My blatantly trolling question
Alec "Skitt" P.
If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the Court
orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the results
will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
What effect will that have on the public's perception of our highest
judicial entity, and how big a shadow will that cast over Bush's presidency,
given to him by a judicial body acting purely politically?
I am hoping that the Regan appointees of the Court have a smidgeon of
conscience and do the right thing.
I have always voted Republican, except this time.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Jitze Couperus
<sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I'm wondering ...
>
>If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
>further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the Court
>orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
>will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the results
>will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
>
>What effect will that have on the public's perception of our highest
>judicial entity, and how big a shadow will that cast over Bush's presidency,
>given to him by a judicial body acting purely politically?
>
>I am hoping that the Regan appointees of the Court have a smidgeon of
>conscience and do the right thing.
Oh Dear Me Skitt...
One thing one must learn about American Jurisprudence is that it
is all about winning - nothing to do with truth or justice or
democracy or other such pinko-liberal cant.
We grow up in school and it is drummed into our heads by coaches
that winning is everything. Bugger the underlying raison d'etre of
the process.
Repeat the message often and loud enough, and eventualy
you too can loose sight of basic fundamentals.
Democracy? With at least the intent of one man one vote?
Doing what is best "pro bono publico" or "salus populi" ?
What a quaint thought. I blame our legal system and the
lawyers that maintain it by becoming the politicians who legislate.
The last three times I was called for jury duty, I allowed
(when questioned as to suitability) that I might be biased
against one of the parties. This because I viscerally abhor
champerty - something that is illegal in most civilised countries,
but which endemic in the American judicial system and without
which it would grind to a halt.
In each of these three cases, neither the presiding judge
nor the lawyer questioning me even knew what the word
meant. Had to ask the clerk to look it up.
Obaue - go look up champerty in a dictionary of legal
terms. In lay terms - "getting a piece of the action".
Claimed as a necessary evil in order to bring justice
within reach of plaintifs who could not otherwise
afford it. (This implies of course that the poor in other
countries do not have access to lawyers)
Rant on...
Jitze
Alec "Skitt" P.
I, "Alec "Skitt" P." <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9115cd$2f10c$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
> I'm wondering ...
>
> If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
> further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the
Court
> orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
To support my assertion, I quote directly form Gore's brief to be presented
to the US Supreme Court on Monday:
=========
[...]
In the end, notwithstanding fears as to how "counting of [the] votes" may
"cast[] a cloud upon what [Governor Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of is
election," /Bush v. Gore/, No. 00-949 (A-504), Slip op. at 2 (Dec. 9,
2000)(Scalia, J., concurring), there can be little doubt that a count of the
still uncounted votes, as the Florida Supreme Court ordered in this case,
will eventually occur. The only question is whether these votes will be
counted before the Electoral College meets to select the next President, or
whether this Court will instead relegate them to be counted only by scholars
and researchers under Florida's sunshine laws, after the next President is
elected. Nothing in federal law, the United States Constitution, or the
opinions of this Court compel it to choose the second course over the first.
[...]
=========
Tootsie
Alec "Skitt" P. wrote in message
>I, "Alec "Skitt" P." <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> I'm wondering ...
>> If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans
any
>> further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the
>Court
>> orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida
votes
>> will eventually be counted ...
>
>To support my assertion, I quote directly form Gore's brief to be
presented
>to the US Supreme Court on Monday:
[snip]
No need to quote anyone -- I suspect that we all agree that the ballots
will eventually be counted. But let's not put too much credence in the
outcomes (plural -- the ballots will probably be counted more than
once).
First of all, the counting to come will involve ballots that have been
handled too much. Chads have been dislodged, and there is no way to tell
for sure from which holes they were dislodged. Or how.
Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have the
responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before handing
them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
Fourth, it is very possible that many voters did not intend to vote for
any presidential candidate. This must be taken into account.
Final thought: I think punch card votes will still be with us for the
next several elections. (New voting systems cost money, often more than
some communities can afford.) So what we need is a nationwide standard
on how machine rejects should be counted. I personally would favor a
system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
be deemed "votes" at all.
Tootsie
Brian J Goggin
<sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
>further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the Court
>orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
>will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the results
>will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
You might be interested in
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,409137,00.html
bjg
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Brian J Goggin" <b...@wordwrights.ie> wrote in message
news:81983t4rufak7s7am...@4ax.com...
Wow! Unbelievable!
Mike Oliver
> Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
> intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
> intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
Yes, it appears that the legislature made two *major* blunders
in writing the election code. The first was in not providing an
exact standard, not requiring human judgment, for what constitutes
a vote. "Clear intent of the voter" can never be such a standard.
The line between the "clear" and the "unclear" is always
itself unclear -- this is a logical necessity, because if the
line were clear, we could extend clarity further.
The second blunder was in permitting the courts to provide "any
relief appropriate" in a disputed election. What a judge considers
"appropriate" relief is unavoidably colored by what he considers
to be the preferable outcome of the election.
*However*. These blunders were made, and they were part of the
election code on Nov. 7. It seems a bit self-contradictory to
argue that there must be a clear standard to prevent people from
interpreting the standards according to their preferences, and
then propose one after the fact, when I already know whether such
a standard favors an outcome in accordance with my preferences.
P&D Schultz
> Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have the
> responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before handing
> them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
It's fun and easy to blow them off like that. And while it's fun and
easy, it's also pretty stupid.
They'll remember this sort of treatment and these insults, and they're
going to keep voting. And while they probably can't program their VCRs
or surf the net, they'll probably get the mechanics of voting right more
often than they get it wrong. Beware. There are lots of them.
\\P. Schultz
Robert Lieblich
>
> I, "Alec "Skitt" P." <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:9115cd$2f10c$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
> > I'm wondering ...
> >
> > If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
> > further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the
> Court
> > orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
> > will eventually be counted ...
>
> To support my assertion, I quote directly form Gore's brief to be presented
> to the US Supreme Court on Monday:
>
> =========
> [...]
> In the end, notwithstanding fears as to how "counting of [the] votes" may
> "cast[] a cloud upon what [Governor Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of is
> election," /Bush v. Gore/, No. 00-949 (A-504), Slip op. at 2 (Dec. 9,
> 2000)(Scalia, J., concurring), there can be little doubt that a count of the
> still uncounted votes, as the Florida Supreme Court ordered in this case,
> will eventually occur. The only question is whether these votes will be
> counted before the Electoral College meets to select the next President, or
> whether this Court will instead relegate them to be counted only by scholars
> and researchers under Florida's sunshine laws, after the next President is
> elected. Nothing in federal law, the United States Constitution, or the
> opinions of this Court compel it to choose the second course over the first.
I voted for Gore, and of course my views on this subject are
irretrievably colored by that fact. Nevertheless, I offer a couple of
observations.
1. As luck would have it, I wrote my third-year paper in law school on
the California case involving Proposition 14, a state constitutional
amendment passed by initiative that prohibited the enactment of any fair
housing legislation in the state. It had the effect, intended by its
sponsors, of overriding state fair housing law already in existence.
There was a big constitutional argument about whether Prop. 14 violated
the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The California Supreme
Court basically double-talked the issue and reached a result that was
good policy -- state constitutional amendment overridden by 14th
Amendment, ergo unconstitutional -- but lousy law. I wrote my paper
before the U.S. Supremes ruled, and I predicted that the one thing they
wouldn't dare do was sustain the Calif. court on the same reasoning,
because (1) there was no reasoning and (2) their job was to interpret
the U.S. Constutition.
I was about as smart then as I am now. The Big Supremes said that the
Calif. court was better attuned to local conditions and who were they to
disagree. They never addressed the merits of the state court's
reasoning. You could look it up: the case is Reitman v. Mulkey, it was
decided in late 1967 or early 1968, and it struck me as pure waffle. So
now the Big Supremes get the chance to do the same thing in a case where
it really is state law that the state court is dealing with, and the
state court has reached the right result even if its reasoning is, shall
we say, less than perfectly clear, and they're on the verge of blowing
it and blowing it badly.
2. A few people here and there have been trying to do statistical
extrapolations from known data. They all conclude that if things go on
as they have -- only as of now they can't -- Gore will have the higher
number when it's all over. I firmly believe that if everyone entitled
to vote who showed up to vote on Election Day in Florida had voted in
such a way that their vote was counted for the person they wanted to
vote for, then Gore would have won in a landslide. Which is why the
exit polls gave him the state. But even if all the double ballots and
Buchanan ballots and uncast ballots are ignored, Gore still probably
should win the count.
3. Yes, as others have said, the standard sucks. But with the Big
Supremes telling the Florida Supremes that they must adhere to state
law, how could the Florida Supremes change the standard? So they quoted
it verbatim -- "That's what the legislature said, so that's the law, now
go and follow it." Now the Bushies bitch about the absence of a
standard, as if the Court, not the legislature, had written that sucky
law. It it's not heads they win, then it's tails Gore loses.
4. The two real scandals in this matter, neither yet fully ripe, are
(1) what the U.S. Supreme Court is about to do, on a 5-4 vote, by
gratuitously intruding themselves into this, and (2) the various ways,
possibly not overtly but certainly with sloth and incompetence, that
black citizens were denied their chance to vote. I plan to live another
twenty years just to see what some dispassionate historian says about
the Supreme Court when writing a couple of decades from now. They may
yet prove to be to this whole mess what Nixon was to Watergate.
5. I don't like Gore, and I don't like Bush. In fact, I like almost no
one in this whole mess -- they've all become tainted. I suppose the
four U.S. justices in the minority get a pat on the back, and I also
applaud the three dissenters in Florida, who at least stood on
principle, something I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court majority will find a
way to do. I even think Katherine Harris got a bit of a bum rap. But
the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought of
him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be, is
enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
There are a lot of disgusted people here.
Tootsie
Alec "Skitt" P. wrote in message >"Brian J Goggin" <b...@wordwrights.ie>
wrote in message
>> <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans
any
>> >further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless
the
>Court
>> >orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida
votes
>> >will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the
>results
>> >will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
>>
>> You might be interested in
>>
>> http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,409137,00.html
>
>Wow! Unbelievable!
And possibly, deservedly so. I certainly would like to hear the other
side of the story. And see some proof either way.
If and when blunders (or worse, deliberate "blunders") result in a
situation as claimed[1] in the Observer story, a satisfactory remedy
would be almost impossible to implement *after the fact.* We need a way
to guarantee that such miscarriages of justice cannot happen in the
future -- and we need to be vigilant even if guarantees are put into
law.
No matter which side you are on, politics is a dirty business.
[1] I use the word "claimed" because the story in itself (which is all
we have right now) is not proof.
Tootsie
P&D Schultz
> <...> But
> the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. <...>
Then I'm not crazy.
Whenever I hear him pontificating on the radio (i.e., every day), I
think, "God! Is he serious? Maybe he's just saying this for
somebody-or-other's consumption. But, then again, EVERYBODY is hearing
it!
I thought this guy had some serious position in the past. How can he be
acting like this?! Is Bush going to insert this clown into some position
of actual responsibility?! Yikes!
Scary times.
\\P. Schultz
Alec "Skitt" P.
"P&D Schultz" <schu...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3A344BF1...@erols.com...
> Robert Lieblich wrote:
> > <...> But
> > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. <...>
>
> Then I'm not crazy.
>
> Whenever I hear him pontificating on the radio (i.e., every day), I
> think, "God! Is he serious? Maybe he's just saying this for
> somebody-or-other's consumption. But, then again, EVERYBODY is hearing
> it!
He is the reason I'm really hoping that Gore gets the job, not that I
particularly care for Gore.
> I thought this guy had some serious position in the past. How can he be
> acting like this?! Is Bush going to insert this clown into some position
> of actual responsibility?! Yikes!
You betcha!
> Scary times.
Ain't it the truth!
R Fontana
>
> "P&D Schultz" <schu...@erols.com> wrote in message
> news:3A344BF1...@erols.com...
> > Robert Lieblich wrote:
> > > <...> But
> > > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. <...>
> >
> > Then I'm not crazy.
> >
> > Whenever I hear him pontificating on the radio (i.e., every day), I
> > think, "God! Is he serious? Maybe he's just saying this for
> > somebody-or-other's consumption. But, then again, EVERYBODY is hearing
> > it!
