Given the Nature and Tone of Recent Events What is Your Off-the-Cuff Opinion of This Retired Supreme Court Justice, Now 97 Years Old?
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John Paul Stevens (ne 1920) |
Please bear in mind that Justice Stevens, a native of Chicago, Illinois, a World War Two naval veteran, and highly distinguished legal scholar who graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University Law School with the highest grade point average in the university's history was appointed to the Seventh Curcuit Court of Appeals by Richard Nixon, and later to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford.
In a 2005 speech, Justice Stevens stressed the importance of "learning on the job." For example, during his tenure on the Supreme Court, Stevens changed his views on Affirmative Action (initially opposed), as well as on other issues. President Ford praised Stevens in 2005: "He is serving his nation well, with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."
When He Was Appointed to the Supreme Court, Stevens Was a Registered Republican.
Asked as a sitting Justice in September 2007 if he still considered himself a Republican, Stevens replied:
"That's the kind of issue I shouldn't comment on, either in private or in public."
Abner Mikva, close friend of Stevens, said that as a judge, Stevens refused to discuss politics. "“He was more particular about it than a lot of them.”
Honoria J. Lancaster said
ReplyDeleteMon Dieu! He looks so much like Maurice Chevalier when he made Gigi and then Fanny in that picture.
Not the opinion you sought, I'm sure Mr. FreeThinke, but I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity.
As for Judge Stevens' judgment on recent events, I can only assume that at 97 the retired justice must be suffering from senile dementia.
As for Judge Stevens' judgment on recent events, I can only assume that at 97 the retired justice must be suffering from senile dementia.
DeleteDitto!
Honoria, You're absolutely right. Very astute! I've published a picture of Chevalier to prove your point. The resemblance is amazing.
DeleteJacob Quackenbusch, der Alte, said
ReplyDelete"That judges of important causes should hold office for life is not a good thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body."
~ Aristotle (382- 322 B. C.)
At least he's proposing a constitutional path to taking one of our rights away.
ReplyDeleteAll right, but I can't see ANY reason whatsoever for giving the old man CREDIT for ANYTHING at this point. He, –– like Earl Warren, Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts, –– turned traitor to any pretense at being CONSERVATIVE. They mught as well have been appointed by the DNC or CPUSA.
DeleteRepublicans have a positive GENIUS for shooting theselves in both feet.
YOU know i,t and I know it.
There is NO EXCUSE for the TREACHERY of their TEPID approach to governance.
Your vehement retort stands in stark contrast to the commodious tone of the main body your blog post.
DeleteWhat are you playing at? Are you sincerely fostering discussion or is this a ploy to lure unsuspecting interlocutors in so you can berate them and hurl stink bombs?
It wasn't a "retort," it was a comment on the lamentable mentality that, apparently, has motivated and governed the Republican Party leaders for decades.
DeleteWhy take things so personally? I wasn't criticizing YOU!
I try never to make whatever I post here about ANYONE in PARTICULAR, except the public figures whose conduct either delights, dismays, embarrasses or infuriates my sensibilities.
Luigi Tortellini Puttanesca said
DeleteYEAH! There's too damn much of acombative attitude on the net. Everybody thinks they gotta be in some kind of a fight all the time. What's with that?
Personally, I think it stinks.
A nice old man says something stupid, and we gotta go to war over it?
Nuts to that.
Has this former SCOTUS justice forgotten how difficult it is to repeal an amendment -- or to add an amendment, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia:
The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 16, 1919. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933[1]. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment and to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.
The very idea of repealing one of the first ten amendments -- the Bill of Rights, which makes America unique among nations -- makes my skin crawl. First, burn the 2nd Amendment, then burn the 1st Amendment. THE SLIPPERY SLOPE!
Egg-ZACK-Lee!!!
DeleteSlippery Slop
DeleteA typo? Or were you making a lame attempt to be funny?
Delete...In this piece[in the NYT], Stevens got more facts wrong than right. He mistakenly assumed that a relatively small group of teenagers bought and paid for by far-left groups to attend a Washington D.C. rally speaks for a whole generation. They don't, unless all you watch is liberal news media.
ReplyDeleteHe bought into the ridiculous assumption that whatever motivates young people to join a cause is the right thing for America. A more specious theory could not be introduced into serious debate. Why doesn't Stevens also recommend that the Constitution be amended to allow 18-year-olds to run for Congress, or the presidency? Who came up with the stodgy rule of 35 years old? If the Second Amendment is irrelevant, surely that rule is too, if you're going to encourage teens to lead us politically.
These kids can barely deal with a person of the opposite sex whispering things about them, or dumping them, without falling into a deep depression. They can hardly figure out what they want to do in six months. And now they're the defenders of our liberty?...
[source]
Yes! Well, apparently the Old Man's sudden outburst has touched a nerve in many.
DeleteHere's a typical response to the Source you, yourself, cited:
"No one even slightly knowledgeable of the Constitution can take Stevens's lunatic useful idiocy seriously. It's not a little ironic that Ford nominated this deranged, lawless, fascist, bigoted old coot to replace another deranged, lawless, fascist, bigoted old coot, William O Douglas, and even more ironic that when in the House he once tried to have Douglas impeached before insanely coming to approve of Stevens! At least we can thank God that Ford didn't appoint another justice as vile, degenerate and corrupt as Stevens, whom the Founders certainly would have impeached/convicted. If we had a real Congress instead of the present farce (no danger of that), they'd do likewise. I wonder if we'll ever have a real President or Congress to make is clear to the arrogant, bigoted, delusional nonarchy so full of itself, called the SCOTUS, that they're merely ONE of three COEQUAL branches of our government, vastly, corruptly overstepping the Founders' modest bounds intended for it. God save us."
