Like I said before, I am not going to bother with someone who doesn't get the simple difference between atheism and theism/polytheism. The conversation is just TOO broken to bother with.
Atheism is NOT a dogma because there is no religious text NOR religious rules - it is the REJECTION of the dogma.
You made an irrelevant personal attack when you said this
"I'm going to go ahead and say that your false sense of self-importance and ironic"--- which had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what Scalia was all about.
When people don't have an argument to make they usually make a personal attack - which is what you have done here.
Argue the argument, NOT the arguer.
Fail all over the place.
Scalia STILL voted against the defendant in McClesky. Fail.
He showed his anti-gay agenda in Lawrence v Texas. His outdated view of "morality" have already put him on the wrong side of history.
Here is a brief recap of Scalia's legacy:
- Anti gay rights
- Anti abortion
- Pro torture of suspects
- Anti euthanasia
- Denied evolution
- Believed in creationism
- Believed in the devil
- Anti atheist
- Said that the US Constitution did not prohibit the government from preferring religion over secularism (he didn't read the First Amendment)
- Anti-affirmative action
- Anti environmental regulations of carbon dioxide
- Justified his Bush v Gore decision by saying "Get over it".
- Pro-gun lunatic (He ruled that the 2nd amendment right to possess a firearm was unconnected with service in a militia)
- Refused to recuse himself when he was personally involved with one of the parties in a case (Cheney)
- Generally Pro States rights
- Pro corporations
- Anti-Democracy
He spawned 9 children and died on a luxury ranch where grown up people hunt animals for sport.
Yes, it WAS that simple. The general goal is NOT for one to eventually become a scientist. The general goal is EQUITABLE OPPORTUNITY in life. Instead, Scalia focused on the number of black scientists in order to raise the standard for admission to these prestigious colleges, which is absurd. Most people going to college will NOT become scientists; they will simply move up in the social ladder.
By your logic, I also do not need to get admitted to one law school and not the other simply because the chances of me becoming a SCOTUS justice are close to zero. Well, my answer is that I just want to be a lawyer, and just because I may never become a Supreme Court Justice does NOT mean that my skin color should determine which school I end up getting admitted to.
It is no secret Scalia opposed Affirmative Action. He actually assumed that we are already past the point where minorities are on part with whites insofar as social, economic and political opportunities went - which is obviously absurd. We need at least another generation to equalize opportunities for all and to make sure that colleges are representative of the US population.
Yes, he had 9 children - he was a colossal ego maniac.
"sat as a SCOTUS justice for 30 years and handed down decisions which, for better or worse, will likely be discussed in every law curriculum in this country for the rest of it's existence on this planet"
Yeah, THIS is his legacy THIS is the damage he has done to this country. History WILL piss on his grave, it is pissing on his grave already.
-The Supreme Court’s decision in McCleskey vKemp (1987) protected criminal justice laws and policies from being challenged on the basis of racially disparate impact. The facts the case were as follows, a black man, was convicted of murdering a white police officer in Georgia and sentenced to death. The defendant showed a substantial amount of studies and statistics that showed that African-Americans were more likely to receive a death sentence than any other defendant of different ethnicity especially when they killed a white victim. These findings indicated that racial bias permeated the Georgia capital punishment system.
Only one month after being appointed to the Supreme Court, Scalia along with 4 other justices ruled against the defendant
This case still acts as a substantial barrier to the elimination of racial inequalities in the criminal justice system, perpetuating an unfair racial imbalance that has come to define criminal justice in America.
http://www.naacpldf.org/case/mccleskey-v-kemp
- In his dissent in the 1996Romer v Evans case, which challenged Colorado's ban on any local jurisdictions outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, Scalia brought out an analogy that he's used to attack liberals and supporters of LGBT rights for years since. He said "Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings," "But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct[.]" (he was not a vegetarian by the way, so that animal abuse point is bogus since every time you buy meat you sanction animal torture).
- In Bush v Gore, the year 2000, Scalia helped other conservative justices to hand over the presidency to that George W. Bush jackass. The rest is history. When he was called out to justify why state’s rights did NOT all of a sudden apply in that case since Florida wanted to recount the votes, Scalia said “Get over it”. As if it’s easy to get over two wars and 10 trillion dollars of debt. Let us not forget that Scalia almost always favored state’s rights which is actually a pretty common tactic that the GOP uses when they try to circumvent federal law or oppose progressive populist principles. In this case, Florida wanted to recount
- In the 2003Lawrence v Texas that overturned the Texas statute that criminalized homosexual sex. Scalia came up with various false analogies that he thought were comparable to two homosexual adults engaging in consensual sex. He compared state’s laws against homosexuality to state’s laws against bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, obscenity as well as prostitution and child pornography. If you listen to the oral argument, you’ll actually hear where Scalia is helping out the attorney for Texas by attempting to make arguments for him at which point Requniquist cut him off and said “Maybe we should go through counsel, yes.”