>
> He is the reason I'm really hoping that Gore gets the job, not that I
> particularly care for Gore.
>
>
> > I thought this guy had some serious position in the past. How can he be
> > acting like this?! Is Bush going to insert this clown into some position
> > of actual responsibility?! Yikes!
>
> You betcha!
>
>
> > Scary times.
>
> Ain't it the truth!
This is bullying.
--
Richard
R Fontana
This is bullying.
--
Richard
R Fontana
> But
> the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought of
> him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be, is
> enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
> Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
This is bullying too. Nothing Baker ever said is any worse than calling a
human being a reptile, and I'm not aware of any legitimate reasons for
considering him a war criminal or anything like that. That is, he's no
Henry Kissinger. As I recall one of our British correspondents called him
a reptile too, though, so perhaps this is a popular conception.
> There are a lot of disgusted people here.
I guess so. I would like nothing more than to go back to sort of
supporting the Democratic Party as I did in my yout' (except they were too
right-wing for me) but every time I move in that direction I suddenly
experience the sort of casual bullying that those who (for whatever
reasons, sentiment, intelligent policy, misguided policy, fashion, or peer
pressure) favor the Democratic Party engage in towards the supporters
of the other party as a matter of course. Maybe conditions will change in
four years, and I can vote to re-elect Gore, or, preferably (since this
way Gore would not be an incumbent and his political career might be
over), vote against re-election of Bush and for one of the more
intelligent figures in the Democratic Party, of which there are several.
As the recently discussed Elvis Costello said, Do you have to be so cruel
to be callous?
I hate politics.
--
Richard
R Fontana
True. There are also lots of people who dislike being called fascists,
racists, Nazis, rednecks, powerful, etc., when they're not, and people who
dislike being attacked for having less education or sophistication than
more prosperous people; and those people vote too.
--
Richard
R Fontana
> Final thought: I think punch card votes will still be with us for the
> next several elections. (New voting systems cost money, often more than
> some communities can afford.) So what we need is a nationwide standard
> on how machine rejects should be counted. I personally would favor a
> system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
> be deemed "votes" at all.
I would favor giving these backward states like Florida the money to get
more modern, or at least more reliable (in terms of the ease of
determining what's a vote and for whom) voting equipment.
I don't think it would cost too much money. Perhaps it could be shaved
from some of the various porkbarrel projects that help to distort the
Florida economy.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>I hate politics.
I hate pronunciation threads. Now, where are we?
Charles Riggs
Erich
Tootsie wrote:
I am in complete agreement with all your points One through Four, but I
disagree with your Final Thought.
IMHO, I think there will never be another punch card used again in a Florida
election, nor in any other US state. The legislators will (what else?) pass
yet another law (with or without backing it up with the necessary funding)
and a more reliable method will be used the next time.
But I could be wrong. I am also of the belief that four years from now, this
will all be a distant and faded memory in the minds of most Americans.
Without popular support, probably nothing will be done.
E
Alan Jones
Florida election, but I feel impelled to disagree with Tootsie when she
writes: ' . . . if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
In a UK election, there are always "spoiled" ballots, though spoiled in a
different way since we stick to a pencil system where we write X in the large
box against our chosen candidate's name. The counting is entirely manual,
carried out locally in the 650+ constituencies and observed by
representatives of the candidates. Any "spoiled" paper is brought to the
attention of the supervising officer (a non-political appointment) who will
reject it at once if there is any evidence of the voter's identity, such as a
signature. Otherwise, if the voter's intention is clear even though the
instructions haven't been exactly followed (tick instead of cross, name
ringed or underlined . . . ) the vote will be allowed. I've never heard of a
party dispute over counting, though I suppose there must have been some. A
narrow majority will trigger a re-count, and a candidate can request a
re-count; sometimes the point at issue may be whether a candidate with a low
vote must forfeit his/her deposit. The voting stops at 10pm (or is it 11
now?), the sealed boxes are taken a few miles to the central count, and a
local result may be announced as early as midnight. Even in re-counted
constituencies, there will be a result by noon of the next day - the only
exception might be in scattered island constituencies in Scotland. As members
of the group will know, the former Prime Minister's belongings will be taken
away by removal vans that morning as the new Prime Minister goes to the
Palace to be greeted by the Queen.
A result can be challenged in the courts, and a challenge may lead to a
re-run of the local election. If this means a change in parliamentary
majority, the Prime Minister must seek the Queen's permission to have a fresh
General Election. Permission may be denied at this first request, and the PM
must then try to organise a temporary coalition: there are enough MPs outside
the Labour and Conservative parties to make this, in theory, possible. Only
if this doesn't work will a fresh election be called, though one will almost
certainly follow in six months' time in the hope of some party securing a
usable majority.
What baffles many of us here in UK? Among much else -
...That in a national election there is not a national system of voting
...That voting papers are so complicated, with so many choices to be made on
the same sheet or booklet
...That political parties are involved in appointing judges and election
officials
...That terms of office are fixed
...That a dispute cannot be resolved by a fresh election
ObAUE: what does the word "democracy" mean?
Alan Jones
Frances Kemmish
It is?
Wouldn't he have to be reading it, or at least have somebody tell
him about it, so it can affect his behaviour, before it can be
characterised as bullying? Otherwise, it's merely insulting.
Fran
P&D Schultz
>
> This is bullying.
And that is blaming the victim.
Or did you mean to say, "This is bully"?
\\P. Schultz
Richard Crowley
> ...That voting papers are so complicated, with so
> many choices to be made on the same sheet or booklet
Indeed, and in states like Oregon here, we have two or three dozen
"measures" to vote for as well. A growing dissatisfaction with
representative government and a trend towards direct democracy.
> ...That political parties are involved in
> appointing judges and election officials
How do you avoid it? Is there such a thing as a "political eunuch"?
> ...That terms of office are fixed
And it seem equally quaint (at least to me) that that an election can be
called "at the drop of a hat". What kind of consistency does that generate?
OTOH, it does solve the handling of an "asynchronous sea-change"(*)
> ...That a dispute cannot be resolved by a fresh election
I agree. How is that different from a run-off?
> ObAUE: what does the word "democracy" mean?
In the era of home computers and the internet, it may well change. Some
think it has already.
(*) ObAUE: Why do I see a sudden surge in the use of "sea-change"? I *think*
I know what it means, but I don't recall ever seeing it even two years ago.
RC in OR, USA
Mark Barratt
> I'm wondering ...
>
> If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and
bans any
> further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable,
unless the Court
> orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the
Florida votes
> will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and
the results
> will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
What puzzles me is this: I have read here, and in other places,
that Florida appears to be a democrat state - i.e. there are more
democrat-inclined than republican-inclined voters. If this is so,
why do they have a republican governor?
Regards
Mark Barratt
John O'Flaherty
He'd have to read it to be insulted, no?
john
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have
> the responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before
> handing them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
Expecting a large number of untrained people to perfectly operate a
piece of equipment they see at most once every couple of years, with
relatively complicated instructions not presented until they begin
operation, the explanation of what one has to do to ensure that the
ballot will be read correctly just one of many steps, and a prominent
notice (larger than any other sign and in red) facing them telling
them that "by law" they have a maximum of five minutes to familiarize
themselves with the equipment and correctly operate it ... is
ludicrous. That the error rate was so small is pretty amazing. It's
bad enough to expect them to remember to whisk away any hanging chad,
but the incomplete punches can only be seen after the ballot card
(which, as I understand it, does not have any names on it) has been
removed from the machine, so you'd have to go back through the ballot
and ensure that you actually have all the holes you intended by
matching numbers. Remember that most people have confidence in the
equipment and expect that if they press the stylus in the correct hole
then they have cast a vote. This works most of the time, but not
always (and, in this case, not enough).
As an engineer, though, what really bothers me about this is that the
machines in question seem to have the inherent flaw that incomplete
punches become more common for whichever candidate gets the greatest
number of votes in that particular machine, so it's actually *easier*
in a big election, to vote for the locally less-preferred candidate
than the more-preferred one. Luckily, elections are rarely close
enough that this inherent (biased) error rate actually matters.
Unfortunately, this one was.
Of course, any election in which the margin of victory is closer than
the inherent error rate of the vote casting or counting equipment
should be declared a tie. Trying to determine a winner is
statistically meaningless.
> Final thought: I think punch card votes will still be with us for
> the next several elections. (New voting systems cost money, often
> more than some communities can afford.) So what we need is a
> nationwide standard on how machine rejects should be counted. I
> personally would favor a system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging,
> and pregnant chads would not be deemed "votes" at all.
Now that the problem is known, I don't think that dimpled ones should
be a problem. All you should have to do is instruct the people
working the polling places to empty the chad out of the machines every
half hour or so. The hanging/swinging ones are more of a problem,
because whether a vote is seen or not will depend on *which* edge
remains. (Leading-edge hinges will fold down and cause the hole to
not be seen; trailing-edge hinges will fold back and show the hole.)
Probably the best thing to do is to put in a prominent notice for
people to check the backs of their ballots and perhaps to provide them
with a whisk to remove anything hanging. Alternatively, the people
tearing off the receipts could be empowered to check and whisk, but
some people might be uneasy with their neighbors looking at their
ballots.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Posted the 2393rd of September, 1993.
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U | Tom Breton
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Evan Kirshenbaum
> 4. The two real scandals in this matter, neither yet fully ripe,
> are (1) what the U.S. Supreme Court is about to do, on a 5-4 vote,
> by gratuitously intruding themselves into this
The thing (among many) that most baffles me about this latest Supreme
Court move is that I thought it was pretty much a judicial rule that
you don't hand down an injunction pending a hearing if (1) not doing
so won't help the one seeking it, should he prevail, and (2) doing so
will hurt the other party, should he prevail. If Bush wins the
appeal, the results of the hand count would become moot. If Gore
wins, they would be crucial, but there won't be time to complete them
given the injunction.
Has the Supreme Court ever done such a thing before?
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The misinformation that passes for
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |gospel wisdom about English usage
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |is sometimes astounding.
| Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | of English Usage
(650)857-7572
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Mark Barratt" <mark.b...@philips.com> wrote in message
news:3a34ebd7$0$20283$73be...@news.be.uu.net...
Because he was more electable than his opponent, who was part of the Lawton
Chiles government. I lived in Florida during that election, and I voted for
*that* Bush. He's the smarter one.
R. Fontana
> Robert Lieblich <Robert....@verizon.net> writes:
>
> > 4. The two real scandals in this matter, neither yet fully ripe,
> > are (1) what the U.S. Supreme Court is about to do, on a 5-4 vote,
> > by gratuitously intruding themselves into this
>
> The thing (among many) that most baffles me about this latest Supreme
> Court move is that I thought it was pretty much a judicial rule that
> you don't hand down an injunction pending a hearing if (1) not doing
> so won't help the one seeking it, should he prevail, and (2) doing so
> will hurt the other party, should he prevail.
No, I could be mistaken but I don't think that's a judicial rule at all;
it sounds close to the opposite of what the basic standard for injunctive
relief is.
Frances Kemmish
No; I think you can be insulted and never know anything about it.
Fran
R. Fontana
> What puzzles me is this: I have read here, and in other places,
> that Florida appears to be a democrat state - i.e. there are more
> democrat-inclined than republican-inclined voters. If this is so,
> why do they have a republican governor?
I certainly don't think Florida is regarded as "pro-Democrat" state the
way, say, New York or Massachusetts (both of which have Republican
governors) are. If Florida was such a state this election would have been
over a long time ago.
There are very few states, I think, that are so heavily inclined towards
one of the two major parties that it would be unusual for a gubernatorial
candidate of the other party to ever win. Some of Gore's safest states
were northeastern states that have Republican governors. One mistake Bush
made was in assuming early on that Florida was in his pocket because his
brother was governor and was fairly popular. Florida in fact came to be
hotly contested not just because it had a lot of electoral votes but
because it was one of the politically centrist states whose voters were
not obviously inclined to heavily favor one candidate over the other.
