SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

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twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

falcon2424 posted:

I think we might be more likely to see a tax-protest argument. Quakers object to war. They feel that they have a religious obligation to not-fund war. But they still have to pay taxes, and can't pay into a special "everything but war" fund. ( http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1441988.html )

The owners don't have an individual right to avoid paying into a fund that (partially) supports war/abortion. So they can't have that right collectively.

E: Of course, if the court does side with Hobby Lobby, it'll be interesting to see what other mandatory-payments suddenly become opt-out.

I don't think taxes are a good analogy, taxes and mandated insurance are different things, and whether they pass the various tests in the RFRA are not necessarily related. I think the government has a tricky argument primarily because ACA has numerous exemptions, making providing contraceptive insurance not clearly a compelling interest (we might agree the public health is a compelling interest, but the actions of the government suggest it does not), especially since Hobby Lobby isn't seeking to avoid providing all contraceptive, just some specific ones. If the tax code had as many arbitrary (and similar) exemptions, I think the Quakers' argument would become interesting.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 23:21

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:54

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

axeil posted:

Oh god I forgot about Bush v. Gore. What was the actual rationale they gave for that one beyond "the recount needs to stop because this is silly." Or if you're more cynical "the recount needs to stop because we have 5 Republican-appointed justices and stopping it allows a Republican to win the White House."

It turns out that the Supreme Court releases handy descriptions of why they decided the way they did, and if you wanted to know their rationale, reading those would be a good start. That said a brief summary, 7 of them found an equal protection violation due to different standards of counting in different counties (of identical ballots). Of the seven that found an equal protection problem, five found no possibility of a Constitutional recount happening by the deadline. The remaining two wanted to send the case back to the Florida Supreme Court to fix their voting counting standards. This disagreement was primarily over whether the deadline was December 12th (the day federal statute wants and also the day the decision was issued) or December 18th (the day the electoral votes would be cast). To me the only issue of substance is whether we are to consider 3 USC 5 a real law or not. Breyer and Souter argued "But no State is required to conform to �5 if it cannot do that (for whatever reason); the sanction for failing to satisfy the conditions of �5 is simply loss of what has been called its �safe harbor.� And even that determination is to be made, if made anywhere, in the Congress."

Cheekio posted:

Page searching for 'courage' will get you to the line. Apparently when it comes to disagreeing branches of state, you're supposed to shoot first and just cross your fingers the eventual ruling doesn't get you impeached later.

Edit:
Fixed a link. The more I think about it the more insane this court seems. I hate to muck up old derails but is their refusal to give advisory opinions a constitutional thing or is it a precedent thing?

When you are the President of the United States, you are not supposed to perform actions that you yourself believe to be unconstitutional. I don't see how this could be controversial. If the Congress were to pass a bill (overriding veto presumably) that required everyone to speak nicely about Republicans, the President would of course refuse to enforce it. Speaking of controversy, this is both a constitutional and precedental thing:

quote:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;�to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;�to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;�to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;�to Controversies between two or more States;�between a State and Citizens of another State;�between Citizens of different States;�between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

Article 3 gives the judiciary power to issue rulings in cases and controversies only. That said there is nothing in there that says "Keep your mouth shut otherwise", there are no provisions for offering opinions, and no remedy if one were to be offered. Regardless, the judiciary has historically seemed to treat this somewhat seriously.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 19:00

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Emanuel Collective posted:

Why should it matter if the plaintiffs can't prove the scientific accuracy of their religious objection? They wouldn't be able to prove God exists either, but that doesn't mean their religious objection isn't legitimate.

I would think the scientific accuracy would definitely effect the substantial burden test. If their claim is "We can't X because it produces Y effect and God says Y is bad" arguing X does not produce Y effect would show that requiring X doesn't burden their religion. If their claim is "We can't X because God says that is bad" you'd be right, but since Hobby Lobby is only seeking to avoid certain contraceptives, that doesn't seem to be the case here.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 19:25

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Amarkov posted:

But you aren't disputing the per curiam opinion. Doesn't this mean the normal state election procedures also violate the Equal Protection Clause, and thus that you ordered certification of unconstitutionally determined election results? oh right the per curiam opinion says it doesn't apply to anything else ever

I thought the issue at hand was that recount was manual and that different counties had different procedures for counting ballots with various states of chads present. If all the ballots were run through the same machine which sorted ballots with the same rules, there is no equal protection violation (which I believe was the case for the first count?).