After the majority struck down the law. Scalia went on: "Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct." Ooooh, the gay agenda….how scary is that? Barely 10% of the population that has no political representation has a secret evil agenda…
- Scalia was an ardent defender of stare decisis – or the legal precedent. Historically, it has been extremely hard to overturn the Supreme Court’s legal precedents. However, Scalia did make an exception in case of abortion. He Opposed Roe v Wade, the decision that legalized abortion, and said the following:
You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it,
According to this logic you could also argue this: Computers in the constitution image
Perhaps Scalia didn’t know that abortion was legal in every one of the original 13 colonires. Clearly, then, the original intent of the founding fathers was to keep abortion legal.
- In the worst Supreme Court Decision in recent history, Citizens United v FEC, which deemed corporations people and which allowed corporations to make unlimited donations to politicians running for office. Scalia sold US democracy to corporations by legalizing corruption and bribery. He assumed that Joe Shome with 10 cents in his pocket had as much power on the outcome of an election as a corporation that can dump MILLIONS of dollars into an election. This is what he said: “I don't care who is doing the speech — the more the merrier. People are not stupid. If they don't like it, they'll shut it off.”
- In his opposition to Obama’s Clean Power plan to regulate carbo dioxide from power plants, Scalia compared a lifesaving EPA regulation to buying a Ferrari without looking at the price tag and even claimed that a regulation that restricts mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants could HURT human health and the environment. His analogy was flawed because one does NOT need to buy a Ferrari whereas one DOES need to breathe clean air! The EPA regulation was a safety measure, NOT a luxury item.
In 2012, he has explained his dissent in 2007 Massachusetts v EPA case by saying the following:
"The issue was simply whether carbon was an environmental pollutant or not,” he said. “I did not think it was ever regarded as that. It is not the Atmospheric Protection Agency. It’s the Environmental Protection Agency. It has always been thought to have authority to only to control the environment and not the outer space. That was the basis for my dissent. It was not a scientific dissent”
See, right there Scalia confused carbon with carbon dioxide. And he dissented because of an alleged difference between the words “Atmospheric” and “Environment” Which is a distinction without a difference.
In the same case, when the attorney for Massachusetts corrected Scalia and said that it was the stratosphere not the troposphere, Scalia replied:
·"Troposphere, whatever. I told you before Im not a scientist, that’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming to tell you the truth”
- The words scientific dissent coming from Scalia is also rich considering the fact that he denied evolution and believed in creationism. In June of 2015 when he was giving a speech at his grand daughters high school graduation he said this:
"Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented. Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were."
o http://thedailybanter.com/2015/06/antonin-scalia-should-step-down-as-supreme-court-justice-after-creationist-beliefs-revealed/
- Here is what he said about evolution:
"The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In Fact, it may be stronger…. The Evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific fact, since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or gues…. It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a myth."
- Here is what he said about atheists:
"With respect to public acknowledgement of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists."
As if atheism was comparable to theism or polytheism.
- Here is what he said about the devil
I believe in the Devil….Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.
When asked what evidence there is for the devil, scalia said this
"You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore… It’s because he’s smart…. What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way….."
- On January 4, 2016 Scalia said that the Constitution does not prohibit the government from preferring religion over secularism. Apparently, he did not read the First Amendment that says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
He also said Don't cram it down the throats of an American people that has always honored God on the pretext that the Constitution requires it,
- The 5-4 vote in June 2012 enabled nine states, mainly in the South, to revise their election laws without advance federal approval. Texas and other states soon proceeded with controversial voter identification laws that actually prevented many poor people from voting. These voter identification laws were passed to combat the alleged voter fraud which was actually nonexistent. As a result of these laws, about 8% of democrats in the affected states were prevented from voting.
Scalia had described key provisions of the Voting Rights Act as an "embedded" form of "racial preferment." The law was originally designed to protect against racial discrimination during the voting process. But Scalia and other judges argued it didn't reflect the "current conditions," as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's decision on Shelby County v. Holder.