I'm not sure what the history of Florida in recent presidential elections
has been, and I am too lazy to look it up. Someone more familiar with
Florida may say I'm off base here, but my general sense is that Florida
has for a long time been a weird mixture of old rural South,
ex-Northeastern and ex-Midwestern retirees, and military people, and then
I guess you more recently have continuing waves of Latin American
immigration. Some of these constituencies are traditionally inclined to
favor Republicans -- for example, military people and perhaps some of the
ex-midwesterners, who might tend to vote for moderate Republicans, and old
South-type white voters, who might have voted for the reactionary wing of
the Democrats in the past and might support the more right-wing elements
of the Republican party now. Hispanic voters might be inclined to vote for
Democrats, but the distinctive loud Cuban emigre community of Miami is
rather pro-Republican. And the middle-class retirees who are so closely
associated with Florida probably have had some tendency to favor the
Democrats, who are more firmly committed to maintaining the status quo on
middle-class entitlement programs (which basically
favor only the elderly). I think that Florida has voted Republican in
quite a few presidential elections in recent decades; someone less lazy
than I am could easily look this up. I don't know to what extent the
local government has tended to be controlled by one party or the other.
Often local elections and the entire attitude with which parties are
viewed locally is based thoroughly on local issues and has little
relevance to national political issues.
I think also that at least in the past decade there has been a wave of
migration of younger (non-retired) voters to Florida's suburbs, and that
these voters have tended to be less ideologically wedded to one part or
the other. I think possibly the Bush people forgot about these people,
while the Gore people realized that here were some centrist
independent voters who could be pulled into the Gore camp. One general
trend in the US, which has been developing for several decades now, is
that both parties are losing the strong allegiance of voters;
increasingly voters are "independent", tend to be
ideologically centrist, and have no particular tendency to favor one party
over the other.
If there's any pattern I see in the more populous states, it's that there
tends to be alternation between one party and the other at the
gubernatorial level, every several years, much as there is at the
national level in the White House. Jeb Bush's predecessor was a
Democrat, Lawton Chiles; George W
Bush's predecessor was the Democrat Ann Richards.
Rowan Dingle
[...]
>No matter which side you are on, politics is a dirty business.
>
>[1] I use the word "claimed" because the story in itself (which is all
>we have right now) is not proof.
Here's a complete paragraph from that story.
====
Add it up. The dead-wrong Texas list, the uncorrected 'corrected' list,
plus the out-of-state ex-con list. By golly, it's enough to swing a
presidential election. I bet the busy Harris, simultaneously in charge
of both Florida's voter rolls and George Bush's presidential campaign,
never thought of that.
====
Was Katherine Harris really in charge of George Bush's presidential
campaign in Florida?
(If she was, don't bother reading the rest of this post.)
Parts of this article, some of them important, are probably true but it
should be remembered that this style of journalism - "Gonziad" perhaps,
from "gonzo" and "Grauniad" - is primarily concerned with promoting the
writer's adolescent fantasies about himself as Wacky Crusading Outsider.
The language is mid-Atlantic, the pace falsely frenetic, the focus
always on the writer himself. (And this article is a mild example of the
genre: for something more typical, buy any issue of The Observer or The
Guardian.)
A bet: 3-1 the writer wears sunglasses indoors.
In my book, only the blind may wear sunglasses indoors.
--
Rowan Dingle
Donna Richoux
> Frances Kemmish wrote:
>
> > R Fontana wrote:
[in response to various remarks about James Baker]
> > > This is bullying.
> > >
> > It is?
> >
> > Wouldn't he have to be reading it, or at least have somebody tell
> > him about it, so it can affect his behaviour, before it can be
> > characterised as bullying? Otherwise, it's merely insulting.
>
> He'd have to read it to be insulted, no?
"Insulting" isn't the same thing as "insulted," any more than "amusing"
is the same as "amused," or "charming" is "charmed," etc, etc.
I could, hypothetically, make some remarks about, say, your mother and
her taste in footwear, and you and I would both agree I was being
insulting, even if your mother never was to hear of it.
But I agree with Fran, bullying is done directly to an object. Perhaps
Richard did not mean that James Baker was being bullied, but that the
people writing about J. Baker were trying to intimidate their listeners
into doing something or other? Intimidate Richard into being silent and
not defending Baker? I dunno.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
R. Fontana
> What baffles many of us here in UK? Among much else -
>
> ...That in a national election there is not a national system of voting
I think this is something that has begun to trouble Americans too. The
problem is that in our system the administration of elections has always
been the responsibility of states, and while greater federal control is
welcomed in some areas, any effort to 'nationalize'
voting would be met by the predictable complaints about the usurpation of
state rights (which in other contexts make more sense)
Part of the problem too is the electoral college system of choosing the
president, which should probably be gotten rid of.
> ...That voting papers are so complicated, with so many choices to be made on
> the same sheet or booklet
I think this is not a problem in all states. I have voted in New York and
Connecticut, and I have never found it particularly difficult. No chad
there; we use old-fashioned, reliable voting machines.
> ...That political parties are involved in appointing judges and election
> officials
The worst thing is that in many states a large portion of the judiciary is
elected, which is disgraceful. I'm not sure that a civil service
judiciary is a better alternative to the federal-style system of judges
appointed by elected officials for long terms.
In any case, I was under the impression that the more important judges in
the UK are indeed political appointees of sorts. Doesn't the Lord
Chancellor, a member of the prime minister's party, write up the list of
who gets the top judicial positions, and doesn't he take political party
into account? Is Tony Blair's Lord Chancellor really appointing Tory
judges?
> ...That terms of office are fixed
As I understand it, you guys can go for a maximum of 5 years before an
election must be called. I can see the merits of greater flexibility. I
think it's bad that we have 2-year terms for the House of Reps; as soon as
they take office they're busy raising money for their reelection efforts.
R. Fontana
You gaught me there.
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Tootsie" <too...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
news:911bga$vpo$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
>
> First of all, the counting to come will involve ballots that have been
> handled too much. Chads have been dislodged, and there is no way to tell
> for sure from which holes they were dislodged. Or how.
That is a scare tactic the Bush people want you to believe. In reality,
chads that have not been intentionally poked with a voting punch are almost
impossible to dislodge by just handling, as the many, which were poked, but
became only dimpled, prove. This charge is not valid.
> Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
> intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
> intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
That is why representatives of both parties are jointly participating in the
recounts. This point is not valid.
>
> Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have the
> responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before handing
> them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
Be serious! Have you ever tried to match up the finished voting card's
punch hole numbers with those on the ballot sheets? Your assertion is
equivalent to a belief that everyone must read the many pages of fine print
when procuring something with a sales or rental contract. Voters should not
be required to jump through legal hoops just to indicate their choice of
candidates. Unrealistic requirement.
>
> Fourth, it is very possible that many voters did not intend to vote for
> any presidential candidate. This must be taken into account.
Of course. That is the undervote. If there are no punch marks in a
section, no votes are counted for that section. Moot point.
>
> Final thought: I think punch card votes will still be with us for the
> next several elections. (New voting systems cost money, often more than
> some communities can afford.) So what we need is a nationwide standard
> on how machine rejects should be counted.
I disagree. We neet to improve and standardize our voting techniques
nationwide. For the desperately poor states who can not afford to dop that
(are there any of those?), federal funds should be allotted.
> I personally would favor a
> system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
> be deemed "votes" at all.
Again I disagree. Unless the "machines", and I use that term very loosely
for the particular venue in this case, can be improved, questionable ballots
must be examined by humans. After all, it is the voter's choice that is
important, and it should not be altered by the functionality or lack of it
of the particular implement used to record it.
I do not expect that the US Supreme Court will echo my sentiments because of
purely political reasons. I would not be too surprised though if they will
agree with me -- I still believe in some people's basic honesty, and there
might be one, just one, among the Reagan judges, who will vote
conscientiously. We'll see.
Aside from all that, the Florida election procedures are not a federal
matter.
Mike Oliver
>
> "Tootsie" <too...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
> news:911bga$vpo$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
> > intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
> > intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> > Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
>
> That is why representatives of both parties are jointly participating in the
> recounts. This point is not valid.
Sure it is. In Broward County (I think it was), there were three people
examining each ballot. There were lots and lots of 2-1 votes as to whether
something was a vote or not. Guess which way they tended to go.
> > I personally would favor a
> > system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
> > be deemed "votes" at all.
>
> Again I disagree. Unless the "machines", and I use that term very loosely
> for the particular venue in this case, can be improved, questionable ballots
> must be examined by humans. After all, it is the voter's choice that is
> important, and it should not be altered by the functionality or lack of it
> of the particular implement used to record it.
But the problem is that any standard requiring the observer to exercise
judgment will be biased according to the observer's preferences. Therefore,
to the greatest extent possible, all discretion must be removed from the
counter's task. And you can't do that with a vague standard like "clear intent".
Unfortunately, as I said in another post, this should have been done
*before* the election; it's kind of late to be agreeing on such a standard
after the fact.
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
news:3A355F7C...@math.ucla.edu...
> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> >
> > "Tootsie" <too...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
> > news:911bga$vpo$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
> > > Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
> > > intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining
the
> > > intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> > > Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
> >
> > That is why representatives of both parties are jointly participating in
the
> > recounts. This point is not valid.
>
> Sure it is. In Broward County (I think it was), there were three people
> examining each ballot. There were lots and lots of 2-1 votes as to
whether
> something was a vote or not. Guess which way they tended to go.
I don't know. Do you have provable data?
> > > I personally would favor a
> > > system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would
not
> > > be deemed "votes" at all.
> >
> > Again I disagree. Unless the "machines", and I use that term very
loosely
> > for the particular venue in this case, can be improved, questionable
ballots
> > must be examined by humans. After all, it is the voter's choice that is
> > important, and it should not be altered by the functionality or lack of
it
> > of the particular implement used to record it.
>
> But the problem is that any standard requiring the observer to exercise
> judgment will be biased according to the observer's preferences.
Therefore,
> to the greatest extent possible, all discretion must be removed from the
> counter's task. And you can't do that with a vague standard like "clear
intent".
I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
> Unfortunately, as I said in another post, this should have been done
> *before* the election; it's kind of late to be agreeing on such a standard
> after the fact.
While it may be late, it is not too late. There is speculation by some
experts that in order not to appear to arbitrarily select a president, the
US Supreme Court will direct the Florida Supreme Court to devise a standard
and then direct a full recount of all Florida votes using that standard.
Sounds fair to me.
Robert Lieblich
> I would like nothing more than to go back to sort of
> supporting the Democratic Party as I did in my yout' (except they were too
> right-wing for me) but every time I move in that direction I suddenly
> experience the sort of casual bullying that those who (for whatever
> reasons, sentiment, intelligent policy, misguided policy, fashion, or peer
> pressure) favor the Democratic Party engage in towards the supporters
> of the other party as a matter of course.
I wouldn't have used "bullying" (as if the likes of me, a GS-15, could
pick on a former secretary of state -- Jim Baker, who makes my skin
crawl, as I've already said). But I certainly do agree that there has
been a flood of ad hominem attacks emanating from Democrats against
Republicans. To which I would then add -- and vice versa.
Better informed people than I have commented on the decline of civility
in American partisan politics. It's getting very ugly, folks. Step one
in improving things would be to shut up every incoming and holdover
Senator and Congressperson.
ObAUE -- Keep an eye on who says "bipartisan" and what it's used to
connote. That promises to be a real eye-opener.
Mike Oliver
>
> "Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
> news:3A355F7C...@math.ucla.edu...
>> examining each ballot. There were lots and lots of 2-1 votes as to whether
>> something was a vote or not. Guess which way they tended to go.
>
> I don't know. Do you have provable data?
No, just a sentence or two in an LA Times story. And of course I don't
know whether, had I looked at the ballots, I would have agreed that there
was clear voter intent or not. And neither do you. A clear standard
would help to remedy such a situation.
> I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
OK, but if such a standard includes "dimpled" and "pregnant", then
one has to ask, *how* dimpled or pregnant? Saying that two corners
have to be broken is at least a reasonably one-or-zero standard
which I could accept; "dimpled" and "pregnant" can never fall in
this category. Some of them may well represent cases where the
voter put the stylus part way into the hole, then realized that
wasn't the way he intended to vote.
>> Unfortunately, as I said in another post, this should have been done
>> *before* the election; it's kind of late to be agreeing on such a standard
>> after the fact.
>
> While it may be late, it is not too late. There is speculation by some
> experts that in order not to appear to arbitrarily select a president, the
> US Supreme Court will direct the Florida Supreme Court to devise a standard
> and then direct a full recount of all Florida votes using that standard.