Over-heated rhetoric accompanied by vulgar name-calling seems, Alas! to have become the norm these days
Poor Stevens is in a bind. He wanted to retire but had to hold on until another Marxist was elected president after Obamas term.
ReplyDeleteBut Trump[ was elected and not the Marxist Hillary...Now he doesn't know when he should because no one can tell when Ginsburg is going to croak.
I so admire the way you put things so delicately.
DeleteIF you read my few remarks, you would have learned that Justice Stevens began hgis judicial career as REPUBLICAN and was appinted to the high courts by first by RICHARD NIXON, then by GERALD FORD.
Do you regard Nixon and Ford as Marxists too? ;-)
Stevens wants the Second Amendment to be repealed in response to the kids protesting…
ReplyDeleteYes,he does. That's the reason I put up this post. I'd like to know what you THINK abiut his opinion?
DeleteIs it a good idea? - a bad idea?- or don't you care either way?
As long as he’s NOT a Justice anymore, who cares?
DeleteApparently the ENEMEDIA cares very much which is why the subject arose. Jutice Stevens retired eight years ago at age NINETY.
DeleteI had assumed he was dead until the ENEMEDIA made a big deal of reporting this oddly revealing opinion.
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ReplyDeleteYou may have had a point, but I don't apprecate your making it in such crude, indecent language.
DeleteGratuitous boorishness of that sort weakens your argument and damages any credibility you might have had.
Well I say if senile old communist fools like Stevens and Ruth Bader Meinhoff Ginsberg are going to stand up and subject us all to their communist screeds then we have the right to argue back! This is still a democracy!
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DeleteFor the record...
ReplyDeleteI abhor any more restrictions on my Second Amendment rights.
And I'm not sure that any more laws passed would deter a psychopath such as Nicholas Cruz appears to have been. He apparently had a blood lust, and I really cannot relate to or understand those who have a blood lust.
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ReplyDeleteThat goose-stepping Prog March is always in lockstep!
DeleteIndeed it is, Maobama (Clever Name!). Tha't s why I do my best to keep their dangerously idiotic assertions from appearing at this blog.
DeleteI've long taken my cue from Alexander Pope's famous verse about vice
"... Yet seen too oft, –– familiar with her face ––,
At first we endure,–– then pity, –– then embrace."
It's a BAD idea....and I WISH the leftist children who've swallowed the Kool Aid so willingly through their years in school had been trained to want and understand all sides of issues. And the media doesn't help. For example, while they haven't even released whether it was the cop who killed the shooter in Maryland or not (just how difficult is that to prove considering ballistics?!!), there WAS a cop there who shot at the killer and only one child died. The headline was on Yahoo homepage for 30 seconds, then disappeared...I'm guessing when someone found out a gun SAVED kids from dying.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Stevens....marry him off to Ginsberg, send them on a one-way honeymoon, and get Mrs. Gorsuch in the Supreme Court :-)
Glad to see you here, Z. Thanks for visiting us. I hope you make it a habit.
DeleteI'd say this guy has been around a coupla weeks too long.
ReplyDeleteFYI, for what it's worth:
ReplyDeleteUOMO: "Yes. My brother. You have the president of the United States this morning tweeting that the Second Amendment will never be repealed. Who is calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment? Who is calling for it?"
SANTORUM: "Justice Stevens did."
CUOMO: "He did not. It was in a context of a conversation about the fastest route to legal change. Of course if you didn’t have a Second Amendment, you wouldn’t have Heller, it would be easier to change the laws. He’s not a politician. He’s not in office. He is not the head of any significant group."
Saying that this David Hogg kid "survived" the shooting is like saying I survived the second World War because I wasn't born then! That little big mouthed, arrogant clown was several buildings away when it happened. Or he was hiding somewhere in a closet when it happened. Or maybe at home when it happened and rode his bike to the school afterwards. That was his own words.
ReplyDeleteYet the Progressives still won't out him for the lying the little shit that he is!
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DeleteSo, I suppose you feel superior beating up on an eminent judicial scholar?
ReplyDeleteIs THAT what you really think this post is about?
DeleteIf so ,your mental acuity is sorely lacking in quality and content
Justice Stevens is a revered American Icon who should not be held up by his inferiors for ridicule.
DeleteRevered by who? Certainly not his "inferiors". So what does that make you, who reveres him? My "superior"? Get a grip, shorty.
DeleteSome fools try to hold.onto the stage far beyond their capabilities. Stevens is but one.
DeleteJ. D. Scheindlinsky said
DeleteHer Henous is defnitely another. Jimmy Carter, who pretended he was dying from cancer not long ago just to gain the spotlight once again is another, maybe the worst of all.
On those who would be ABOVE/ BEYOND criticism...
Delete...when you ABUSE the power you have been given, you DESERVE criticism.
DeleteStevens needs to stop using his privilege bridge...
ReplyDelete...and walk back through the tunnel of prejudice with the rest of us.
DeleteThe 2nd Amendment protects all the others.
ReplyDeleteanti-gun people are Morons.
ReplyDeleteStop me if you've heard this one before.
TODAY is GOOD FRIDAY the day which OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST SUFFERED and DIED to REEDEEM US from OUR OUR SINS:
ReplyDeleteWhen I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
~ Isaac Watts (1707)
The Democratic party now has a 17 year old as its party leader who also to grab your guns .
ReplyDeleteThe Spirit of '76 said
DeleteThe New People care nothing for Law, Order, Precedent, Tradition or proper Leagle Procedure. Once in power they will eliminate everything they don't like by edict.
The New People are born dictators. They can only be fought with bullets, bombs, knives, spears, rocks, stones, broken glass, fists, and fire.
Many thousands will have to be killed if freedom is ever to be restored.