Clarence Thomas Ruffles Liberal Feathers Again
- Thread starter TennesseeWaltz1
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You have to be kidding. First, we are talking about his work as a Supreme Court justice, not an NAACP lawyer. And I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be sitting on the Supreme Court, because he was qualified. Also, never did I say Marshall wasn't smart. So, you've brought up several strawmen but hardly refuted my point.
However, he was not an intellectual giant as a SC justice, nor do you see his name as the author of the landmark decisions of the 60's and 70's. However, the reason I call him the parrot is from my reading of Woodward's book, "The Brethren". The clerks for Justice Brennan and Stevens said they were disappointed at best, furious at worst, that they could never count on Marshall to write an opinion in a major case. His legal writings just weren't very good. Brennan in particular was pretty ticked off because he then had to write the opinions for the liberal block (once Stevens arrived he was able to help Brennan write these opinions). Stevens felt the same way about Marshall. Brennan said that Marshall was nothing more than a vote for their side, he wasn't capable of writing the landmark rulings.
So, I stand by the parrot claim in that Marshall just parroted what Brennan and Stevens said. They were the brains, and the authors for the liberal wing of the court. Marshall was a vote and very little else.
LOL. From the guy who thinks Varnum has some relevance to the ssm case before the SC, and who thinks the RFRA should be interpreted in the most narrow possible manner because religious whack jobs like Jerry Falwell, um, I mean, Ted Kennedy sponsored the law and signed into law by the religious extremist, Bill Clinton. Yeah, the 1st amendment only applies to establishment of religion, erase the words "or prohibiting the free exercise of religion", those words no longer exist in the IowaHawk world. Delete them from the text.
Fled the thread? LOL. You spent 2 weeks slandering me. You were proven to be a liar, then failed to apologize. I'm not going to continue to dialogue in a thread with a liar like you. Time and again, you kept bringing up lies and I showed you otherwise, and like a little child you stomped your feet and refused to act like a mature adult and just admit your were wrong, and apologize.
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I appreciate your opinion, so we will just have to disagree, but I can't believe you come to that conclusion based on a few passages in The Brethern -- based on statements of a couple unnamed law clerks who violated their oath when they talked to Woodward. And I have no idea where you come up with the idea that his "legal writings just weren't very good". He wrote some great dissents, much in the mold of Justice Scalia, that set the foundation for future majority opinions, and some important majority decisions, particularly in the First Amendment area.
It should be harder to come to the conclusion that one of the great Supreme Court justices, and one of the most effective attorneys to ever argue before the Court (29 wins in 32 oral arguments) is nothing but a "parrot". I suggest you read any of Tushnet's books on Marshall's opinions and see if you come to that same conclusion,
You really do miss the point over and over and over and over again, don't you. Varnum (an Iowa Supreme Court case) issued an opinion based on Constitutional law. How would that not "apply" to the SSM cases? Nobody, not once, has claimed that it is precedent that the SCOTUS must follow, it is simply a well-written, thoughtful, and non-religious discussion of the SSM issues. You would think someone hotly debating the issue would want to read something like that. Apparently not.
I proved you to be a liar. Hell, got to love the new website, here is the proof: http://iowa.forums.rivals.com/threa...iage-ruling-a-just-cause-for-war.12561/page-5
You claimed, specifically, that you "answered" my question and posted your bases for why "old marriage" was right to be sanctioned by government. You said you answered it on the first page of the thread, and that I was lying to slander you. So I posted every one of your posts from the first page...lo and behold you were lying, and everybody could see it. Then you disappeared...........what a surprise.
Hey, Phantom, feel free to post your bases...we both know you won't, but I'm not sure why. I truly find it amazing how many times you will post the exact same thing (first paragraph in the above-quoted post)....yet then pretend "you've answered" my question before, refuse to post it, and then run away. Pathetic.[/QUOTE]
I understand Thomas thought process here. Besides the argument which can be made that incorporation of the BOR had no constitutional basis, the Establishment Clause simply does not fit in this equation.
The EC prevented the Federal Government (congress) from establishing a religion. So it checked federal authority. How can that apply to States? You can make an argument for the free exercise clause, but not the EC. We see this at work after constitutional ratification as several states at the time had sanctioned religions. Within about 40 years every one had dis-established.
The EC prevented the Federal Government (congress) from establishing a religion. So it checked federal authority. How can that apply to States? You can make an argument for the free exercise clause, but not the EC. We see this at work after constitutional ratification as several states at the time had sanctioned religions. Within about 40 years every one had dis-established.
Fair enough. Forgive me for not writing off Woodward's sources because they weren't named. They might have violated their oath talking to Woodward, but that doesn't make those comments any less true. He wrote the book post Watergate, he was the darling of the left. He's a reliable liberal. What motive does Woodward have to say these things about Marshall, if not true? In fact Marshall is probably the only liberal SC justice that comes away with any type of negative light in the book. Is Woodward a racist and out to get the black man? I don't think so.
All I'm telling you is what Brennan's clerk's said the boss believed about Mashall. Was Brennan a racist? Stevens? The reason I said "his legal writings weren't very good", is because the people, at the time, working with him, were saying this. Not me. They were. Brennan, and I think Stevens, both specifically said Marshall was little more than a vote for their side, that he wasn't going to win anybody over with his legal arguments. I'm sorry, if I give a little more credence to people who were involved with his work at the time, over someone who's a fanboy, who worked for him, and admired the guy. As a Marshall clerk, do you honestly expect him to say, "his writings sucked. Oh, I mean my writings sucked"? Come on, what else would you expect. Never base you opinion on someone by someone who worked for them. It lacks impartiality. It could be they have a crush on the person, or an axe to grind.