> Sounds fair to me.
It's clearly unrealistic to expect a full recount of Florida to be
complete by the statutory deadline (tomorrow). Even the date they're
required to vote, Dec. 18, would be difficult, and if they don't appoint
their electors tomorrow, a battle on the floor of Congress is guaranteed.
Padraig Breathnach
I witnessed television coverage of the Supreme Court hearing. Commentators
did their pieces to camera from the steps of the building. So far, normal
enough.
They were almost drowned out by the sound of demonstrators. This seems
unhealthy to me. What point is there in holding demonstrations at a court,
if its business is the law, and not policy-making or public administration?
PB
Robert Lieblich
Too many negatives. Let's take it from the top.
In the federal courts there are two interrelated tests for the grant of
preliminary injunctive relief (pending resolution of the merits). One
is the classic four-part test, in which the court considers (1)
likelihood of prevailing on the merits; (2) injury to the plaintiff; (3)
injury to the defendant, and (4) the public interest. In one federal
judicial circuit (out of thirteen total), the court of appeals says the
plaintiff must prevail on all four, but most courts weigh them all and
decide on balance. A couple of courts, trying to simplify, determine the
balance of harms, then weigh likely harm to the plaintiff against how
likely the plaintiff is to prevail; even a relatively weak claim of
potential injury can get a preliminary injunction if the case looks
strong on the merits and the defendant won't be hurt by the injunction,
and a strong claim of potential injury will prevail if there is any
decent chance of winning the merits.
So, for example, a court will be quick to intervene to keep a historic
building from being torn down if the party trying to stop the teardown
has any plausible chance of winning the case. Conversely, it's hard for
a plaintiff to stop a competitor from undertaking a business venture
(say on allegations of breach of an agreement not to compete) if there's
room for them both in the business, even if the plaintiff has a good
case on the merits. It will hurt but not destroy him if he has to
compete against the other side.
By those standards, I'd have to say that the Supreme Court majority
really didn't like what the Florida Supremes did, because the "balance
of injury" clearly tilts in Gore's direction -- he's far more damaged by
the stay that Bush would have been damaged by a non-stay. Scalia's
concurrence was a signal to that effect, and the dissent rubbed it in
from the other side. If Gore wins this argument, it will be a much, much
bigger upset than his win in the Florida S.Ct.
Alec "Skitt" P.
> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> > I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
>
> OK, but if such a standard includes "dimpled" and "pregnant", then
> one has to ask, *how* dimpled or pregnant? Saying that two corners
> have to be broken is at least a reasonably one-or-zero standard
> which I could accept; "dimpled" and "pregnant" can never fall in
> this category. Some of them may well represent cases where the
> voter put the stylus part way into the hole, then realized that
> wasn't the way he intended to vote.
The answer to that is very simple -- is there another hole or mark for
another candidate in that category? If there is, the voter obviously
stopped before a mistake was made. If not, that was a voting attempt.
>
> >> Unfortunately, as I said in another post, this should have been done
> >> *before* the election; it's kind of late to be agreeing on such a
standard
> >> after the fact.
> >
> > While it may be late, it is not too late. There is speculation by some
> > experts that in order not to appear to arbitrarily select a president,
the
> > US Supreme Court will direct the Florida Supreme Court to devise a
standard
> > and then direct a full recount of all Florida votes using that standard.
> > Sounds fair to me.
>
> It's clearly unrealistic to expect a full recount of Florida to be
> complete by the statutory deadline (tomorrow). Even the date they're
> required to vote, Dec. 18, would be difficult, and if they don't appoint
> their electors tomorrow, a battle on the floor of Congress is guaranteed.
Tomorrow's deadline is not really a drop-dead date. The US Supreme Court
may well direct Florida to delay the appointment of electors until the
results of a recount are known. The December 18th deadline is a more
serious one, but not unchangeable, I think. I have not paid enough
attention to the nitty-gritty of that one to render an educated opinion, but
I seem to recall that there were ways to extend or circumvent it. In any
case, we will most likely know very soon what is to happen. I'll re-offer
the cliché: History is being made! Let's watch.
Mike Oliver
> Might I make a comment as a disinterested party?
I beg to doubt that there *are* any disinterested parties, when it
comes to the presidency of the United States.
> I witnessed television coverage of the Supreme Court hearing. Commentators
> did their pieces to camera from the steps of the building. So far, normal
> enough.
>
> They were almost drowned out by the sound of demonstrators. This seems
> unhealthy to me. What point is there in holding demonstrations at a court,
> if its business is the law, and not policy-making or public administration?
Yeah, I tend to agree. The justices aren't supposed to be swayed
by such things. However it's quite probable that they *are*, at
least sometimes, so the protesters' strategy is not irrational even
if it might be called unseemly.
Mike Oliver
>
> "Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
> news:3A3569B5...@math.ucla.edu...
>> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
>
>>> I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
>>
>> OK, but if such a standard includes "dimpled" and "pregnant", then
>> one has to ask, *how* dimpled or pregnant? Saying that two corners
>> have to be broken is at least a reasonably one-or-zero standard
>> which I could accept; "dimpled" and "pregnant" can never fall in
>> this category. Some of them may well represent cases where the
>> voter put the stylus part way into the hole, then realized that
>> wasn't the way he intended to vote.
>
> The answer to that is very simple -- is there another hole or mark for
> another candidate in that category? If there is, the voter obviously
> stopped before a mistake was made. If not, that was a voting attempt.
Not clear at all. Perhaps he realized that he was about to cast a
vote for president, which he hadn't intended to do. Or perhaps
he changed his mind at the last second.
This is all unknowable, which is why there ought to be a clear *physical*
standard, such as counting the number of broken corners on the chad.
But as I said, the time to establish such a standard was before the
election, and the place to do it was in statewide statute rather than
judicial opinion. The current bias-prone recount methods may be the
best available implementation of the law as written.
Alec "Skitt" P.
> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> >
> > "Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
> > news:3A3569B5...@math.ucla.edu...
> >> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> >
> >>> I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
> >>
> >> OK, but if such a standard includes "dimpled" and "pregnant", then
> >> one has to ask, *how* dimpled or pregnant? Saying that two corners
> >> have to be broken is at least a reasonably one-or-zero standard
> >> which I could accept; "dimpled" and "pregnant" can never fall in
> >> this category. Some of them may well represent cases where the
> >> voter put the stylus part way into the hole, then realized that
> >> wasn't the way he intended to vote.
> >
> > The answer to that is very simple -- is there another hole or mark for
> > another candidate in that category? If there is, the voter obviously
> > stopped before a mistake was made. If not, that was a voting attempt.
>
> Not clear at all. Perhaps he realized that he was about to cast a
> vote for president, which he hadn't intended to do. Or perhaps
> he changed his mind at the last second.
Perhaps.
> This is all unknowable, which is why there ought to be a clear *physical*
> standard, such as counting the number of broken corners on the chad.
> But as I said, the time to establish such a standard was before the
> election, and the place to do it was in statewide statute rather than
> judicial opinion.
True.
> The current bias-prone recount methods may be the
> best available implementation of the law as written.
Yes, that is unfortunately the vagueness of the process in Florida, but the
law, which is what the Supreme Court of Florida based their decision on, and
which they reiterated in their response to the US Supreme Court today,
demands the establishing of voter intent by manual examination. I would
find it difficult to counter that goal.
I also believe that the obstacles repeatedly thrown at the recount process
give a clear indication of what the objecting party thinks the results of a
thoroughly supervised recount would turn out to be. In that light, I can't
blame those actions, because winning is everything.
Evan Kirshenbaum
I believe you noted that that's where the television cameras were...
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |I believe there are more instances
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |of the abridgment of the freedom of
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |the people by gradual and silent
|encroachments of those in power
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |than by violent and sudden
(650)857-7572 |usurpations.
| James Madison
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "R. Fontana" wrote:
> >
> > On 11 Dec 2000, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> >
> > > The thing (among many) that most baffles me about this latest
> > > Supreme Court move is that I thought it was pretty much a
> > > judicial rule that you don't hand down an injunction pending a
> > > hearing if (1) not doing so won't help the one seeking it,
> > > should he prevail, and (2) doing so will hurt the other party,
> > > should he prevail.
> >
> > No, I could be mistaken but I don't think that's a judicial rule
> > at all; it sounds close to the opposite of what the basic standard
> > for injunctive relief is.
>
> Too many negatives.
One of which was mine. Sorry. My clause (1) should have said "hurt"
rather than "help".
Thanks for the explanation. I find it hard to believe, though, that
they see this case as so cut-and-dried that the obvious injury to Gore
is warranted given the near total (and, I'd think legally total) lack
of injury to Bush should the injunction not be granted. I'm sure
they've done nothing to warrant impeachment, but I wouldn't be
surprised to see a motion for censure raised in congress very early in
the next session.
The next question would be why the U.S. Supreme Court feels that *it*
can be an arbiter of what the Florida legislature said but that the
Florida Supreme Court cannot. It would seem that the only thing that
could decide the issue according to the constitution would be a vote
of the Florida legislature (and even that would be problematic, as it
wouldn't have taken place before the election).
Of course, since the Florida legislature is prepared to demonstrate
(correctly, as I read it) that a state is not required avail itself of
the protections of 3 USC 5, I don't understand why the judicial branch
of the state can't instruct the executive branch of the state to do
something the might similarly puts the state's votes at risk. 3 USC
15 clearly anticipates the situation and says that it's congress's
prerogative to decide whether it happened or not. (Given that the
Florida Supreme Court has already ruled that Florida law in the case
was contradictory and therefore not followed, I anticipate a challenge
in congress in any case.)
Finally, of course, assuming that the Florida legislators are bound by
oath to uphold the state constitution, I would have assumed that they
were thereby enjoined from passing any legislation which violated it,
and it would therefore be perfectly valid to read any legislation as
assuming that it was in harmony with and governed by it. That is,
even if the U.S. Constitution doesn't bind the Florida legislature to
follow the Florida Constitution in this matter, I would have assumed
that the Florida Constitution could, as with any other legislative
act.
But then again, IANAL. (I'm sure it shows.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It is one thing to be mistaken; it is
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |quite another to be willfully
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |ignorant
| Cecil Adams
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
P&D Schultz
> Better informed people than I have commented on the decline of civility
> in American partisan politics. It's getting very ugly, folks. <...>
Oh, I wouldn't say that. Well... on the way into work this morning I saw
some guy giving the ol' fish-eye to the Nader bumper-sticker my son had
put on our car bumper, and it did cross my mind that if he made some
dumb-ass remark about it I might have to pop him in the mouth. But other
than little things like that, I think we're doing ok.
\\P. Schultz
Robert E. Lewis
>
> "Mark Barratt" <mark.b...@philips.com> wrote in message
> news:3a34ebd7$0$20283$73be...@news.be.uu.net...
> >
> > "Alec "Skitt" P." <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > news:9115cd$2f10c$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
> > > I'm wondering ...
> > >
> > > If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and
> > bans any
> > > further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable,
> > unless the Court
> > > orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the
> > Florida votes
> > > will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and
> > the results
> > > will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
> >
> > What puzzles me is this: I have read here, and in other places,
> > that Florida appears to be a democrat state - i.e. there are more
> > democrat-inclined than republican-inclined voters. If this is so,
> > why do they have a republican governor?
>
> Because he was more electable than his opponent, who was part of the
Lawton
> Chiles government. I lived in Florida during that election, and I voted
for
> *that* Bush. He's the smarter one.
Then I take it that also a majority of the Republican candidates for the
Florida Legislature must also have been "more electable," since Florida not
only has a Republican governor, but a Republican majority in both houses of
the Legislature there?
Florida still has a large number of old-line religious conservatives, a
large Cuban-American population that has voted Republican pretty
consistently since Kennedy blew the Bay of Pigs, and a bunch of old-timers
who are often conservative (on everything but Social Security).
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Robert E. Lewis" <rle...@brazosport.cc.tx.us> wrote in message
news:913se2$p...@netaxs.com...
Looks that way.
> Florida still has a large number of old-line religious conservatives, a
> large Cuban-American population that has voted Republican pretty
> consistently since Kennedy blew the Bay of Pigs, and a bunch of old-timers
> who are often conservative (on everything but Social Security).
