If you're going to appeal to authority in your fight against guns...

[friendly_iconoclast]

...to wit, Warren Burger (the first link is merely the latest example of same):

"Chief Justice Warren Burger on the 2nd Amendment"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12626815

as well as:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022147913

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172146191

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172137826

...do you accept their authority on other issues as well?

Bowers v Hardwick


http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/478/186#writing-USSC_CR_0478_0186_ZC

Concurrence

BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion

CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring.

I join the Court's opinion, but I write separately to underscore my view that, in constitutional terms, there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy.

As the Court notes, ante at 192, the proscriptions against sodomy have very "ancient roots." Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law. See Code Theod. 9.7.6; Code Just. 9.9.31. See also D. Bailey, Homosexuality [p197] and the Western Christian Tradition 70-81 (1975). During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed. 25 Hen. VIII, ch. 6. Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *215. The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.

This is essentially not a question of personal "preferences," but rather of the legislative authority of the State. I find nothing in the Constitution depriving a State of the power to enact the statute challenged here.

Automatically proclaiming the validity of an opinion because Someone Important
Said It is intellectually lazy, morally bankrupt, or both. I leave it to the reader to
determine which of these apply in the linked threads...

[Loudly]

1. I don't need guidance from any Justice on this subject.

Because I understand the significance of the Appomattox Covenant.

[hack89]

4. You and ten other people. Nt

[IronGate]

6. If you think it means what you think it means,`

then you don't understand the significance of it.

[Lizzie Poppet]

7. Nor do I.

Oh, they undoubtedly know more than I do about the judicial history relating to the matter, but I'm almost certainly more conversant in linguistic analysis, and such analysis conclusively supports the individual right interpretation. Case closed.

[thucythucy]

2. Can't the same question be asked of those pro-gunners

who quote Scalia on Heller v. D.C.? Pro-gun folks love the Scalia/Thomas/Roberts opinions on guns--does this mean they also support gutting the Voting Rights Act? Or the USSC decision in Citizens United?

Bear in mind that the cases I cite aren't decades old, as are the Burger cites.

So, do you apply the same standards to pro-gun folk who cite Heller as unshakeable precedent?

[Eleanors38]

5. Yes, ask away. All of us can find a pony in a pile of shit.

Perhaps the persecuted LGBT community finally did. If what you are asking is can a decision by the SCOTUS today be reversed some time tomorrow, yes it can. But for now, it's law.

Courts, despite pronouncements to the contrary, are political creatures, and often bend to the popular forces of political change. The question for those who want so much for the "militia clause" to be so operative is this: After all the "decades old" activism for gun control, why hasn't the court ruled in their favor; indeed, why was a "libertarian" attorney the one to run with the ball? Nearly all the expansion of rights through the courts in my lifetime have been marked by substantive and effective political activism. The "gun control" outlook, despite the bald clamor of a once-powerful MSM masking for a "movement," has never had a streets-filling, traffic-jamming, voter-registering movement.

Perhaps, some of us liberals have grown a little lazy, and look at the courts less as a political institution subject to forces outside the Beltway, and more as Mommy, someone who will always chase some bogeyman away.

[friendly_iconoclast]

8. Do you reject United States v. Jones because Scalia wrote it?

Or do you accept or reject it irregardless of who wrote it, because of
the decision itself?

Personally, I use the "Picasso/Miles Davis" standard:
Judge the results, not the creator.

A reminder for those unfamiliar with the case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012%29

United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.

In 2005 defendant Antoine Jones was suspected of drug trafficking. Police investigators asked for and received a warrant to attach a GPS tracking device to the underside of the defendant's car but then exceeded the warrant's scope in both geography and length of time. The Supreme Court justices voted unanimously that this was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, although they were split 5-4 as to the fundamental reasons behind that conclusion. The majority held that by physically installing the GPS device on the defendants car, the police had committed a trespass against Jones' "personal effects" – this trespass, in an attempt to obtain information, constituted a search per se...

...Justice Scalia then directed the discussion to whether installing the device was an unreasonable search. Scalia argued that "when that device is installed against the will of the owner of the car on the car, that is unquestionably a trespass and thereby rendering the owner of the car not secure in his effects... against an unreasonable search and seizure."...

...Justice Antonin Scalia authored the majority opinion. He cited a line of cases dating back as far as 1886 to argue that a physical intrusion, or trespass, into a constitutionally-protected area – in an attempt to find something or to obtain information – was the basis, historically, for determining whether a "search" had occurred under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.[24] Scalia conceded that in the years following Katz v. United States (1967) – in which electronic eavesdropping on a public telephone booth was held to be a search – the vast majority of search and seizure case law has shifted away from that approach founded on property rights, and towards an approach based on a person's "expectation of privacy".[25] However, he cited a number of post-Katz cases including Alderman v. United States[26] and Soldal v. Cook County[27] to argue that the trespassory approach had not been abandoned by the Court.[28] In response to criticisms within Alito's concurrence, Scalia emphasized that the Fourth Amendment must provide, at a minimum, the level of protection as it did when it was adopted. Furthermore, a trespassory test need not exclude a test of the expectation of privacy, which may be appropriate to consider in situations where there was no governmental trespass.[29]

In the instant case, the Court concluded, since the Government's installation of a GPS device onto the defendant's car (his "personal effects&quot was a trespass that was purposed to obtain information, then it was a search under the Fourth Amendment.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1259.pdf

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-jones/

[thucythucy]

9. I'm not sure what your point is here.

You seem to be castigating those who support gun control when they cite Justice Burger, by citing instances where Burger was, shall we say, less than enlightened. It seems to me that a similar criticism could then be made of those who, on the pro-gunner side, cite Hiller (and therefore Scalia) as if it was divine writ rendered in letters of flame.