What landmark decisions did Marshall author. I could provide a long list of these written by Black, Stevens, Brennan, Douglas, Blackmun, etc (and I'm not even listing the conservative judges).
I'll take the opinions of 3rd parties, close to the situation over someone like Tushnet. Even my college law professor, who was a huge liberal, conceded that Marshal wasn't one of the intellectual of the liberal wing, and his importance was more in his votes than his writings. To be fair, he did disagree with my final paper, in which I called Marshall, "The Parrot". He disagreed with me but understood how one could come to that conclusion about him.
Finally, I never said Marshall wasn't a great attorney, however, that was irrelevant to why I used the term parrot. The context was in regards to Supreme Court justices. If I used the term "The Politician" (an apropos term) for Earl Warren, I wouldn't be referring to him being a Gov of Ohio, it would be that he was the master politician as Chief Justice. Warren was a legal lightweight. His claim to fame was pulling the court far left, not by his dazzling legal reasoning, but by using pure political force.
Hell, Pat Buchanan, and many others who worked for him LOVED Nixon. I treat what they say about Nixon with a grain of salt.
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It was on
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Maybe you are just really, really, really, stupid. Or maybe you can't read. It's still there on the first page and you're still lying.
Here's what it boils down to. You are upset and claimed "I disappeared". Maybe I should be charitable and assume you really didn't mean to lie, you are just a severely mentally challenged person who doesn't know anything. Either way, go away. I'm done arguing with a liar like you, or someone who's as stupid as you are.
Instead of continuing to tell lies about me, why don't you study the 1st amendment. You'll discover words you've never seen before, like, "Prohibit the free exercise of religion". Before you start arguing what the 14th amendment means, you should probably trying to get your arms around the 1st amendment. Maybe even work your way through them one at a time, because it's most likely you don't have a clue about any of them.
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[QUOTE="PhantomFlyer, post: 321885, member: 11666"
It's still there on the first page and you're still lying.[/QUOTE]
Should be easy to quote it then....right?
Do so in that thread so everyone will see.
It's still there on the first page and you're still lying.[/QUOTE]
Should be easy to quote it then....right?
Do so in that thread so everyone will see.
I find it funny that Phantom talks about his "college law professor", implying that he, what, took an intro to law course? And then he brags about his essay at the end. Awesome.
I think you are missing my point. I didn't suggest Woodward made it up. I'm sure he accurately reported what the two unnamed clerks said. I just don't think 2 off the record quotes by another Justice's clerks, who are violating their oath to make those purported statements, makes your case that Justice Marshall was a parrot. He wasn't the intellectual that Justice Brennan or Stevens were, but how many Justices can you put in or near that category? John Marshall, Scalia, Holmes, Brandeis, Harlan, Black, Rehnquist, Story, Frankfurter, Cardozo .... and starting to run out of names at this point.
Almost every other Justice fails that test, but it doesn't make them a parrot. And as far as sources, I prefer those who go on the record. I know Tushnet has a bias, and I can evaluate that when I read his books. I have no standard to evaluate when I consider two off the record quotes by unnamed sources. If you have links to Brennan saying that Marshall was nothing more than a liberal vote, I'd like to see those.
As far as great Marshall majority opinions, for First Amendment purposes: Stanley, Amalgamated Foods, Police Department of the City of Chicago, Pickering, Bolger, and Rankin. There are dozens of great dissents. Again, I appreciate your opinion; I just really disagree with your conclusion.
It wasn't just 2 off the record quotes by another Justice's clerks. It might have actually been quotes from Brennan himself. No, I don't have on-the-record quotes from Brennan about him being just a vote. However, I have no reason to disbelieve these clerks, who unlike either of us, did know and talk to Justice Brennan. So, you are having to resort to they lied, or Woodward lied. You may be right but then we have this beauty, that kind of refutes the notion that Woodward just quoted a couple of clerks. Bob may be a sleazeball, and use sleazeball tactics to get people to talk, but he has a pretty decent record for being correct. Add in the fact, Woodward had no obvious motive to impugn, for no reason, a giant among liberal legalists, in Marshall. Funny, I'm a conservative, and had no difficulty in believing the negative portrayal of CJ Warren Burger, and I know Woodward is a liberal who would love embarrass conservatives. Like I said, Bob may be a jerk, but he's not Jayson Blair.
"In 1985, upon the death of Associate Justice Potter Stewart, Woodward disclosed that Stewart had been the primary source for The Brethren.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brethren_(non-fiction)
Granted, I just did a quick scan, but I don't see a single case you listed as being a landmark decision regarding the first amendment. Again, I scanned it quickly so maybe I missed it, and I only looked at First amedment, and maybe they were listed elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_the_United_States#First_Amendment_rights
Maybe my law professor wasn't a Marshall fan, because I don't remember him gushing about any Marshall dissenting opinion (nor one where he was the majority author). Brennan? Absolutely. Stevens? Absolutely. Holmes? Absolutely. Along with dozens of others. Hell, even guys like Rehnquist and Scali who he didn't agree with. Marshall? No. What we heard most often was, "Concurring with Justice Brennan's opinion, Justice Marshall". Granted, I went to college during the mid to late 80's, so maybe Marshall was just getting old and tired, and going through the motions at that time.
Yeah, he was called the Great Dissenter for no reason.
He was a staunch defender of the first amendment. Congratulations on reading one book. Amazing you could write an entire paper about Marshall without knowing his opinions...
He was a staunch defender of the first amendment. Congratulations on reading one book. Amazing you could write an entire paper about Marshall without knowing his opinions...