You have it pegged, but not all of them liked Dubya.
R Fontana
Because courts do not make their decisions in a vacuum; they are aware of
what's going on politically and their decisions reflect that. And of
course at least some cases do have significant political consequences. I
think it can be counterproductive if, as in the USSC case, the judges have
some political insulation (such as being appointed for life/good
behavior), since, I would imagine, protests might just annoy the judge
into deciding more resolutely in a way that is disagreeable to the
protester. A lot of it is just people blowing off steam; such protests
don't necessarily have real political or judicial consequences, in part
because we really believe in the idea(l) of a judiciary that is
sufficiently insulated from politics.
And it was, I think, a scion of Ireland who said "The supreme court
follows th'iliction returns".
Mike Oliver
> Because courts do not make their decisions in a vacuum;
Now there's an idea! It would definitely reduce the (ahem)
longwindedness of the opinions.
R Fontana
I used to fantasize about putting political bumper stickers on my
non-existent car. Now that I finally own a car, I realize that I'd never
have the guts to put any sort of controversial bumper sticker on it.
Knowing Americans as I do (being one myself), I figure there's someone out
there who would be offended enough by whatever bumper sticker I chose to
do damage to my car.
J. W. Love
<<
> Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
> intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
> intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
That is why representatives of both parties are jointly participating in the
recounts. This point is not valid.>>
Even if boards of elections decide by a 2-to-1 vote how to allocate ambiguous
ballots? and when that vote consistently favors one party?
>
> Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have the
> responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before handing
> them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
Be serious! Have you ever tried to match up the finished voting card's punch
hole numbers with those on the ballot sheets? Your assertion is equivalent to a
belief that everyone must read the many pages of fine print when procuring
something with a sales or rental contract. Voters should not be required to
jump through legal hoops just to indicate their choice of candidates.
Unrealistic requirement.>>
You're addressing someone else, but I'll jump in because yes, I've done what
you suggest: for nearly 30 years, I voted on paper ballots in Palm Beach
County. The relevant instructions weren't "many pages of fine print": they were
a short statement in bold letters in large type, and they said something as
plain as "Make sure you separate the punch from the card. Unseparated punches
may not be counted." (They didn't use the word _chad._) Since something like
that* was probably the rule in place at the time of the balloting, it's
arguable, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed out in court yesterday, that
whether a punched chad has been completely separated from the card---and not
any consideration of swinging chads, dimples, and pregnancies---should be the
standard for deciding what's a vote and what's not.
*I'm hedging here because my knowledge comes from elections before the current
one. Out of tradition, Palm Beach County probably kept this wording or used a
similar wording, but of course I can't be sure of that.
<<
> I personally would favor a
> system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
> be deemed "votes" at all.
Again I disagree. Unless the "machines", and I use that term very loosely for
the particular venue in this case, can be improved, questionable ballots must
be examined by humans. After all, it is the voter's choice that is important,
and it should not be altered by the functionality or lack of it of the
particular implement used to record it.>>
According to what the lawyers kept saying in court yesterday, the important
element is the voter's "CLEAR intent" (emphasis added). Probably 100 percent of
us will agree that a completely punched-out chad reflects clear intent, but
when we get to an ambiguously punched chad, many of us will argue that clarity
has vanished, and with it, the voter's intent.
<<I do not expect that the US Supreme Court will echo my sentiments because of
purely political reasons. I would not be too surprised though if they will
agree with me -- I still believe in some people's basic honesty, and there
might be one, just one, among the Reagan judges, who will vote conscientiously.
We'll see.>>
Be of good cheer! They'll surely want a unanimous decision. Their likeliest
remedy is to send the case back to Florida with instructions that the proper
statewide authority (the Supervisor of Elections? the circuit-court judge
appointed to handle the recount?) set a single standard for a renewed statewide
recount. A 5-to-4 conservative-liberal split wouldn't be entirely a partisan
matter, as half the minority (Souter & Stevens) would be Republican-appointed
justices. They'll want to rebuke Florida's supreme court for being so saucy as
to ignore their previous order, but they won't want to decide the presidential
election themselves, so they may have to find a different venue for
administering condign juridical chastisement.
Washington, DC: Taxation Without Representation.
J. W. Love
to arbitrarily select a president, the US Supreme Court will direct the Florida
Supreme Court to devise a standard and then direct a full recount of all
Florida votes using that standard. Sounds fair to me.>>
To me too, except in one particular: on federalist principles, the court will
want to defer to the State of Florida as much as possible, so it may let the
state, through its appropriate authorities, set the standard.
Olivers
>
>
> They were almost drowned out by the sound of demonstrators. This seems
> unhealthy to me. What point is there in holding demonstrations at a court,
> if its business is the law, and not policy-making or public administration?
>
court than for their presence in a location bound to have attacted TV
cameras. While providing no material or meaningful presence in the eyes
of the Court, supposedly and likely above that sort of thing, the
demonstrators were "effective". You, through TV, saw them and were
moved by (or at least noticed) their presence.
Up at the Naval Observatory, site of the Veep's home, the daily demos
have less to do with any hope that Mr. Gore will hear or see and be
discommoded or "commoded", than with regular access to the fisheyes of
the broadcast and cable networks. Demos in the US are planned around a
quite different set of rules of organization than are the mass turnouts
in Balkan squares (although certainly those in England in the 60s and
70s seem to have refined the choreography and structure of organized
advocacy).
John O'Flaherty
> John O'Flaherty <ofla...@toast.net> wrote:
>
> > Frances Kemmish wrote:
> >
> > > R Fontana wrote:
>
> [in response to various remarks about James Baker]
>
> > > > This is bullying.
> > > >
> > > It is?
> > >
> > > Wouldn't he have to be reading it, or at least have somebody tell
> > > him about it, so it can affect his behaviour, before it can be
> > > characterised as bullying? Otherwise, it's merely insulting.
> >
> > He'd have to read it to be insulted, no?
>
> "Insulting" isn't the same thing as "insulted," any more than "amusing"
> is the same as "amused," or "charming" is "charmed," etc, etc.
>
> I could, hypothetically, make some remarks about, say, your mother and
> her taste in footwear, and you and I would both agree I was being
> insulting, even if your mother never was to hear of it.
No, in that case you'd be insulting me, using the word 'mother' as a
convenient tool.
> But I agree with Fran, bullying is done directly to an object. Perhaps
> Richard did not mean that James Baker was being bullied, but that the
> people writing about J. Baker were trying to intimidate their listeners
> into doing something or other? Intimidate Richard into being silent and
> not defending Baker? I dunno.
I think insulting is done to an object, although you could still
characterize something written as 'insulting', meaning that it had the
potential to insult, even if the object hadn't read it.
I see no difference 'bully' and 'insult' as words referring to an action
directed at an object that require the object to have their meanings
fulfilled.
john
John O'Flaherty
> John O'Flaherty wrote:
> >
> > Frances Kemmish wrote:
> >
> > > R Fontana wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, 10 Dec 2000, P&D Schultz wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Robert Lieblich wrote:
> > > > > > <...> But
> > > > > > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. <...>
> > > > >
> > > > > Then I'm not crazy.
> > > > >
> > > > > Whenever I hear him pontificating on the radio (i.e., every day), I
> > > > > think, "God! Is he serious? Maybe he's just saying this for
> > > > > somebody-or-other's consumption. But, then again, EVERYBODY is hearing
> > > > > it!
> > > > >
> > > > > I thought this guy had some serious position in the past. How can he be
> > > > > acting like this?! Is Bush going to insert this clown into some position
> > > > > of actual responsibility?! Yikes!
> > > > >
> > > > > Scary times.
> > > > >
> > > > > \\P. Schultz
> > > >
> > > > This is bullying.
> > > >
> > >
> > > It is?
> > >
> > > Wouldn't he have to be reading it, or at least have somebody tell
> > > him about it, so it can affect his behaviour, before it can be
> > > characterised as bullying? Otherwise, it's merely insulting.
> >
> > He'd have to read it to be insulted, no?
> >
>
> No; I think you can be insulted and never know anything about it.
I don't think so. The AHD gives two meanings for insult-
1 To treat with gross insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness.
2 to affront or demean
Although both are framed emphasizing the actor rather than the receiver of the
action, the words 'insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness' and 'affront
or demean' imply an object to which the interaction is important.
If I sit in a closed room with no hidden microphones, and say 'that supreme court is
a bunch of ****heads, the court isn't insulted.
john
R J Valentine
] Frances Kemmish wrote:
...
]> No; I think you can be insulted and never know anything about it.
]
] I don't think so. The AHD gives two meanings for insult-
] 1 To treat with gross insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness.
] 2 to affront or demean
...
Come on! This is alt.usage.english. Half the participants don't know
they've been insulted, and the other half think they've been insulted.
Look at Rey.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@clark.net?subject=%3Cnews:alt.usage.english%3E%20>
Robert E. Lewis
R Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100121...@aloha.cc.columbia.edu...
One can always have fun by putting controversial bumper stickers on other
people's cars. During the '92 campaign I was sent (unsolicited) a bumper
sticker that read "Democrats For Bush." I placed it on the bumper of my
neighbor's truck one evening on my way over to have a few beers with him.
My neighbor, a yellow-dog Democrat (until this year, when he said he voted
for Bush-the-younger), drove around for three days before he noticed . He
was very angry, but even his kids thought it was funny.
If you are concerned with someone vandalizing your car because of disliked
bumper-opinions, I would suggest starting your display with the ever-popular
"This Vehicle Protected By Smith And Wesson" bumper sticker.
Padraig Breathnach
>Come on! This is alt.usage.english. Half the participants don't know
>they've been insulted, and the other half think they've been insulted.
>
>Look at Rey.
>
That surely messes up your count. He's in both halves. I hope that he
doesn't take offence at this observation.
As for me, I think that I don't know that I've been insulted.
PB
Martin Ambuhl
| On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Robert Lieblich wrote:
|
| > But
| > him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be, is
| > enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
| > Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
|
| This is bullying too. Nothing Baker ever said is any worse than calling a
| human being a reptile,
Please buy a dictionary. "Reptilian" does not mean "is a reptile".
and I'm not aware of any legitimate reasons for
| considering him a war criminal or anything like that. That is, he's no
| Henry Kissinger.
Your willingness to villify HK in this way belies any claim you might make
about the evil of "bullying" JB.
| As the recently discussed Elvis Costello said, Do you have to be so cruel
| to be callous?
Your characterization of HK, even if correct, has deprived you of any
credibility in your decrying "cruelty" to JB.
Martin Ambuhl
"Rowan Dingle" <din...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:MJHZv1A2...@wickenden.demon.co.uk...
| In alt.usage.english Tootsie <too...@sprynet.com> wrote:
| Was Katherine Harris really in charge of George Bush's presidential
| campaign in Florida?
Yes.
| (If she was, don't bother reading the rest of this post.)
OK.
|
Alec "Skitt" P.
"J. W. Love" <lov...@aol.comix> wrote in message
news:20001212080924...@ng-fu1.aol.com...
Tootsie wrote:
> > Second, if the standard of counting continues to be "determining the
> > intent" of the voter, the whole exercise is worthless. "Determining the
> > intent" is subjective at best. Democrats will find "votes" for Gore;
> > Republicans will find "votes" for Bush.
Skitt wrote:
> That is why representatives of both parties are jointly participating in
the
> recounts. This point is not valid.>>
J.W. wrote:
> Even if boards of elections decide by a 2-to-1 vote how to allocate
ambiguous
> ballots? and when that vote consistently favors one party?
Did all affected boards always have two Democrats and one Republican voting
on the validity of a ballot? Did you know that most of the Democratic
voters were quite elderly and no longer at their best physically and
mentally?
Tootsie wrote:
> > Third: The instructions given to voters are plain enough: they have the
> > responsibility of making sure their ballots are correct before handing
> > them in. If they did not, then they blew it.
Skitt wrote:
> Be serious! Have you ever tried to match up the finished voting card's
punch
> hole numbers with those on the ballot sheets? Your assertion is equivalent
to a
> belief that everyone must read the many pages of fine print when procuring
> something with a sales or rental contract. Voters should not be required
to
> jump through legal hoops just to indicate their choice of candidates.