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 22:26

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

StarMagician posted:

I'm sure the answer is no, but do we have any concrete data on the rate of induced miscarriages due to prevention of implantation? Because I'm sure their insurance covers routine procedures that are much more risky to living fetuses, such as amniocentesis, which induces miscarriage roughly once in every 300-500 procedures.

What's the point of this reasoning? If Hobby Lobby prevails, you are just giving them more ammunition to restrict their health insurance, Hobby Lobby has no obligation to know precisely the risks of any given treatment and adjust their health insurance accordingly (if their insurance company would even allow such a specialized plan edit: I dimmly recall Hobby Lobby being self-insured so they could probably make an arbitrarily complicated plan if they wanted to/could legally do it).

twodot fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Dec 4, 2013

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 02:01

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

StarMagician posted:

If they're covering amniocentesis, but not birth control, but it turns out that that procedure has more of a chance of killing a fetus than birth control does, it isn't really about the risk to the child. What level of risk/reward do they find acceptable before they allow coverage?

If anything this is an argument against them, that it's not actually, as they claim, about saving babies. It also illustrates just how complicated this issue really is.

In this scenario they would likely just argue they should be allowed to not cover amniocentesis. You appear to be expecting them to have omniscient levels of understanding the risks of various medical procedures, when you yourself are unsure of some of them.

This argument is in no way about saving babies, and is entirely about specific procedures being forbidden by their religion. The fact that not covering these contraceptives might (would definitely) result in more actual abortions has no bearing on the discussion. You are at best illustrating they aren't medical professionals, which isn't proving anything.

You seem to be trying to make a substantial burden argument (the procedures that they want to not cover do not result in failing to implant a fertilized egg often enough to offer a substantial burden to them), but the frequency of miscarriage of amniocentesis (or of any other action) is unrelated to that argument.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 02:18

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

StarMagician posted:

Pretty much this. I think you understand my argument, but just to restate it, they use the danger to fetuses as an argument against covering birth control, but still cover a lot of other routine procedures that also present a danger, perhaps even a greater danger, to developing fetuses.

(Earlier, I brought up the substantial burden test, in hindsight I think that's the wrong test)
Let's imagine the Supreme Court agrees with your argument. What do you think is the more likely ruling based on it?
Supreme Court: Ok Hobby Lobby, you do have RFRA rights, the ACA does substantially burden you, and the government failed to show the ACA was in furtherance of a compelling interest or that it was the least restrictive means of doing so. We rule that:
A) Your belief was sincere, you are allowed to not cover the contraceptives you sought to not cover and additionally don't have to cover the following procedures which possess a similar or greater risk:... (Obviously the Supreme Court wouldn't go literally overbroad like this but you get the point)

B) Your inability or unwillingness to coldly calculate the relative risks of literally every possible procedure invalidates your otherwise sincere religious beliefs. If you want to prevail in court you need to sue again, but next time list every possible procedure that could have a similar or greater risk as the procedures presented, dismissed.

twodot fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Dec 4, 2013

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 03:06

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Not My Leg posted:

Also, yes, if Hobby Lobby is claiming that covering a medical treatment that causes X is a serious violation of its religious beliefs, then Hobby Lobby should have an affirmative duty to determine what medical treatments actually cause X. Anything less literally puts the owner's immortal soul at risk.

Are you trying to make a legal or moral argument? Your argument is wrong on both counts, but this makes me think you are attempting a moral approach despite many legal references.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 19:40

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

DerLeo posted:

Don't we already have a precedent with draft laws and pacifists for how to treat beliefs as legitimate or not?

Presumably, but to quote the 10th Circuit:

quote:

No one disputes in this case the sincerity of Hobby Lobby and Mardel�s religious beliefs. And because the contraceptive-coverage requirement places substantial pressure on Hobby Lobby and Mardel to violate their sincere religious beliefs, their exercise of religion is substantially burdened within the meaning of RFRA.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 20:04

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Not My Leg posted:

I claim that doing X is prohibited by my religious beliefs. Therefore, I claim that if the government compels me to do X, the government has substantially burdened my free exercise of religion.

