Should libertarian voters hold their noses and vote for Romney... the SCOTUS issue

desert dude said:

This is from Reason magazine, a libertarian bullwork, and is meant to appeal to libertarian voters but the questions seem legit for voters in general. Since I see RIU progressives lament the fact that Romney will probably get to nominate a couple of Supremes if he wins, I thought it was time to offer an opposing view point.

Personally, I am voting for Gary Johnson, but an Obama win is scary none the less.



http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/02/should-libertarians-vote-romney-to-preve#comments

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*There are four justices on the Supreme Court ready to hold that the First Amendment does not bar Congress from regulating political speech against incumbents.
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*There are four justices on the Supreme Court ready to hold that the Second Amendment does not create any individual rights against the government.
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*There are four justices on the Supreme Court ready to hold that the Commerce Clause creates no constraint on Congress's regulatory powers.
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*There are likely at least four justices on the Supreme Court ready to hold that the government can choose to discriminate on the basis of race if "diversity" is at issue.

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canndo said:

Regulation of political speech - you mean like perhaps holding contenders to the same regulations that corporate advertisers are - namely that they can't outright lie?

Or perhaps regulation that states that political donors cannot remain anonymous?

On the second, the judges on the left are more likley to ignore precident than the ideologs on the right.

On discrimination, I would like to see evidence of those 4 justices being "ready to hold" such a thing.

As I said, a Romney win is scary because the justices he opts for will be willing to see individual rights be subsumed by the "rights" of enforcement or business. The right leaning justices are unlikely to ever discover new individual liberties or rights and more likely to see law enforcement encroach ever more on the liberties we now still have.

Again, the sniffing dog - watch and see how they fall on this issue.

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desert dude said:

So, you support regulation of political speech, Canndo? Impressive of you to openly admit it.

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canndo said:

Regulation of political speech - you mean like perhaps holding contenders to the same regulations that corporate advertisers are - namely that they can't outright lie?

Or perhaps regulation that states that political donors cannot remain anonymous?

On the second, the judges on the left are more likley to ignore precident than the ideologs on the right.

On discrimination, I would like to see evidence of those 4 justices being "ready to hold" such a thing.

As I said, a Romney win is scary because the justices he opts for will be willing to see individual rights be subsumed by the "rights" of enforcement or business. The right leaning justices are unlikely to ever discover new individual liberties or rights and more likely to see law enforcement encroach ever more on the liberties we now still have.

Again, the sniffing dog - watch and see how they fall on this issue.

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canndo said:

I support regulation of political lies and I support regulation of things that are only touted as speech, money is not speech.

I see you don't respond to the rest.

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desert dude said:

The precedent on 2A is set by two recent cases: Heller and McDonald. Those cases established an individual right to bear arms and that 2A applies against the states. Why would I want to "go against precedent" there?

On discrimination: see the precedent of the court case brought against Univ of Michigan Law school where the majority opinion was exactly that, i.e. "diversity" is more important than equal protection under the law.

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desert dude said:

So, what do campaigners do in your PC world, submit their campaign ads to DOJ to be vetted for "truth"?

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canndo said:

Not much different than the FCC does now with any other case of overt fraudulent claims.

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canndo said:

Not silence, simply tell the offending orgainzation that they can't lie. I don't believe that political free speech includes lying just as I don't believe that free advertising of any other nature can involve a lie.

I never said anything about not funding candidates, I said that there should be no anonymous conributers.

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canndo said:

Regulation of political speech - you mean like perhaps holding contenders to the same regulations that corporate advertisers are - namely that they can't outright lie?

Or perhaps regulation that states that political donors cannot remain anonymous?

On the second, the judges on the left are more likley to ignore precident than the ideologs on the right.

On discrimination, I would like to see evidence of those 4 justices being "ready to hold" such a thing.

As I said, a Romney win is scary because the justices he opts for will be willing to see individual rights be subsumed by the "rights" of enforcement or business. The right leaning justices are unlikely to ever discover new individual liberties or rights and more likely to see law enforcement encroach ever more on the liberties we now still have.

Again, the sniffing dog - watch and see how they fall on this issue.

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desert dude said:

Here is a quote from a decision written by John Roberts on the topic of "stare decesis", or, in English, following precedent. This decision happens to come from Citizens United, which is a thorn in the side of lefties (I like it and think it was correctly decided) but it establishes that "following precedent is sometimes the wrong thing to do", hence it puts to rest your claim that, "the judges on the left are more likley to ignore precident than the ideologs on the right."

Kind of amusing, that: The left has judges but the right has ideologs!

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Concurrences

Chief Justice Roberts, with whom Justice Alito joined, wrote separately "to address the important principles of judicial restraint and stare decisis implicated in this case".[SUP][22][/SUP]
Roberts wrote to further explain and defend the main opinion's statement that "there is a difference between judicial restraint and judicial abdication." Roberts explained why the Court must sometimes overrule prior decisions. Had prior Courts never gone against stare decisis, for example, "segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants". Roberts' concurrence recited a plethora of case law in which the court had ruled against precedent. Ultimately, Roberts argued that "stare decisis...counsels deference to past mistakes, but provides no justification for making new ones".[SUP][22]"[/SUP]

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canndo said:

Not silence, simply tell the offending orgainzation that they can't lie. I don't believe that political free speech includes lying just as I don't believe that free advertising of any other nature can involve a lie.

I never said anything about not funding candidates, I said that there should be no anonymous conributers.

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desert dude said:

I am pretty sure that is currently the law, there are no anonymous donors to candidates.

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canndo said:

Alito, Thomas and Scalia are most likely to judge broadly, Roberts not so much - yes, ideologs, I have yet to see the left in this court overturn any previous hard right rulings - unless you see some I don't. Of course the court must overrule prior decisions but this does not give them license to arbitrarily restructure our society or culture simply on the basis of their ideological bent, something that they managed to do with citizens united.

Money is not speech, corporations are not people, even though this court seems to think so.

Again, your opinion on my statement regarding the sniffing dog?

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canndo said:

Could be 501 contributions - the same law should apply. PACS are a joke and you know it..

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canndo said:

Not silence, simply tell the offending orgainzation that they can't lie. I don't believe that political free speech includes lying just as I don't believe that free advertising of any other nature can involve a lie.

I never said anything about not funding candidates, I said that there should be no anonymous conributers.

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desert dude said:

First, tell me what you are referring to regarding "sniffing dog"?



Without money air time is absent. Without air time a candidate cannot get his message to the people. Hence, in that regard money is required to speak to the masses.

Corporations are associations of people, just as labor unions are. If me and 100 other Libertarians want to associate and campaign for Gary Johnson, and use our pooled resources to buy thirty minutes of air time on ABC, we absolutely have the right to do so.

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beenthere said:

Wouldn't you want to hold our current president to the same standard?

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