2012 Presidential race

[justinskins]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

Just about all the current SCOTUS justices have brought up Blackstone in major decisions in recent years. Roberts cites him regularly. I would bet that Blackstone has been cited over 20,000 times in SCOTUS decisions even up to the modern day.

Cited for what propositions? I assure you, Supreme Court justices do not cite Blackstone as a source for current law. Unless you want to try bringing a lawsuit on a writ of assumpsit or trespass on the case, I wouldn't suggest learning the law from Blackstone. (And that's why law schools used Blackstone as a part of their admission exams, not the curriculum, even in the late 19th century.) The justices cite Blackstone when they want to talk about the state of the law at the founding.

Remind me never to hire you as my attorney lol.

You wouldn't be able to afford me.

Also, I'll pass on your lecture, because whatever IPE is, it doesn't seem of interest to me. I stand by my basic point, which is that scholars in other disciplines would not uniformly agree with that definition, nor would many socialists (although some would). I would posit that what socialism is is bound up, in part, in the continuing history of particular political parties (like the Socialistes, the SPD, and what is now called Die Linke), labor unions, political theorists, and underground movements. If certain economists want to define socialism as an ideal type for the purposes of analysis, that's their prerogative. But the last time I checked, God has not granted them divine authority over the use of words in the English language, or even among scholars outside economics. To a historian of political thought or political movements, such a definition would not necessarily be helpful. I have training in those fields and I don't feel the need to prove my bona fides to you, even though I will freely admit that I am not an expert (i.e. do not have a doctorate), have moved on to other things, and don't know everything.

*EDIT* I will also just say in passing, this really is a disciplinary and methodological difference. When it comes to terms like this, I follow the Koselleck approach. I can assure you, you will not find such a simplistic definition of the term in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe.

[akhhorus]

A shame, sounds like you need one on the basics of it if you want to stop sounding like someone criticizing an NFL GM's moves but doesn't know what the NFL draft is lol.

[justinskins]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

A shame, sounds like you need one on the basics of it if you want to stop sounding like someone criticizing an NFL GM's moves but doesn't know what the NFL draft is lol.

Maybe so. Then again, I also don't need lectures on legal citation from someone who hasn't had a semester of law school.

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by justinskins

Maybe so. Then again, I also don't need lectures on legal citation from someone who hasn't had a semester of law school.

When you stop pontificating on topics you know absolutely nothing about, then you can make this post. I don't need to go to law school to see that Scalia uses a quote from Blackstone as the basis for the right to self-defense that is the heart of his Heller decision confirming that the 2nd amendment gives a citizen the right to use a firearm as self defense(in their property/person). The specific quote from Blackstone is: "The right to self-defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine the right within the narrowest limits possible." Sounds like he is using it as a basis for law.

Now I am done.

[justinskins]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

When you stop pontificating on topics you know absolutely nothing about, then you can make this post. I don't need to go to law school to see that Scalia uses a quote from Blackstone as the basis for the right to self-defense that is the heart of his Heller decision confirming that the 2nd amendment gives a citizen the right to use a firearm as self defense(in their property/person). The specific quote from Blackstone is: "The right to self-defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine the right within the narrowest limits possible." Sounds like he is using it as a basis for law.

Now I am done.

1) Anything can be a "basis for law." Scientific studies of adolescent development can be the basis for a legal opinion. See, e.g., Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 569 (2005) (discussing studies demonstrating the developmental immaturity and impulsiveness of juveniles). Such a study is a useful source in disposing of a case, but not a binding or persuasive statement of law.
2) The passage you reference was written by Virginian jurist St. George Tucker in a footnote to an American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries. Scalia does cite to Blackstone himself elsewhere in the opinion, but because his "works . . .'constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation.'" District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 593-94 (2008) (quoting Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999)).
3) Scalia describes the section of the opinion in which he cites Tucker as an "examination of a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of a legal text in the period after its enactment or ratification. That sort of inquiry is a critical tool of constitutional interpretation." Heller, 554 U.S. at 605. Obviously, he is using the text (along with other, non-legal sources) as a historical gloss to aid in interpreting the Second Amendment, not an authoritative statement of law.
4) Just as a study of child psychological is only relevant to decisions in certain cases dealing with children, 18th-century historical sources are only useful in cases where such history is relevant. - for example, in interpreting the Constitution or contemporaneous ambiguous statutes (the Alien Tort Statute comes to mind).
5) It would be laughable to cite Blackstone as a general authority of law rather than as a historical source relevant to particular constitutional questions. For example, Blackstone writes that "to erect a house or other building so near to mine, that it stops up my antient lights and windows, is nusance . . . ." William Blackstone, 3 Commentaries on the Laws of England 216-17 (1768). This proposition is simply wrong as a statement of law in American jurisdictions today. As for any other legal issue, the best law comes from recent cases in the relevant jurisdiction. It is possible for an old source to be good law (usually for rarely discussed constitutional questions, or certain foundational and "classic" cases like Marbury), but that is the exception.

[Ibleedburgundy]

LOL This is what happens when you have one all-purpose thread for an entire forum.

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by Ibleedburgundy

LOL This is what happens when you have one all-purpose thread for an entire forum.

Yeah, its starting to look like a Pollack painting at this point lol.

[cal_junior]

Originally Posted by Ibleedburgundy

LOL This is what happens when you have one all-purpose thread for an entire forum.

I 've been thinking the same thing. This legal back-and-forth has been soul crushing. I keep thinking somebody has written something about the race, then click on it and...

[justinskins]

Originally Posted by cal_junior

I 've been thinking the same thing. This legal back-and-forth has been soul crushing. I keep thinking somebody has written something about the race, then click on it and...

Haha. OK, sorry. I'll get myself under control. Obviously I'm ready for school to start back up.

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by cal_junior

I 've been thinking the same thing. This legal back-and-forth has been soul crushing. I keep thinking somebody has written something about the race, then click on it and...

The polls seem static, Romney is waiting until the closing ceremony to release the name of his running mate(and probably the DNC for his tax returns)...kind of a dead time in the campaign for another week or so.

[cal_junior]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

The polls seem static, Romney is waiting until the closing ceremony to release the name of his running mate(and probably the DNC for his tax returns)...kind of a dead time in the campaign for another week or so.

More of this, less of the other. PM was made that legal who cares-fest.

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by cal_junior

More of this, less of the other. PM was made that legal who cares-fest.

Socialist!

[cal_junior]

"An effort by one candidate to somehow say 'oh this recession and the slowdown in jobs was somehow the result of this president magically being elected' ... people in America dismiss that as being poppycock."

-Mitt Romney. April, 2004

[Ibleedburgundy]

The inherent contradiction in that quote is bad, but to catch a guy worth a quarter billion dollars using the word "poppycock" is priceless lol.

[shally]

Originally Posted by Ibleedburgundy

The inherent contradiction in that quote is bad, but to catch a guy worth a quarter billion dollars using the word "poppycock" is priceless lol.

i use that word all the time.. of course, i aint worth squat these days...lol