The above argument is sound, but only if two things are true.

First, X must actually be prohibited by my religious beliefs. I'm willing to grant the validity of my belief here for the sake of argument.

Second, I must not routinely voluntarily do X . If I routinely do X voluntarily, then regardless of whether I believe X is wrong, my free exercise of religion already includes doing X. If my free exercise already includes doing X, then my free exercise is not burdened by telling me to do X.

Morally, I understand why you might require your second test. What legal basis do you have for making the second requirement?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 08:53

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

evilweasel posted:

A "substantial burden" to your religious rights is required. If you're being asked to do something you do all the time, clearly it's not a substantial burden.

What's the legal basis for this? The standard of "something you do all the time" doesn't seem coherent to me, and generally, I don't see why being a lovely (or in this case, hypothetically unaware of science) Christian should allow the government to substantially burden sincere beliefs.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 21:13

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

McAlister posted:

And that doesn't matter because insurance companies don't have the information you think they have and mr green isn't allowed to look at the information they do have. He'd go to jail if he did. So he effectively doesn't have it.

Why is this dumb tangent still happening? Hobby Lobby very definitely is allowed to know what practices go on its health insurance plan, we know this because Hobby Lobby is filing a suit about a law that requires them to provide specific practices on their health insurance plan. The assertion that some treatments have some off label uses has nothing to do with Hobby Lobby's specific objections.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2013 18:16

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

The problem is that the entire doctrine of asset forfeiture is medieval nonsense with as little inherent logic as charging a tree with murder because its branches fell and killed someone.

You're going to need to elaborate on this, I can imagine several arguments you might be making, many of them would be based on conflating different things that have similar names. To start with you might raise an objection to Kagan's description of why forfeiture is good in this very case.

Eldragon posted:

The alternative ruling does not require that asset forfeiture is run as a separate trial (although it still probably should). They could have simply required that there is an exception on those assets for legal defense. If we can have attorney-client privilege for communication, we can have a similar exemption for paying for your attorney.

We certainly could do this, but even the dissent doesn't get here (Roberts appears to be just arguing the freeze should be adversarial). Do you think assets meant to spend on attorneys has existing protections in the law, are you suggesting a change of policy to protect such assets?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 21:22

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Evil Fluffy posted:

Even if the SCOTUS would hear this it'd almost certainly still end up 5-4 against Wolfe though, but perhaps with an amazing dissent from Sotomayor. Wasn't it Scalia that said evidence of innocence wasn't enough to free a man sentenced to die because a court found him guilty?

This is typically a misquote of something Scalia never said, but since that misquote went around, Scalia did say something very similar in 2009:

quote:

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is �actually� innocent.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-1443scalia.pdf

I'll note here that factually Scalia is completely correct in that, at the time, the Supreme Court has never held that. Whether or not this is good policy is a separate issue.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 08:08

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

If you look at the history of asset forfeiture decisions, the original modern asset forfeiture decisions from the Prohibition era took as their precedents a bunch of admiralty-law decisions from (I think?) the 1700's and 1800's that allowed legal proceedings against ships. The reasoning of those decisions was partly based on a sort of proto-corporate-liability doctrine for the ship, and partly based on various medieval common-law decisions based on the concept of deodand.

Even assuming this is correct, and the trail you've drawn here is quite sketchy (some unspecified cases in the Prohibition era were based on other unspecified cases in an unspecified 200 year period, ok). What you said was:

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

The problem is that the entire doctrine of asset forfeiture is medieval nonsense with as little inherent logic as charging a tree with murder because its branches fell and killed someone.

Bold added. If you want to demonstrate that, you need to show the doctrine has no inherent logic, not imply that the modern practice may be related to previous supposedly irrational practices (you didn't even show the medieval practice was irrational).

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 03:39

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Paul MaudDib posted:

To give you an example of a contemporary civil forfeiture case, see the case of United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency.