> Unrealistic requirement.>>
My answer to that is that I, even though I am of sound and reasonably swift
mind, have never read the voting instructions, but have relied on my general
good sense to see me through the process. I suspect that many of the
elderly Palm Beach voters did the same, but their comprehension and physical
capabilities were not what they used to be. The intent was still there.
Tootsie wrote:
> > I personally would favor a
> > system whereby dimpled, hanging, swinging, and pregnant chads would not
> > be deemed "votes" at all.
Skitt wrote:
> Again I disagree. Unless the "machines", and I use that term very loosely
for
> the particular venue in this case, can be improved, questionable ballots
must
> be examined by humans. After all, it is the voter's choice that is
important,
> and it should not be altered by the functionality or lack of it of the
> particular implement used to record it.>>
J.W. wrote:
> According to what the lawyers kept saying in court yesterday, the
important
> element is the voter's "CLEAR intent" (emphasis added). Probably 100
percent of
> us will agree that a completely punched-out chad reflects clear intent,
but
> when we get to an ambiguously punched chad, many of us will argue that
clarity
> has vanished, and with it, the voter's intent.
Clarity is in the eye of the beholder, and for manual recounts Florida law
leaves it up to the decision of the election officials in each county.
Skitt wrote:
> <<I do not expect that the US Supreme Court will echo my sentiments
because of
> purely political reasons. I would not be too surprised though if they will
> agree with me -- I still believe in some people's basic honesty, and there
> might be one, just one, among the Reagan judges, who will vote
conscientiously.
> We'll see.>>
J.W. wrote:
> Be of good cheer! They'll surely want a unanimous decision. Their
likeliest
> remedy is to send the case back to Florida with instructions that the
proper
> statewide authority (the Supervisor of Elections? the circuit-court judge
> appointed to handle the recount?) set a single standard for a renewed
statewide
> recount. A 5-to-4 conservative-liberal split wouldn't be entirely a
partisan
> matter, as half the minority (Souter & Stevens) would be
Republican-appointed
> justices. They'll want to rebuke Florida's supreme court for being so
saucy as
> to ignore their previous order, but they won't want to decide the
presidential
> election themselves, so they may have to find a different venue for
> administering condign juridical chastisement.
I doubt that they will get a unanimous decision. Scalia, for one, will most
likely insist on flat out giving the election to Bush, but as you say, and
as I have said in a previous post, the possibility of remanding it to the
Florida Supreme Court for resolution is there.
R. Fontana
>
> "R Fontana" <re...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100121...@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu...
> | On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Robert Lieblich wrote:
> |
> | > But
> | > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought of
> | > him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be, is
> | > enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
> | > Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
> |
> | This is bullying too. Nothing Baker ever said is any worse than calling a
> | human being a reptile,
>
> Please buy a dictionary. "Reptilian" does not mean "is a reptile".
Reptilian means "having the qualities of a reptile". I don't really see
the difference between saying someone is a reptile and saying someone is
like a reptile.
> and I'm not aware of any legitimate reasons for
> | considering him a war criminal or anything like that. That is, he's no
> | Henry Kissinger.
>
> Your willingness to villify HK in this way belies any claim you might make
> about the evil of "bullying" JB.
This isn't my personal view of Henry Kissinger, but a reference to the
views of others. The reference may not be familiar to all readers, for
which I apologize.
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
> think they've been insulted.
I'm insulted! What's the topic?
Dennis
Rowan Dingle
>"Rowan Dingle" <din...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>| Was Katherine Harris really in charge of George Bush's presidential
>| campaign in Florida?
>
>Yes.
Oh.
>| (If she was, don't bother reading the rest of this post.)
>
>OK.
Seconded.
--
Rowan Dingle
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Dennis Bathory-Kitsz" <bat...@maltedmedia.com> wrote in message
news:3A3693...@maltedmedia.com...
> R J Valentine wrote:
> > think they've been insulted.
>
> I'm insulted! What's the topic?
I've forgotten ...
Donna Richoux
> On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Martin Ambuhl wrote:
>
> > "R Fontana" <re...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
> > news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100121...@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu...
> > | On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Robert Lieblich wrote:
> > |
> > | > But
> > | > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought of
> > | > him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be, is
> > | > enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
> > | > Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
> > |
> > | This is bullying too. Nothing Baker ever said is any worse than calling a
> > | human being a reptile,
> >
> > Please buy a dictionary. "Reptilian" does not mean "is a reptile".
>
> Reptilian means "having the qualities of a reptile". I don't really see
> the difference between saying someone is a reptile and saying someone is
> like a reptile.
Well, it all comes down to what your definition of "is" is.
Robert Lieblich
[ . . . ]
> If you are concerned with someone vandalizing your car because of disliked
> bumper-opinions, I would suggest starting your display with the ever-popular
> "This Vehicle Protected By Smith And Wesson" bumper sticker.
Cough drops and salad oil? How strange.
That aside, how well does a Smith & Wesson protect a car if the car is
parked and the owner is elsewhere?
Not that car alarms serve any purpose but to annoy. I drive a ten year
old car with well over 100,000 miles and an appearance to match. Now
THAT's theft protection.
Mike Oliver
> Not that car alarms serve any purpose but to annoy. I drive a ten year
> old car with well over 100,000 miles and an appearance to match. Now
> THAT's theft protection.
Oh, I see. You're one of those "trendy" folks that needs a new
car every decade or hundred kilomiles. I still love my trusty
1976 280Z with 170K miles (I bike most places, which is why it
isn't more miles).
piddy
<sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I'm wondering ...
>
>If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans any
>further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the Court
>orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida votes
>will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the results
>will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
The only thing that counts are the votes that are counted according
to law that decides those things counted.
Don't be such an ass as to desire that YOUR guy be installed
because of a bunch of inadequate losers who though not nearly
as stupard as a drunkard such as me, could not find a way to vote
according to the clearly displayed rules.
Now fuck off or get spanked by me the piddy.
piddy
John O'Flaherty
> "Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
> news:3A35720E...@math.ucla.edu...
> > "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> > >
> > > "Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
> > > news:3A3569B5...@math.ucla.edu...
> > >> "Alec \"Skitt\" P." wrote:
> > >
> > >>> I agree that standards have to be defined for any recount.
> > >>
> > >> OK, but if such a standard includes "dimpled" and "pregnant", then
> > >> one has to ask, *how* dimpled or pregnant? Saying that two corners
> > >> have to be broken is at least a reasonably one-or-zero standard
> > >> which I could accept; "dimpled" and "pregnant" can never fall in
> > >> this category. Some of them may well represent cases where the
> > >> voter put the stylus part way into the hole, then realized that
> > >> wasn't the way he intended to vote.
> > >
> > > The answer to that is very simple -- is there another hole or mark for
> > > another candidate in that category? If there is, the voter obviously
> > > stopped before a mistake was made. If not, that was a voting attempt.
> >
> > Not clear at all. Perhaps he realized that he was about to cast a
> > vote for president, which he hadn't intended to do. Or perhaps
> > he changed his mind at the last second.
>
> Perhaps.
>
> > This is all unknowable, which is why there ought to be a clear *physical*
> > standard, such as counting the number of broken corners on the chad.
> > But as I said, the time to establish such a standard was before the
> > election, and the place to do it was in statewide statute rather than
> > judicial opinion.
>
> True.
>
> > The current bias-prone recount methods may be the
> > best available implementation of the law as written.
>
> Yes, that is unfortunately the vagueness of the process in Florida, but the
> law, which is what the Supreme Court of Florida based their decision on, and
> which they reiterated in their response to the US Supreme Court today,
> demands the establishing of voter intent by manual examination. I would
> find it difficult to counter that goal.
>
> I also believe that the obstacles repeatedly thrown at the recount process
> give a clear indication of what the objecting party thinks the results of a
> thoroughly supervised recount would turn out to be. In that light, I can't
> blame those actions, because winning is everything.
I think the recount should be conducted, and not with a final judgment of each
vote as for one or the other candidate. The results should be summed into
categories in a database (one, two, three corners detached; absence of a
contradictory vote; dimpled). The totals arrived at might make the fine
decisions about 'somewhat pregnant' unnecessary.
john
Alec "Skitt" P.
"John O'Flaherty" <ofla...@toast.net> wrote in message
news:3A36E4A6...@toast.net...
>
> I think the recount should be conducted, and not with a final judgment of
each
> vote as for one or the other candidate. The results should be summed into
> categories in a database (one, two, three corners detached; absence of a
> contradictory vote; dimpled). The totals arrived at might make the fine
> decisions about 'somewhat pregnant' unnecessary.
Well, the US Supreme Court has spoken. The case is remanded to the Florida
Supreme Court for a possible recount with statewide standards.
The decision is very divided and fragmented with many judges dissenting to
different parts of it.
The ball is in Florida Supreme Court's court. The US Supreme court refused
to pick our next president.
Robert E. Lewis
Robert Lieblich <Robert....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3A36B049...@verizon.net...
> "Robert E. Lewis" wrote:
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> > If you are concerned with someone vandalizing your car because of
disliked
> > bumper-opinions, I would suggest starting your display with the
ever-popular
> > "This Vehicle Protected By Smith And Wesson" bumper sticker.
>
> Cough drops and salad oil? How strange.
Not at all - cough drop to prevent engine knock; salad oil for vegan drivers
who cannot bear to lubricate their autos with the product of long-dead (I
mean really long-dead!) animals.
> That aside, how well does a Smith & Wesson protect a car if the car is
> parked and the owner is elsewhere?
Long barrel; laser-sight; skilled compensation for windage and elevation.
> Not that car alarms serve any purpose but to annoy. I drive a ten year
> old car with well over 100,000 miles and an appearance to match. Now
> THAT's theft protection.
I drove an eighteen-year-old ('63 model-year) Chevy pickup truck while I was
a teen, and I not only felt safe leaving the keys in it, but I found that
other drivers were extremely deferential in the area of neither tailgating
nor cutting suddenly in front of me, motivated perhaps by the understanding
that a dented fender would bother me not at all, while several tons of
heavy steel and a welded pipe front bumper would likely be the winner in a
contest with late '70s Detroit or Japan economy sheet-metal. I lost her to
a hurricane storm surge, having chosen to save my eleven-year-old Oldsmobile
(soon to become an extinct badge, we learn today), instead. I've put well
over a hunder thousand miles on my last several autos, but you need to start
with fairly low mileage to accomplish that.
Alec "Skitt" P.
I, "Alec "Skitt" P." <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:916pmd$2ufpg$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
>
> Well, the US Supreme Court has spoken. The case is remanded to the
Florida
> Supreme Court for a possible recount with statewide standards.
>
> The decision is very divided and fragmented with many judges dissenting to
> different parts of it.
>
> The ball is in Florida Supreme Court's court. The US Supreme court
refused
> to pick our next president.
After a more thorough analysis of the opinion of the US Supreme Court, I am
changing my understanding of it -- The US Supreme Court DID pick our next
president by its actions. It just did not want to make it look that way,
and made the Florida Supreme Court take the blame.
In essence, it was again a five to four split decision, only a lot more
camouflaged for obvious reasons. The game appears to be over. The real
results of the Florida vote will be known at a much later date.
David
<sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> After a more thorough analysis of the opinion of the US Supreme
> Court, I am changing my understanding of it -- The US Supreme Court
> DID pick our next president by its actions. It just did not want to
> make it look that way, and made the Florida Supreme Court take the
> blame.
> In essence, it was again a five to four split decision, only a lot
> more camouflaged for obvious reasons. The game appears to be over.
> The real results of the Florida vote will be known at a much later
> date.
<IMG ALT="Olde engraving of ship flying the pirate flag"
SRC="u/s/satire.gift" LENGTH="'Tis three feet long" WIDTH="and two feet
wide">
After a fraught voyage around the uncharted rocky shores of the
Pseudo-Democra Sea, the battered hulk of the U.S. Presidential Election
limps into the New World harbour, fully rigged and skilfully manned by
its skeleton crew.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/joachim/07-0.htm
Joachim dropped the sheaf of papers on his lap as he fondled the lamb's
head and said in exasperation, "This contract is the very devil!"
Alec "Skitt" P.
"David" <da...@dacha.freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:4a2c352...@dacha.freeuk.com...
> In article <916tnc$3aul1$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de>, Alec \Skitt\ P.