In a 2013 speech at the University of California Washington Center Scalia said this: "Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," Even the name of it is wonderful, the Voting Rights Act. Who's going to vote against that?"
- In December of 2015 this is what he said about affirmative action: He started with the preface that masked his own prejudice by point to “others”. Here it goes.
“there are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that – most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in – in classes that are too too fast for them.”
This was an implication that skin color had something to do with one’s ability to succeed academically
- Let us not forget scalia’s 9 page dissent in the Obergefell case that granted the right to marry to gays in the summer of 2015. Scalia ripped into the majority opinion, calling it a “judicial Putsch” that poses a “threat to American democracy.” He added that a “system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”
Scalia then observed that the court didn’t have “a single evangelical Christian or even a Protestant of any denomination”
This is rich coming from a person who has used his powers for 30 years to decide based on his myopic view of the Constitution as well as his religious dogma
Also, from what I have found reading Scalia’s decisions is that he frequently exaggerates someone’s position to defeat it and creates unlikely scenarios.
For instance, here is what he said about torture.
“Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?” As if that was at all a likely scenario, but no matter, punch away!
He said that it was extraordinary to assume that the ban on cruel and unusual punishment of the 8th Amendment applied to “so-called” torture. In 1878, the Supreme Court has held torture to be unconstitutional in Wilkerson v Utah. And the worst likely scenario that a suspect just might blow up LA is also the LEAST likely scenario. But, as often is the case and as is the case now with the Republicans is that you want to scare people with the worst case scenario to
Scalia thought that anything he believed was constitutional and anything he opposed was unconstitutional. He also refused to recuse himself over a case involving access to records of an energy committee convened by Vice President Cheney, whom Scalia had hunted and dined with. He voted against relief for Lilly Ledbetter, an obvious victim of gender discrimination.
He died on a luxury ranch where grow up people hunt animals for sport.
GOOD RIDDANCE. His death couldn't come soon enough.
"I'm going to go ahead and say that your false sense of self-importance and ironic, if not wholly pathetic level of determination, hardly puts you in a position to judge whether he "doesn't understand the basic ABC's of life."
---Irrelevant personal attack that has nothing to do with Scalia's legacy. Learn how to make arguments without getting personal.
"Most who'd care to be honest with themselves would say he outright shits on your definition of them, whatever these "ABC's" may be"
----The ABCs of life are that evolution is a fact and that religion is a work of fiction written by people who could not even build an outhouse.
"You are free to disagree with his opinion and his conduct on the bench, as I often do. You're also free to comment on his anti-social and confrontational, elitist attitude, which he was known for. Don't confuse that with being in a position to judge his significance or contribution."
----Yes, I HAVE done that above; and I have EXPLAINED just how much his "contribution" affected the country in the negative way.
"It's sad, because in its own way, Atheism IS COMPARABLE to theism or polytheism. In the absence of any evidence to support any of the three, they all require faith and acceptance without scientific, factual information or evidence."
----WRONG. Atheism does NOT require any faith. I, as an atheist, am NOT claiming anything here. As an atheist, I am REPLYING to the INITIAL claim of god's existence by saying that I DO NOT BUY THAT CLAIM. The first man said "there must be a god"; the first man did NOT say: "There is probably no god".
Atheism came AFTER theism and polytheism. Theism and Polytheism are RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. Theism is based on RELIGIOUS BOOKS - atheism isn't. The burden of proof is on the person who is putting force something in the first place. I, as an atheist, am NOT convinced of that claim. No faith required.
FAIL BIG TIME.
I am not going to bother with the rest of your comment if you don't get that SIMPLE truth. I won't argue XYZ if you don't get ABC.
You called a Jewish Supreme Court Justice "whack job" - that makes you an anti-semite according to your logic. And I don't believe that you didn't know that someone with the last name "Ginsburg" wasn't Jewish. Nice try, anti-semitic liar.
Fail.
Also, you didn't provide any examples of "bad stuff" done by Ginsburg,
Thomas being BLACK does NOT make him immune from criticism. As a black man, he is supposed to be a LOT more attuned with the plight of African Americans in this country.
You called a Jewish Supreme Court Justice "whack job" - that makes you an anti-semite according to your logic. And I don't believe that you didn't know that someone with the last name "Ginsburg" wasn't Jewish. Nice try, anti-semitic liar.
Fail.
Also, you didn't provide any examples of "bad stuff" done by Ginsburg,
Thomas being BLACK does NOT make him immune from criticism. As a black man, he is supposed to be a LOT more attuned with the plight of African Americans in this country.
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