I'm familiar with civil forfeiture (I specifically called out that I thought Hieronymous Alloy was conflating two different things), and while cases like this and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Approximately_64,695_Pounds_of_Shark_Fins have hilarious names, they aren't relevant to the case being discussed, and even then having a hilarious name does not make a doctrine illogical.

twodot fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Mar 2, 2014

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 06:00

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Kalman posted:

Decision is a pretty awesome read, and also designed to make it difficult for an appellate court to overturn. He basically said that the states witnesses had no credibility, which is a core function for trial judges and harder to overturn on appeal.

Whether or not the arguments presented meet rational basis isn't a matter of fact, so I don't see the difficulty you're talking about here. Even if that were the case, the appellate courts don't need to use the arguments presented to find a rational basis. (Regardless we should just let gay people get married)

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 05:27

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Kalman posted:

The arguments were presented by witnesses as factual evidence, not as legal argument from lawyers, so credibility is part of the evaluation. Because the arguments presented were based in factual evidence evaluated as untrustworthy, the appellate courts can't just say "we think the evidence is trustworthy actually", they have to say that the trial judge was wrong to some degree above and beyond simply they disagree with him (exact standard, as noted by Green Crayons, being circuit dependent, and I don't do anything outside of the Fed Circ so I have no idea what the 6th requires.)

I don't think this addresses what I said at all. I don't think the judge said their facts were wrong, just that their facts weren't a rational justification of the ban, and even if that were the case, appellate courts don't need to consider the arguments presented in lower courts when deciding rational basis, so even if the arguments you are talking about here are completely dead, higher courts can still ask other people to present similar arguments.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 07:10

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

There's several things going on here in several posts, so instead of dissecting a bunch of posts, I'm going to breakdown the relevant issues as I see them.

1. Did Friedman ever assert the state witnesses were wrong?
I'm still going to go with no on this one. He clearly thinks they are not credible, and that their arguments don't work to establish what they are trying to claim. This doesn't make their claims factually false, it just means that Friedman is going to ignore their claims (edit: and this distinction is relevant due to rational basis standard discussed in question 2):

quote:

The most that can be said of these witnesses� testimony is that the �no differences� consensus has not been proven with scientific certainty, not that there is any credible evidence showing that children raised by
same-sex couples fare worse than those raised by heterosexual couples.

2. Even if we decide that Friedman's determinations of credibility are set in stone, and 100% of the data presented by the state can't be used in appeal, does that present a significant obstacle on appeal?
I'm saying no, and I don't think there's been good argument otherwise. For rational basis, the state doesn't even need to present evidence, it just needs to argue there exists conceivable rational reasons, and the plaintiff has to shoot them down. You might argue that the plaintiff did in fact already shoot them down, so the government's appeal will fail, but that is certainly not a fact that Friedman determined (the real obstacle to appeal is that they didn't have a case to begin with, not that they lost some key evidence).

quote:

�The government [also] has no obligation to produce evidence to support the rationality of its . . . [imposed] classifications and may rely entirely on rational speculation unsupported by any evidence or empirical data.� Hadix v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 840, 843 (6th Cir. 2000). Rather, it is incumbent upon plaintiffs to refute �any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.�

3. What are the sorts of arguments that might be presented (and accepted) on appeal?
I used some terminology poorly here. Clearly a wholly new argument like "commerce clause!" would be ignored. What I meant is that on appeal, you can argue that Friedman failed to consider an unstated rational reason, if that's true, this sort of argument might just get you remanded back to district court, but I think that would work fine for the government. However, I was not able to find good precedent on this matter, though FCC v Beach Communications sort of fits if you squint hard enough. I would appreciate if someone has more information here. Intuitively, expecting the government to exhaustively list every possible rational reason for a law doesn't seem like a good idea to me. It would be a strange handicap for what is supposed to be a deferential standard of review, and the only thing it would seem to accomplish is to encourage the government to list spurious reasons, though given that they unironically listed morality as a rational reason, that seems to be already happening.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 21:00

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Crain posted:

What "what?"?

He's right in that part. But he's still a oval office.

I don't like Scalia either, but if we're reduced to saying he's a bad person who says objectively correct things, then the Scalia-dislikers are in bad shape. Also don't call people cunts.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 20:02

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

SedanChair posted:

The religious right appears to have a different definition of sincerity than the rest of us, namely "can you deliver this as a talking point without smirking?" If you can do that, you get to act appalled at anybody who doesn't take your position seriously.