Personally, I judge each decision on a case by case basis, though I do tend to give more credence to legal opinions voiced by justices who, by and large, come down on the side of progressive politics. And so, for instance, all else being equal, I would give more weight to an opinion of Thurgood Marshall, than I would of Clarence Thomas. Which is why there is for me something of a sense of cognitive dissonance to see Scalia so often praised on what purports to be a progressive, left of center website.

No one is infallible, but some folks are more reliably correct than others, IMHO. So even if I might not agree with everything Tom Hartman says, I sure as hell take him more seriously, give more weight to his opinions, than, say, Glenn Beck--even if Beck has now, suddenly, decided that the Iraq War was a bad idea after all.

If your point is that nobody's perfect, and no one's opinion should be accepted without question, then yes, I agree.

Beyond that, as I say, I'm not sure what point it is you're trying to make here, beyond another slap at folks who would like to see more sanity when it comes to the widespread availability of firearms.

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. It's a well-deserved slap at those who employ the genetic fallacy

As shown, even Scalia has his stopped-clock moments.

If one is to complain about Heller because they don't like the decision,
no problem. When all of Scalia's other decisions and public statements get
added in order to portray Heller (as well as McDonald v. Chicago) as
part of a RW conspiracy, there's a problem.

I confess to having done the same with Michael Bloomberg in order to
point out the hypocrisy of those giving his gun control efforts
a free ride without any mention of his decidely un-liberal and unprogressive
actions as mayor of New York City.

(As an aside, I've come to modify my view of Kelo v New London
after I saw that cities are using it against predatory lenders...)

[ileus]

3. A basic human right shouldn't be bartered and traded by the 1%ers

Firearms and ammo are beyond the 2A, If Life, Liberty, and Happiness do actually matter we need the guaranteed access to firearms to help assure each on the individual level.

Before being in the National Guard or Armed forces or whatever the 2A regressives claim doesn't mean squat, we must have the ability to protect ourselves and families on the daily basis.

[jimmy the one]

11. wwjs?

CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring. I join the Court's opinion, but I write separately to underscore my view that, in constitutional terms, there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy... Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law...The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies.. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
This is essentially not a question of personal "preferences," but rather of the legislative authority of the State. I find nothing in the Constitution depriving a State of the power to enact the statute challenged here.

Justice Burger reflected the prevailing 1986 thought on homosexuality/sodomy. Note that he focuses on sodomy, ostensibly involving males, rather than 'gay lesbian' in general. I know a good portion of male homosexuals don't practice it, it's not like a requirement.
Obviously things have changed over 25 years to a different prevailing view which accepts glbt to greater extent (tho I have some disapproving reservations about hardcore practices involving males, while generally being gay-friendly).

1 What Pope JohnPaulII said also in 1986: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed to those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.” The key here is the phrase “objective disorder” — the Vatican had not used such language before and it outraged many. John Paul II was telling people that even if homosexuality is not freely chosen by each individual, it is nevertheless inherently and objectively wrong..
2 Contrast what the current Pope Francis said on homosexuality: He also, once again, reminded the world that his papacy seeks to welcome gays, not to judge. It pointed to his desire to see a church of pastors, not of doctrinaires. It was a loud echo of the five most famous words of his papacy so far: “Who am I to judge?”

It seems an unfriendly icon is trying to impose that agreeing with burger on a gun topic aligns one to all this thoughts on other issues. If it were tangentially related perhaps, but guns & gays? they generally are polar opposites to rightwing thought.

icono: Automatically proclaiming the validity of an opinion because Someone Important Said It is intellectually lazy, morally bankrupt, or both. I leave it to the reader to determine which of these apply in the linked threads...

I don't disagree with your premise in general, unless the 'someone important' has an in depth knowledge of that of which he speaks, & burger had an in depth knowledge of the 2ndA issue. Christian clergy don't have an in depth knowledge of glbt, just a kneejerk opposition, tho Francis admirably ameliorated by citing the bible 'who am I to judge'.

Your contention above can be countered readily by agreeing that 'automatically proclaiming validity' you're right, but under reputable scrutiny the opinion can indeed attain credibility & validity. After reputable scrutiny, what justice burger said is demonstrably true, using historical facts & court cases. (what he said is also my tag line for past couple years, read it below).

[friendly_iconoclast]

12. Do you have an opinion that isn't served with ranch or vinaigrette?

[jimmy the one]

13. gonna need a bucket

Do you have an opinion that isn't served with ranch or vinaigrette?

There was plenty of opinion in what I wrote; you're more concerned with ad hominem so go soak your head.