courts are supposed to make it up as they go, misused discretion, and symbolic death...

william murchinson is now the latest to join the ranks of historically ignorant fools that espouse what they feel should be the virtues of judges in the anglo-american legal tradition. mr. murchinson, not a lawyer or a judge, but rather a columnist with no real background in anything (which, in the world of commentary makes you an expert in everything) boldly declares that "what judging used mainly to be about" is "looking at the law, going with the intent of those who passed it, leaving it to later lawmakers to change or abandon it." which, as a conservative, he of course thinks scalia does. only one slight problem with this...not only does scalia not do this...but no court ever has in our system. courts are not supposed to do that in our system. the very foundation of our legal tradition is judicially created law. that is what common law is. that is the way it has been for centuries...that is the system we inherited (gratefully so) from the british. our courts make it up as they go along. they allow the law to evolve with humanity, they allow fluidity in the law. if it were not for this the protections of the constitution and our highest ideals would become meaningless hollow pledges with no backing (which is, of course, what fools like murchinson actually want...more for me, less for anybody else). I know I've said this many times before...but it still gives me a chuckle that the same fools that wanted to call french fries "freedom" fries because they hate all things french try and try and try to get us to change our legal system to the french model. so mr. murchinson, if you wouldn't mind, at least do some very basic research on the topics you write about. hell, a simple google search would have clued you in to how very embarrassingly wrong you were.

there was another example of the ridiculousness of bowing to and trusting "prosecutorial discretion" in the news recently. and surprisingly enough, the supreme court told prosecutors to go fuck themselves. for once, they acknowledged that crimes are being overcharged, and fantastically so. this time it was charging immigrants that used false social security numbers, albeit with their own names, with identity theft...thereby grabbing one of those handy mandatory minimum sentences. and so, somebody that was guilty of wanting a job and maybe doctoring some papers was being shipped to prison for at least two years. (thank god our tax dollars were being spent on keeping these most dangerous people in prison...god forbid they are spent on something like providing health care, education, infrastructure, employment, etc...it is much more important that our communal funds be spent putting brown folks looking for work behind bars for years). well, the supremes found a loophole (as courts have done for centuries when the "letter of the law" is bullshit mr. murchison) and declared that using random numbers to give yourself a social security number while using your own damn name is not identity theft. (am I the only one that finds it amusing that using your actual, birth-given name was stealing an identity by prosecutors?) so from now on, prosecutors that consistently violate their most sacred duty and oaths by overcharging every single case because they are too fucking scared to actually go to trial and risk their precious "conviction rate" (cough cough every united states attorney cough cough) will actually have to do what they were hired for. of course this could be a problem...because trust me, not too many of these people belong anywhere near a courtroom, especially on the taxpayers dime.

jack kemp died. how wonderfully poetically symbolic that jack kemp died just as arlen spector left the republican party and the all of the crazies that hated kemp because he wasn't purely conservative enough are the only ones left hanging out under the elephant flag. now jack kemp had a lot of ideas that I do not agree with...but he also was the poster child for what republicans should have been. it was people like him that originally attracted many young people, myself included, to aspects of the party. while his ideas may not have gotten to the end result he desired...at least they had a chance and at least he desired the end result and was hell-bent on getting there. after purging the likes of kemp, republicans tried to claim "compassion" (ironically)...but the world has seen through this sad attempt at false window dressing. and now, while they run around trying to figure out how to become useful again and seem to be drawing further and further into their degenerative shell...one can't help but wonder how helpful it would have been to have a republican party modeled after kemp at this time to actually provide legitimate ideas and help to solve problems he tried to draw our attention to thirty years ago. rip jack...you leaving could not have been more apropos.

the death of a party came as no surprise...