Whether someone sincerely holds a positions, and whether I would take their position seriously are entirely unrelated things. There's been several examples of people who sincerely believe obviously false/stupid things.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 19:09

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Not My Leg posted:

the religious practice directly burdens people not of the religion in question

I'm not sure if this was your intention, but I want to note here that Hobby Lobby not providing coverage for certain contraceptives doesn't burden any third parties as far as the law is concerned. The government would be entirely ok if Hobby Lobby didn't provide for those contraceptives while paying the fine/tax, the substantial burden here isn't just "You want us to cover things we don't want to cover", but "You want us to cover things we don't want to cover, and if we don't, you will fine/tax us out of existence".

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 19:09

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Devor posted:

In this case, fine/tax us out of existence actually meaning:

A $2000 tax for each of their 21,000 employees, representing $42M out of their annual revenue of $2.28B, or 1.8% of revenues. Not insignificant, but probably not putting them out of business.

Numbers sourced from wikipedia on their employees/revenue.

There are two fines at work here. That is if they drop coverage completely, but Hobby Lobby wants to continue to offer coverage, just not cover specific things, in that scenario there is a $100 per employee per day fine ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/4980D ). Hobby Lobby told the Tenth Circuit it would cost them ~475 million annually (this was when they had 13,000 employees).
edit:

Mo_Steel posted:

2. In a more perfect world a single-payer system requiring employers to pay a tax into a government health system that provides these contraceptives would have a stronger case on the side of the government (because the uniformity of the tax system as a government interest is enough to override the burden on religious beliefs in the same way religious companies can't object to paying taxes because gays are in the military or pacifists can't object to taxes because they go towards creating weapons).

I think this is worth unpacking a little bit more. One of Hobby Lobby's arguments is that providing contraceptive coverage can't be a compelling government interest, because the government gives numerous exemptions (religious organizations, grandfathered plans, and businesses with <50 peoples). A single payer system would avoid this argument as well.

twodot fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Mar 27, 2014

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 20:27

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

FAUXTON posted:

Wasn't that Perry case opinion regarding gay rights and religious supersitions dictating harm for allowing gay people to marry something along these lines, like the religious ones not being able to prove scientific basis for their hoodoo?

At the district level, sort of. Judge Walker ruled the ban has no rational basis (or alternatively that religious belief doesn't provide a rational basis for legislation, which is well established). However, the requirement that legislation or state constitutions be rational (not based on religious reasoning), is distinct from deciding whether or not a particular religious belief is supported by evidence (edit: Nothing Walker said implies that religious beliefs like "Gay sex is a sin" are factually incorrect). After that, the courts were just saying that the plaintiffs didn't have standing to appeal the district court.

twodot fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Mar 29, 2014

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 06:17

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

FAUXTON posted:

So what you're saying is that despite the finding that religion is no rational basis for legislation, you're maintaining that it's OK to use religion as a basis to carve out exclusions in law for private companies because they really believe something strongly?

For as long as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act exists, yes we should continue to apply its restrictions to laws which fail to exempt themselves. Policy-wise, I think both the ACA and RFRA are pretty lovely laws that are putting our courts in no-win situations. I would certainly prefer a single payer set up that avoids all of these issues.

McAlister posted:

They have no reasonable grounds to say their religion prevents the third party PBM from including the employees purchase at the third party pharmacy in the roll up report to the third party pharmaceutical company and then frontloading the negotiated rebate to the patient as effectively a discount.

Are you asserting you are familiar with the Green's religious beliefs enough to know this is definitely not prohibited by their religion, or something else?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 06:32

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

McAlister posted:

I am asserting that it doesn't matter what their religious beliefs are as they are trying to constrain the actions of other people who do not share their beliefs in a manner that is financially harmful to those other people.

This is a wrong description of the reality of the US. Are you trying to argue for a policy change now? (Earlier you definitely made some sort of assertion about the Green's religious beliefs, but you've appeared to have dropped that).

duz posted:

Since they aren't stopping their employees from using their paychecks to buy contraceptives, I think it's a safe guess that the Green's only care what they do and not what others do.