> <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> > After a more thorough analysis of the opinion of the US Supreme
> > Court, I am changing my understanding of it -- The US Supreme Court
> > DID pick our next president by its actions. It just did not want to
> > make it look that way, and made the Florida Supreme Court take the
> > blame.
>
> > In essence, it was again a five to four split decision, only a lot
> > more camouflaged for obvious reasons. The game appears to be over.
> > The real results of the Florida vote will be known at a much later
> > date.
>
> <IMG ALT="Olde engraving of ship flying the pirate flag"
> SRC="u/s/satire.gift" LENGTH="'Tis three feet long" WIDTH="and two feet
> wide">
>
> After a fraught voyage around the uncharted rocky shores of the
> Pseudo-Democra Sea, the battered hulk of the U.S. Presidential Election
> limps into the New World harbour, fully rigged and skilfully manned by
> its skeleton crew.
Well, there is one good thing in this for me -- that big income tax rebate I
will be getting. Right?
Stephen Toogood
Fontana <rf...@is9.nyu.edu> writes
>On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Alan Jones wrote:
>
>> ...That political parties are involved in appointing judges and election
>> officials
>
>The worst thing is that in many states a large portion of the judiciary is
>elected, which is disgraceful. I'm not sure that a civil service
>judiciary is a better alternative to the federal-style system of judges
>appointed by elected officials for long terms.
>
>In any case, I was under the impression that the more important judges in
>the UK are indeed political appointees of sorts. Doesn't the Lord
>Chancellor, a member of the prime minister's party, write up the list of
>who gets the top judicial positions, and doesn't he take political party
>into account? Is Tony Blair's Lord Chancellor really appointing Tory
>judges?
What really does surprise informed people in the UK, as Alan was saying
in slightly different terms, is that any kind of judge could be regarded
as a political appointment. UK judges may frequently behave like old
fogeys, and their judgements may be political in the broadest (and
sociological) sense, but they do pretty well at keeping party politics
out of their public personae.
Certainly Derry Irvine is appointing Tories. Remember that the judges he
is appointing will already be judges of the next rank down, and there
would have to be a demonstrable bias in the system if no Tories were to
be promoted. But it would be seen as quite improper among the judiciary
actually to be a member of a political party at all.
Senior barristers can these days earn so much more than a judge, that
above a certain level in the profession, one only has to indicate a
willingness, and if you are of sound judgement, and presumably you will
be if you're a senior lawyer, and you are very likely to be appointed a
judge.
These days solicitors as well as barristers are being appointed to the
judiciary, but as far as I know always at the level of District Judge,
which is as junior as judge gets. However, they do get promoted, and
some are certainly at Circuit Judge level now.
>
>> ...That terms of office are fixed
>
>As I understand it, you guys can go for a maximum of 5 years before an
>election must be called. I can see the merits of greater flexibility. I
>think it's bad that we have 2-year terms for the House of Reps; as soon as
>they take office they're busy raising money for their reelection efforts.
>
In the ?1870s (someone will correct my memory) there was a reform
movement called the Chartists. Among their demands, thought outrageous
at the time by the establishment, only one has not passed into the
constitutional framework: that there be annual elections. It would, as
you have already worked out, have been an unmitigated disaster.
What might not be such a bad idea would be to have a rolling programme
of elections, so that the composition of parliament changed gradually,
members still being re-elected every five years.
--
Stephen Toogood
David
<sk...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> "David" <da...@dacha.freeuk.com> wrote in message
> news:4a2c352...@dacha.freeuk.com...
> >
> > <IMG ALT="Olde engraving of ship flying the pirate flag"
> > SRC="u/s/satire.gift" LENGTH="'Tis three feet long" WIDTH="and two
> > feet wide">
> >
> > After a fraught voyage around the uncharted rocky shores of the
> > Pseudo-Democra Sea, the battered hulk of the U.S. Presidential
> > Election limps into the New World harbour, fully rigged and
> > skilfully manned by its skeleton crew.
> Well, there is one good thing in this for me -- that big income tax
> rebate I will be getting. Right?
What you will be getting is a very rich lifestyle courtesy of the
world's poor and the health and wellbeing of future generations.
I've just checked what Old Moore's Almanac said about the US
Presidential Election. They finally achieved a fairly accurate
prediction: "The US Presidential election takes place under volatile
alignments, suggesting a fear of violence. The campaign is likely to be
bitter and the result is likely to be narrow."
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/quiz/
Tricky Teasers and Freakish Facts
Brian J Goggin
<ste...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>What really does surprise informed people in the UK, as Alan was saying
>in slightly different terms, is that any kind of judge could be regarded
>as a political appointment. UK judges may frequently behave like old
>fogeys, and their judgements may be political in the broadest (and
>sociological) sense, but they do pretty well at keeping party politics
>out of their public personae.
Yes, but there is an implicit assumption there that party politics are
the only kind of politics. There is a second assumption: that all
societal interests are represented within one or other of the (main?)
political parties, and therefore that avoiding giving preference to
one or other of those parties is the same as avoiding giving
preference to one or other societal interest group. Finally, there is
an implicit acceptance, a third assumption, especially amongst those
in the friends-of-judges classes, that judges are somehow neutral.
All of those assumptions are questionable.
[...]
> Senior barristers can these days earn so much more than a judge, that
>above a certain level in the profession, one only has to indicate a
>willingness, and if you are of sound judgement, and presumably you will
>be if you're a senior lawyer, and you are very likely to be appointed a
>judge.
[...]
Given the nature of the obnoxious little shits I was in college with,
who are now ornaments of the legal profession, the notion that lawyers
could be of sound judgement about anything other than careerism comes
as something of a surprise to me.
bjg
Alan Jones
"Stephen Toogood" <ste...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:y$AQeLAY6$N6E...@stenches.demon.co.uk...
> >......I was under the impression that the more important judges in
> >the UK are indeed political appointees of sorts. Doesn't the Lord
> >Chancellor, a member of the prime minister's party, write up the list of
> >who gets the top judicial positions, and doesn't he take political party
> >into account? Is Tony Blair's Lord Chancellor really appointing Tory
> >judges?
>
> What really does surprise informed people in the UK .... is that any kind
> of judge could be regarded as a political appointment. UK judges may
> frequently behave like old fogeys, and their judgements may be political in
> the broadest (and sociological) sense, but they do pretty well at keeping
> party politics out of their public personae.
>
> Certainly Derry Irvine is appointing Tories. Remember that the judges he
> is appointing will already be judges of the next rank down, and there
> would have to be a demonstrable bias in the system if no Tories were to
> be promoted. But it would be seen as quite improper among the judiciary
> actually to be a member of a political party at all.
Exactly so.
Having read my earlier message, an American correspondent
e-mailed me sceptically with comments including "Is there such a thing as
a 'political eunuch'?" There does seem to be a difference in political
culture in our two countries in this respect.
First, very few British people are members of a party or
even adherents to one. They like to think of themselves as independent,
open to persuasion at the time of the election. One isn't usually aware of
other people's party political affiliations, if any, though policies may be
argued passionately enough.
Then it is a long-established tradition that the officers of the Government
must keep their personal opinions to themselves and serve impartially. A new
Government " inherits" the Civil Service as it was under the former
Government, but the advice given by civil servants to the former Government
is not available to the new one - the files are sealed. A Government can
import political advisers, and pay them as civil servants, but the heads of
department and other seniors remain the career officers - Permanent
Secretaries, as the title for the top people implies. The Civil Service is
like the Army: it serves the Government of the day to the best of its
ability. A change of policy may evoke a sigh, but the new policy will be put
into effect even if it reverses the previous one: one government nationalises
industries, the next privatises, and - as we shall perhaps shortly see with
railways - another may re-nationalise.
The same is true on a smaller scale in local government - election officials,
for instance. They are just employees doing a very ordinary task in the way
prescribed by law and custom. No one knows or cares about their politics, and
I've never known the question to arise. There may be some degree of voter
fraud (for instance, impersonation) but this can't be blamed on the
officials, and could - ?will - be eliminated by a modest tightening of
procedures.
I don't mean to imply that all is well in British elections. BJG is right to
point out that many important issues are not represented in the basic
Tory-Labour British party political divide. (This may, I suppose, also be
true of the basic division in American politics.) If so, people are being
effectively disenfranchised since their convictions cannot be realised.
ObAUE This long thread may be seen as off-topic, but I think the question we
have been addressing is the meaning of the word "democracy".
Alan Jones
Matti Lamprhey
> [...]
> In the ?1870s (someone will correct my memory) there was a reform
> movement called the Chartists. Among their demands, thought outrageous
> at the time by the establishment, only one has not passed into the
> constitutional framework: that there be annual elections. It would, as
I live near Newport, S.Wales, where the Chartist movement had its big
moment in 1839.
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Chartism was a British working-class movement for parliamentary reform
named after the People's Charter, a bill drafted by the London radical
William Lovett in May 1838. It contained six demands: universal manhood
suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, annually elected
Parliaments, payment of members of Parliament, and abolition of the
property qualifications for membership. Chartism was the first movement
both working-class in character and national in scope that grew out of the
protest against the social injustices of the new industrial order in
Britain.
Matti
Brian J Goggin
wrote:
[...]
>Then it is a long-established tradition that the officers of the Government
>must keep their personal opinions to themselves and serve impartially. A new
>Government " inherits" the Civil Service as it was under the former
>Government, but the advice given by civil servants to the former Government
>is not available to the new one - the files are sealed. A Government can
>import political advisers, and pay them as civil servants, but the heads of
>department and other seniors remain the career officers - Permanent
>Secretaries, as the title for the top people implies. The Civil Service is
>like the Army: it serves the Government of the day to the best of its
>ability. A change of policy may evoke a sigh, but the new policy will be put
>into effect even if it reverses the previous one: one government nationalises
>industries, the next privatises, and - as we shall perhaps shortly see with
>railways - another may re-nationalise.
All of this is true, but it's not a complete account. Your MAFF, for
instance, remains devoted to the interests of large farmers, come
hell, high water or BSE. Each department has its client groups and its
existing programmes and a massive inertia: it is extremely difficult
for a government to make significant change. The relationships of
civil servants with their client groups may be more significant than
their relationships with political parties --- and the more senior of
them may find attractive private-sector jobs with former clients after
they've got their Ks and retired.
>The same is true on a smaller scale in local government - election officials,
>for instance. They are just employees doing a very ordinary task in the way
>prescribed by law and custom. No one knows or cares about their politics, and
>I've never known the question to arise. There may be some degree of voter
>fraud (for instance, impersonation) but this can't be blamed on the
>officials, and could - ?will - be eliminated by a modest tightening of
>procedures.
Again, though, the view is limited. One of the notable features of
certain British local authorities is the extent to which elected
members of one local authority may be employees of another local
authority. With both hats on, they have an interest in maximising
local government expenditure. And, again, some of them are remarkable
for their non-party political affiliations --- and their links to
local builders.
>I don't mean to imply that all is well in British elections. BJG is right to
>point out that many important issues are not represented in the basic
>Tory-Labour British party political divide.
I might just interject to say that I wasn't picking on the British
system: I think ours is much the same. I was really contrasting the
British and Irish systems with the American.
>(This may, I suppose, also be
>true of the basic division in American politics.) If so, people are being
>effectively disenfranchised since their convictions cannot be realised.
There does seem to be a greater agglomeration of interests in the
American political parties --- I get the impression that the R -v- D
divide covers many more issues and attitudes than does Con -v- Lab or
FF -v- FG --- and partisan feeling seems to be stronger.
>ObAUE This long thread may be seen as off-topic, but I think the question we
>have been addressing is the meaning of the word "democracy".
That and some others.
bjg
Stephen Toogood
<b...@wordwrights.ie> writes
>On Wed, 13 Dec 2000 22:56:24 +0000, Stephen Toogood
><ste...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>What really does surprise informed people in the UK, as Alan was saying
>>in slightly different terms, is that any kind of judge could be regarded
>>as a political appointment. UK judges may frequently behave like old
>>fogeys, and their judgements may be political in the broadest (and
>>sociological) sense, but they do pretty well at keeping party politics
>>out of their public personae.
>
>Yes, but there is an implicit assumption there that party politics are
>the only kind of politics.
