« Paging Triumph | Main | When you can tell it's springtime »
April 11, 2005
Wingnuttery and Law School
If you haven't heard about it already, last Friday a group of conservative leaders held a conference called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," which seems to have been spawned by the Conservative misunderstanding that Terri's Law required the federal courts to reverse the Florida state courts. It was held the same day as the Pope's funeral which is ironic since much of the ire from the conservatives seemed aimed at Reagan appointee Justice Kennedy's opinion forbidding the death penalty for juveniles. What setencing kids to death has to do with faith is anyone's guess.
Edwin Vieira pushed the envelope of wingnuttery a bit when he said that Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence v. Texas comes from Marxist-Leninist, satanic foreign principles. Oddly enough, Vieira takes his marching orders in dealing with the Supreme Court from old Uncle Joe Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,'" Dana Milbank of the post supplied the rest of Stalin's quote in the article: "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."
Count Vieria as another conservative advocating violence against judges along with John Cornyn and Tom Delay.
Oh, but what does this have to do with law school? Another of the speakers, Michael Farris advocated blocking judicial power by abolishing the concept of binding judicial precedents. Imagine law school without having to read legal opinions. Erie Doctrine? Pullman Abstention? Brown? Palsgraf? Li v. Yellow Cab? Who cares about any of that? Law schools would have to start from the rules and the statutes and train people to argue without precedent. Imagine the exams.
I'd bet it would be pretty fun to be a judge though, as long as you stayed on the good side of the wingnuts. You could just make law up as your mood suited you and then reverse yourself in another case a week later.
Farris also suggested allowing Congress to vacate court decisions. It's funny how little separation of powers means right now. As James Sensenbrenner's (R-WI) spokesman said last week: "There does seem to be this misunderstanding out there that our system was created with a completely independent judiciary." Gee, I wonder where in the hell we got that idea?
I also wonder if Justice Kennedy, who granted cert in Bush v. Gore, is enjoying his long-lost chickens suddenly returned home to roost.
Posted by Half-Cocked at April 11, 2005 10:46 PM
Comments
Nothing to do with any of that, but, kids, don't rat on your friends.
Posted by: Kevin at April 12, 2005 09:43 AM