Steve Slatin on wed 4 aug 10
ng
Well, you leave the scene of a knife fight for a few days, and when
you come back the fight's still going on=3DA0 ... nice to know that
all y'all have staying power and so on.
But James (someone who I view as a serious student of ideas,
fine potter, and interesting artist) I was in a sulky mood and
I laid a trap for you.=3DA0 You fell into it, but it was Jeff,
actually, who applied the coup de grace here.=3DA0 I apologize for
engaging in our conversation as if it were sport.=3DA0 But, as
it happens, you and I both have (in my opinion!) a special moral=3D20
obligation to face these things.
Our moral obligation stems from the fact that we've engaged
in laying traps before for ... a certain ClayArt member who,
it seems, will never stop repeating himself, no matter how
frequently he's made his claims before, or how poorly he=3D20
expresses himself. =3D20
It is, of course, not the fact that he expresses his opinions
that annoys us -- it's the fact that he insists that he is
right and repeats himself endlessly -- never giving an=3D20
argument a rest. You-know-who annoys us and wastes=3D20
bandwidth. I believe you are too good to behave like him.
Now, here is our situation.
I wrote --=3D20
> But this is not the correct venue to address
> these matters. You're condemning Kathy for
> allowing these issues to spread, and then
> all but demanding that she continue to do
> so. Can't you just give it a rest?
To which you replied --
>I have no idea to what you refer with the phrase "these issues". =3D20
No need to be disingenuous, James.
>I condemned no one. =3D20
Well, would 'belittled' have been a better word? You
were unnecessarily heavy-handed, and it certainly read as
a put-down.
>I did ask that the political jabs inserted into
>otherwise unrelated posts cease.
But these "political jabs inserted into ... unrelated posts"
are pretty much the norm here. If ignored, they go away,
more often than not. And far more of these jabs seem=3D20
(at least to me) to be from the libertarian wing of the
right. I suppose we could sit down and do a count-and-compare,
but what's the point?
You also wrote --
>You are right in that this is not a proper venue for you and I to
>discuss which of us fails in our understanding of the role of the U.S.
>Supreme Court, and in fact any such discussion, and such understanding
>or lack thereof, is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Rrrriiiight. And you brought the issue up why? (Check the thread --
you brought up the issue first.)
Then, you say --
>yes, I shall give it a rest. Feel free to insert political jabs
>against "the right" into any post, and henceforth I shan't call anyone
>out on it. =3D20
Well, as they say at junctures like this in third grade, boo hoo.
You absolutely have done the jabbing against me (and others) when
you preferred. =3D20
But I have to admit I was sort of looking for a chance to reveal
your weaknesses, and so I laid, as I said earlier, a trap. I wrote --
> And it is clear from your
> comment that you don't understand the role of
> the Supreme Court.
and you punched the tar-baby, with the rant beginning thusly --
>Quite the contrary, Steve.=3DA0 This is from Article III, Section 2 of the
>United States Constitution
>(http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii):
>The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity,
>arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States,=3D20
Did you see those words "the laws of the United States in there"?
Title 17 USC codifies these laws. (And, as far as "arising under=3D20
this Constutution" well, see Article I section 8.)
But further, you are using a meme popular on the hard right to try
to argue that the courts can't legitimately take up various types=3D20
of cases.
But the understanding of the jurisdiction of the court system was
very wide among the Founding Fathers. From Hyam's Lessee vs. Edwards
through Kennedy vs. Nedrow (the early Supreme Court decisions, starting wit=
=3D
h the court as constituted under the Articles of Confederatin and
ending at the point where the court operated under the Constitution itself)=
=3D
most all are appeals -- not cases of 'original jurisdiction.'
If acting as an appeal venue wasn't what the Founders wanted, they
could have raised the issue in, say, 1789. They didn't. The issue
is closed, 234 years of precedent is pretty serious.
It's a losing argument, James, and I admit I provoked you to=3D20
use it. You have my apology for that. But I will not apologize
for suggesting that you stop behaving like you-know-who. You're
better than that.
For myself, I acknowledge that sandbagging is ugly, and I will
endeavor to restrain myself.
Yours -- Steve Slatin=3D0A=3D0A=3D0A
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