This is broken reasoning, there are many reasons why Hobby Lobby wouldn't attempt to stop their employees from using their paychecks to buy contraceptives, the best reason I can think of is that they know they couldn't possibly succeed.

twodot fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Mar 29, 2014

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 21:07

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

McAlister posted:

But that is an argument you can only reasonably have over the plan pay. Rebate theft needs to stop. Period.

You wrote a lot of words, but you didn't answer my question. This quote appears to be a policy argument "Rebate theft is bad, we should stop rebate theft because we should stop bad things." absolutely works as a policy argument. This quote is different though:

quote:

In the way hobby lobby is contesting the ACA they are trying to restore both methods of screwing with their employees private lives. However, they only have grounds to argue for one

This looks like a legal argument "Hobby Lobby is arguing the government can't do this, but they are wrong". It's a legal argument that might work, but isn't substantiated, specifically I'd want to know which test of the RFRA denying rebates fails.

quote:

I get that freedom of religion only prohibits government attempts to force religion on someone, not rich jerks. But making an exception to a generally applicable law to aid and abet rich jerks in forcing their religion on subordinates is a violation of the employees religious freedom since selectively not enforcing the generally applicable law that protected is a government action.

This is just a non sequitur. It's fine to argue that the government should be allowed to force Hobby Lobby to cover contraceptives, but failing to cover contraceptives doesn't force religion on anyone.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 21:07

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

falcon2424 posted:

Normally, I'd expect anyone who tried this to get sued for a breach of fiduciary duty; they'd be overtly abusing their position as a corporate officer to advance a personal agenda at the expense of shareholders. But, depending on the outcomes of some of these cases, it's not clear that rabid republicanism (or whatever) would be a personal agenda.

What is an example of such a case?

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 19:19

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

KernelSlanders posted:

Is it ad hominem to point out that all three of the non-Christians on the court dissented from an opinion that said non-Christians shouldn't feel coerced into participating in or would be unreasonable to be feel disparaged by the overtly Christian prayers?

It's certainly not ad hominem to point it out, it would be to argue that we should dismiss their opinions because they are non-Christians (or to dismiss the opinions of the majority because they are Christian).
edit:
This isn't to say, that the Christians couldn't have broken reasoning that is informed by their experience as Christians, but the argument would fail because of the broken reasoning, not because of the cause of the broken reasoning.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 23:04

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Paul MaudDib posted:

These two ideas are fundamentally at odds. Computer programs are pure mathematics, a formula to be evaluated, nothing more. This is a thing that computational theory tells us. Furthermore we can enumerate every possible computer program that could ever be written (countably infinite), so if anything they are even less inventive than the set of all possible mathematical formulas, where there are uncountably many possible formulas.

This is just wrong. Any plausible mathematical system contains a finite set of axioms which will produce a countable number of results from those axioms. I think you are barking up the wrong tree with regard to what sort of infinity applies to what sort of domain.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 09:33

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Chuu posted:

Just wanted to point out this statement is hilariously wrong. One of the most basic sets of axioms are the Peano Axioms which formalize arithmetic. One of the most important results from these axioms is the generation of the Natural Numbers by repeated application of the successor axiom. By definition, the set of Natural Numbers is uncountable.

The natural numbers is definitely countable, are you using non-standard definitions of these terms? (edit: literally the first sentence on Wikipedia: "In mathematics, the natural numbers are those used for counting")

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 07:49

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Chuu posted:

From the wikipedia definition of a Countable Set: In mathematics, a countable set is a set with the same cardinality (number of elements) as some subset of the set of natural numbers.

When I said by definition, I meant it.

Just go ahead and stop embarrassing yourself, the word subset includes sets that are equal to, "proper subset" describes sets that are actually smaller.
edit:
Holy poo poo, from the same Wikipedia link you gave:
Some authors use countable set to mean a set with the same cardinality as the set of natural numbers.

twodot fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jun 26, 2014

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 08:03

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Hawkline posted:

Is the fact that this is unrefuted on Coakley? Did whoever argue MA's side demonstrate how unfriendly these zones are, and they're not exactly bastions of civil persuations?

This is just a matter of finding the right client. While those protests are very unfriendly, if the law is restricting one friendly person out of hundreds of unfriendly person, you take that person to trial with you.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 23:47

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Green Crayons posted:

In accordance with that schedule, CJ Roberts announced on Thursday that the final opinions for this term will be issued on Monday (June 30). That means Hobby Lobby.

