Ding Ding Ding!
We have a winner, for the most laughably stupid article written by a law professor during the election season! Steven Calabresi, a co-founder of the Federalist Society, ruminates in the Chicago Tribune about Barack Obama's youth, the age requirement to be President (thirty-five), and liberal theories of constitutional interpretation. But then, my use of polysyllabic words in the prior sentence evinces a complexity to Professor Calabresi's argument that is completely lacking. His main insights seem to be:
(1) If liberals think "equal protection" is an indefinite term that should evolve with history, how come the number "35" doesn't evolve too!
(2) Obama is a socialist who will meet with dictators!
Honestly, if this is the brain trust behind the McCain campaign, the left has nothing to worry about in November.
(1) If liberals think "equal protection" is an indefinite term that should evolve with history, how come the number "35" doesn't evolve too!
(2) Obama is a socialist who will meet with dictators!
Honestly, if this is the brain trust behind the McCain campaign, the left has nothing to worry about in November.
Labels: Rabid Conservatives
posted by Earl Warren at 4:28 PM
8 Comments:
All the left has to worry about this election is the same thing it had to worry about in 2000 and 2004: itself.
A great economy suggested Al Gore should've won in 2000 (sure, maybe he did win, but it shouldn't have even been close). An unpopular President/war suggested John Kerry should've won in 2004. Those elections were decided less on the grounds that Republicans were doing good things and more on the grounds that the masses don't like MoveOn.org. For the foreseeable future, as long as the Democratic Party is the party of proliferating rights (gay, undocumented immigrants, etc.), affirmative action, enthusiastic support for abortion, and keeping Christmas displays off public property, the Republicans will get a lot of votes.
The Age 35 requirement SHOULD evolve. Back then, the life expectancy wasnt so long, so 35 meant you were fairly elderly compared to the general population.
An increase in average life expectancy is no reason to increase the age requirement to become president. If we are going to use life expectancy as the metric, why not require that a female president be older than a male president would have to be, since women live longer? Why not raise the draft age to 25?
I am guessing that the 35 years old requirement was simply to ensure that the president had a certain level of maturity, much like members of the House of Representatives have to be at least 25, and members of the Senate 30. Any individual member of the House is less important than a Senator, and the House less serious than the Senate; any Senator less important than the President.
Life expectancy doesn't have much to do with that, unless you want to defend the proposition that Russians (67.7 years) are necessarily less mature than the Japanese (81.5).
It's wonderfully entertaining to see a McCain supporter, particularly one who supports the war in Iraq, say, "[Theodore] Roosevelt engaged in gunboat diplomacy with Latin American countries such as Panama that tarred America's reputation in that part of the world for the next 100 years. We are still living with the legacy of T.R.'s youthful foreign policy excesses."
You have to read the article as it's written: toung-in-cheek. It's a general critique of liberal judicial theory (not an attack on equal protection, which isn't even mentioned, WTF?), as well as a collection of complaints about Obama. If you think Obama is the second coming then obviously this article will simply seem like blasphemy to you. That's probably why you picked out the weakest of the article's Obama critiques to critique (the Iran talks critique), trying to paint all of them as equally weak, while the article is filled with much stronger ones (like breaking the public financing campaign pledge). Of course, you should figure out how to talk to someone who thinks that neither the Holocaust or gays in Iran ever existed. Something isn't stupid just because you disagree with it.
No it's stupid because it's stupid. I mean when the comments thread of the VC explodes with people calling a conservative argument stupid, you know it's stupid.
It doesn't mock any judicial philosophy I'm familiar with, liberal or conservative, originalist or Brennanesque. That's why it's stupid. Of course, if you're a frothing at the mouth war mongering conservative, anything Steve Calabresi says is infallible.
My favorite comment:
"Who says that conservatives don't have a sense of humor?
Why don't you people just get it over with start wearing brown shirts and march in formation to his convention speech out at Triumph of the Will, I mean the DNC this summer?
Get it? Do you get it? 'Cause it's like they're Nazis!!! Hilarious. Get over yourselves, lefties! Steven Calabresi is a comic genius!!!!"
Of course, we cannot forget that the current president actually borrowed a term from the Communist Party ranks to apply to his supporters.
Great, Armen, conclude that retards making comments on VC speak for anyone who has conservative views. The article is weak and the attempt at humor is pathetic. I say this as a conservative. But as stupid as the article is, it's no smarter to pretend that there's no satire there, such as of the theory of the living, evolving Constitution.
And who cares if the commies used the term pioneer? Lots of stuff gets recycled. Including a certain blogger on this site who pretends to be a former Republican VP Candidate.
Can some of the graduates on this board offer advice on the California bar? Specifically:
1) Is it normal to never feel prepared?
2) Were there any essays on the actual exam that you had no clue about, and and how did you tackle those questions? Did you pass?
3) How much did you memorize the elements of each concept? Did you recite the BarBri answer, or put it in your own words?
4) People who didn't pass: any clue why?
I think the life expectancy argument is dumb. If our society is advancing shouldn't people become qualified for great responsibility at a younger age? And shouldn't voters be better able to pick out a qualified candidate without resorting to numerical cut-offs?
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