing in her background appears to be ignoble. And her experience with captaining a huge 500 person law firm shows that she has all the qualities most requisite to the SC job. That is, the ability to finesse the overfed egos of her colleagues. Such experience is lamentably lacking in many of her critics who apparently are in love with their opinions more than the principles of conservatism or America.

posted by spelunker @ 10:56 AM 0 comments