I'm guessing you are aware of this, but on a technical point, even then they don't have to rule on Hobby Lobby, there's always improvidently granted.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2014 03:22

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

amanasleep posted:

I think I mis-spoke, but the point is that Hobby Lobby wants to get a de facto government subsidy for not complying with the law, and the reason they want this is because they do not get to control how their employees use part of their compensation package. And they claim that is justified because the Health Insurance they provide is not "compensation" but a free benefit that Hobby Lobby owns.

This is a garbage interpretation. Hobby Lobby thinks the law is invalid, and doesn't want to follow an invalid law. It turns out the Supreme Court agreed with them about that, and so now they don't have to follow the invalid law. They don't want to control how their employees use part of their compensation package, they want to control what their compensation package is (and they want that package to exclude certain contraceptives). Also their health insurance is plainly compensation, where did you even get that from?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 20:11

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

VitalSigns posted:

It's perfectly valid for the federal government to determine what health insurance qualifies as legal compensation and what doesn't.

Sure.

quote:

Hobby Lobby can't offer an insurance package called "walk it off" and get tax breaks or avoid the ACA penalty, because that doesn't meet the standards HHS defined.

They can, in fact, do this when the standards HHS defines are violating other laws. Hobby Lobby wasn't seeking to break the law, they were seeking to invalidate the law, these are different things.

quote:

We don't let companies control their employees by paying in scrip instead of money. Why should we let them control their employees by paying in substandard insurance instead of money?

(edit: I read this backwards, there are substantial changes) Because a company deciding to include X and not Y in their health insurance is in no way controlling their employees? It's totally fine to say the government can dictate standards about how health insurance policies from employers should look, just like they can dictate minimum wage and such. But conflating control with compensation is just stupid.

twodot fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jul 1, 2014

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 20:56

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Doctor Butts posted:

Basically the court ruled that the contraceptive mandate, as a whole, is not the least restrictive means for the government to achieve its goal (which is a valid point).
[snip]
But the ruling is poo poo because it takes no care to enact any sort of test to justify why, in this instance, it only applies to closely held companies. It also doesn't justify why, in this instance, it only applies to contraception.

While I agree it would be nice to have had a test regarding closely held companies, I don't think it was really necessary, given that sincerity was not in dispute. The answer to your other complaint is in your own post. Contraceptives are obviously special, because the government went out of its way to make them special. I don't see why we need a second test to test least restrictive means.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 19:50

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

VitalSigns posted:

I am skeptical that the decision turned on Obama's accomodation with religious groups. Do you really think the court would have ruled the other way if he hadn't made an exemption in the first place? Because it sure looks to me like a convenient justification and that, given the majority's vagueness and lack of reasoning, they would have just shifted the ruling onto some other bullshit grounds.

I mean, I agree that Obama should have never conceded that one person's religious views should dominate another persons healthcare or given these bible thumpers even the time of day when they whined about how it's no fun that they can't persecute sex-having women anymore, but it's hardly fair to blame him for a ruling that the assholes on the court were going to make anyway.

This ruling is clearly predicated on the special treatment. Since we are talking about whether this ruling needed a test for why contraceptives are special, the answer to that question is "No, the government made it obvious contraceptives are special". Whether the majority would have found another way to the same opinion is just speculative fan fiction.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 20:40

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Green Crayons posted:

The appeals process.

Not being glib. That's what there is.

Federal judges can be impeached. There's also a procedure for complaining about a judge's conduct, but you are specifically not allowed to complain about rulings using that.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 23:00

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:54

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Radish posted:

How bad would a Supreme Court decision need to be for it to be ignored reverse Andrew Jackson style or result in some some of their removal?

Result in their removal would have to be pretty extreme. There has only been one impeachment of a justice (failed to convict), that was Samuel Chase.

William O Douglas had a major stroke, after which he stayed on the court for almost a full year while the other justices were actively colluding to postpone any decision where his vote would make a difference. He eventually retired, but attempted to still work on cases (this is possible in lower courts). People tried to impeach him twice, and both of those were before the stroke.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 20:40

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