'assumption there'? where? in what I wrote, or in the appointment
system? I assume you mean the latter, since I was careful to acknowledge
the political nature of judgements in general. There is of course
another important political dimension in access to the courts, but that
I think is outside our terms of reference.
>There is a second assumption: that all
>societal interests are represented within one or other of the (main?)
>political parties, and therefore that avoiding giving preference to
>one or other of those parties is the same as avoiding giving
>preference to one or other societal interest group.
You are of course entirely correct here.
>Finally, there is
>an implicit acceptance, a third assumption, especially amongst those
>in the friends-of-judges classes, that judges are somehow neutral.
Nobody is neutral insofar as we see the world through the filters of our
own particular background and upbringing. The particular background of
the majority of judges does, I know, make them quite unaware of how the
majority of citizens live their lives, but I still think most of them do
actually try not to be biased.
>
>All of those assumptions are questionable.
Aren't they just.
>
>[...]
>
>> Senior barristers can these days earn so much more than a judge, that
>>above a certain level in the profession, one only has to indicate a
>>willingness, and if you are of sound judgement, and presumably you will
>>be if you're a senior lawyer, and you are very likely to be appointed a
>>judge.
>
>[...]
>
>Given the nature of the obnoxious little shits I was in college with,
>who are now ornaments of the legal profession, the notion that lawyers
>could be of sound judgement about anything other than careerism comes
>as something of a surprise to me.
>
This is understandable cynicism. I ought to lay my own bias on the
table. I number two judges among my friends; just junior ones you
understand. Both of them are decent considerate men, and neither entered
the law with any view to making their fortune - it was just 'something
interesting to do'. There are more lawyers like this than you'd think;
it's just that the obnoxious little shits are the ones you notice.
As a finall point, what I'd like to know is, how the legal bods have
managed to keep fees high in an overcrowded profession, when quite the
opposite is true of engineering.
--
Stephen Toogood
Mark Barratt
"David" <da...@dacha.freeuk.com> wrote
>
> I've just checked what Old Moore's Almanac said about the US
> Presidential Election. They finally achieved a fairly accurate
> prediction: "The US Presidential election takes place under
volatile
> alignments, suggesting a fear of violence. The campaign is
likely to be
> bitter and the result is likely to be narrow."
Obaue: I would have thought that it was the margin, rather than
the result that was narrow. Does this negate your rating of Old
Moore?
Regards
Mark Barratt
R Fontana
> >(This may, I suppose, also be
> >true of the basic division in American politics.) If so, people are being
> >effectively disenfranchised since their convictions cannot be realised.
>
> There does seem to be a greater agglomeration of interests in the
> American political parties --- I get the impression that the R -v- D
> divide covers many more issues and attitudes than does Con -v- Lab or
> FF -v- FG --- and partisan feeling seems to be stronger.
Many Americans actually feel disenfranchised because their ideological
viewpoints do not really have a clear home in one of the two major
parties, and the many little parties are entirely powerless (though they
win a few local elections here and there, and Ralph Nader played some role
this time around in helping Al Gore not win the presidency, which doesn't
necessarily seem to have benefitted his Green Party supporters). I think
both Reps and Dems are dominated by people who largely share the same
world-view and views on policy (basically 'conservative' in the
anti-reformist, fearful sense) and they differ largely in the degree to
which they must respond to their different noisy but small 'extreme'
wings.
Partisan feeling is an interesting thing. There's this strange perception
that there's "too much partisanship", that we should have "bipartisan
government". Bush made this a significant theme in his campaign. It's
something that was talked about throughout the '90s. I know there are
some deep historical roots to this sort of discomfort with "factions" or
"partisanship", but one wonders if Americans would be happier with a
one-party government. A lot of the partisan "bickering" seems pretty phony
to me, a show put on for certain constituencies. Among the people, what
you seem to have are (i) people who don't care about politics, many of
whom don't vote, and (ii) people who care passionately about politics, but
you wonder why; people who have fierce loyalty to one of the two major
parties, but who seem to see, and to have an emotional need to see, the
division between these two largely centrist parties as the sharpest sort
of moral conflict, a battle between good and evil, who seem to see
something in each party that, to me, really is not quite there. I thought
Nader's candidacy was quite healthy (despite his very reactionary views on
all sorts of economic issues) because he was trying to show to the fierce
but nonprofessional Democratic party loyalists that the Democratic Party
was guilty of the same sorts of sins that were usually attributed to the
Republicans, such as the dependency on large corporate interests and the
rejection of traditional 'progressive' policy positions.
Anyway, now there is talk about the need for "healing". ObAUE, I'm just
curious about whether this word "healing" was employed in American
politics a generation or two ago. Ick!
R Fontana
I studied the Chartists a bit back in college. A very interesting
movement. Much dispute among historians about why it died out fairly
quickly, but police repression seems to have played a large role.
R Fontana
[Stephen Toogood:]
> > What really does surprise informed people in the UK .... is that any kind
> > of judge could be regarded as a political appointment. UK judges may
> > frequently behave like old fogeys, and their judgements may be political in
> > the broadest (and sociological) sense, but they do pretty well at keeping
> > party politics out of their public personae.
> >
> > Certainly Derry Irvine is appointing Tories. Remember that the judges he
> > is appointing will already be judges of the next rank down, and there
> > would have to be a demonstrable bias in the system if no Tories were to
> > be promoted. But it would be seen as quite improper among the judiciary
> > actually to be a member of a political party at all.
>
> Exactly so.
This is a major difference then. At both the state and federal levels,
where the judiciaries are quite different, someone who wants to be a judge
pretty much has to have some important connection to the political world.
At the state level he might have to be (or become) a local party hack in
order to become a trial judge, and in many states he has to run in an
election; some of the states have more sensible methods for picking
judges, especially appellate judges but even so the
most meritorious potential appellate judge will generally have some
connection to one of the major parties and this is ultimately how he or
she will get his job. The judicial elections are quite sad. Usually the
electorate knows nothing about who's running other than their party
affiliation; in New York at least it is common for there to be *one*
candidate, chosen by both parties (I suppose in some respects this is
thought to be better than to have a contested election). I've heard of
some judicial elections in the US being *hotly* contested, which leads to
such lamentable things as the candidates promising to be "tough on crime"
and so forth.
It's all thought to be fair because once the judge is
on the bench he or she is supposed to act impartially, and I'm sure some
of them try to; and because, since control of the government by one party
never lasts too long (at least in some states), you eventually are
supposed to get at least some members of the other party on the bench, and
this is thought to add to the overall fairness of the judiciary. In fact
I believe that there is much corruption among state judiciaries and that
it is directly linked to how these judges get their jobs.
The federal judiciary, which I believe is much more well-respected than
the state judiciaries, is entirely appointed. The federal judges tend to
have somewhat more elite professional backgrounds and are connected to
more powerful political figures. The Constitution has it that the
President appoints all judges, with the 'advice and consent' of the
Senate. In fact it is really the Senators from the particular state in
which a federal district lies who pick the federal trial court judges. In
any case, it goes without saying that anyone who wants to be a federal
judge has to have some sort of connection either to certain Senators or to
the current president and his friends.
> Having read my earlier message, an American correspondent
> e-mailed me sceptically with comments including "Is there such a thing as
> a 'political eunuch'?" There does seem to be a difference in political
> culture in our two countries in this respect.
>
> First, very few British people are members of a party or
> even adherents to one. They like to think of themselves as independent,
> open to persuasion at the time of the election.
This is actually now true of the American people too, but perhaps less so.
Few Americans are active members of a political party. Many more
Americans register as members of one of the parties, largely to be allowed
to vote in the often decisive primary elections (but in a growing number
of states party membership is not a requirement to vote in such
elections). Increasingly Americans identify not with one of the parties
but as "independent" voters. But people who get involved in government in
some way or another tend to be the sort of people who have some particular
preference for one of the two major parties. (I believe that federal
public employees are an important constituency for the Democratic Party.)
> One isn't usually aware of
> other people's party political affiliations, if any, though policies may be
> argued passionately enough.
In the US I believe it is largely the opposite. Ignoring the vast hordes
of apolitical and semi-apolitical people, you learn pretty quickly what a
person's political affiliations are, or at least you can guess pretty
quickly, but policies are never argued all that passionately; policies, in
fact, are a sort of embarrassment for these affiliated people. One
wonders, in fact, how sincere some of this sort of political expression
is, and how much it really resembles the decision of what sort of
hairstyle to have or what aftershave to use.
> I don't mean to imply that all is well in British elections. BJG is right to
> point out that many important issues are not represented in the basic
> Tory-Labour British party political divide. (This may, I suppose, also be
> true of the basic division in American politics.)
I think that in the US case many important issues are not effectively
represented, but I think that despite all the distortions in the political
system caused by the campaign financing system the reason for this lack of
effective representation of issues lies with the American voters
themselves. The political system is *too* responsive to the American
voter, in some respects. Ridiculous issues are given a great deal of
attention because they are popular with important narrow voting
constituencies, while much-needed reforms are ignored.
David
Mark Barratt <mark.b...@philips.com> wrote:
I do understand a "narrow result" to be idiomatic English, as is "close
result". 'Margin' also requires some leeway of understanding.
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/aureole/index.htm#origins
"DEATH accosted the frog one day in the form of a snake.
One must assume it was a hooded cobra."
Al in Dallas
>
> If the US Supreme Court goes all political and not judicial and bans
any
> further vote counting in Florida, it is almost inevitable, unless the
Court
> orders all evidence of the votes to be destroyed, that the Florida
votes
> will eventually be counted after Bush has been inaugurated, and the
results
> will show that Gore got the Florida majority.
>
> judicial entity, and how big a shadow will that cast over Bush's
presidency,
> given to him by a judicial body acting purely politically?
>
> I am hoping that the Regan appointees of the Court have a smidgeon of
> conscience and do the right thing.
>
> I have always voted Republican, except this time.
I have one question about this post. Let me start by mentioning that I
did not vote for George W. Bush. Also, my favorite court ruling was when
the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of all the under-votes in
the state. How do you justify describing one side as "goes all political
and not judicial" and "acting purely politically"?
[Apologies if this has already been asked and answered.]
--
Al in Dallas
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Al in Dallas" <far...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:91bnq1$nfc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Yes, it has been discussed, I think. Anyway, since we're talking about my
opinion, I'll say that I believe that the case was not decided on any legal
grounds. In other words, I concur with the four dissenting judges who said
that the case should not have been heard in the USSC at all. That is all
moot now.
Al in Dallas
Robert Lieblich <Robert....@verizon.net> wrote:
[snip]
> 5. I don't like Gore, and I don't like Bush. In fact, I like almost
no
> one in this whole mess -- they've all become tainted. I suppose the
> four U.S. justices in the minority get a pat on the back, and I also
> applaud the three dissenters in Florida, who at least stood on
> principle, something I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court majority will find
a
> way to do. I even think Katherine Harris got a bit of a bum rap. But
> the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought
of
> him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be,
is
> enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
> Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
>
> There are a lot of disgusted people here.
This one really puzzles me. Why are people describing James Baker as
"reptilian." Yes, he is old and wrinkled, but he looks younger than
Warren Christopher. Could it be what he says? As far as I can tell, both
of these men have stuck to presenting the facts in a one-sided manner,
not unlike a lawyer advocating a position for his client. Are people
allowing their desire for a particular outcome to color their perception
of the advocates? [IMHO, younger advocates have made unjustifiable
statements in support of their side. These two seem to have been more
careful than some of their colleagues.]
Robert Lieblich
>
> In article <3A344450...@verizon.net>,
> Robert Lieblich <Robert....@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > 5. I don't like Gore, and I don't like Bush. In fact, I like almost
> no
> > one in this whole mess -- they've all become tainted. I suppose the
> > four U.S. justices in the minority get a pat on the back, and I also
> > applaud the three dissenters in Florida, who at least stood on
> > principle, something I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court majority will find
> a
> > way to do. I even think Katherine Harris got a bit of a bum rap. But
> > the one that really makes my skin crawl is James Baker. The thought
> of
> > him as one of Dubya's major advisors, as he may well turn out to be,
> is
> > enough to make me root for Gore without regard to anything else. Cy
> > Vance may be weird looking, but at least he's not reptilian.
> >
> > There are a lot of disgusted people here.
>
> This one really puzzles me. Why are people describing James Baker as
> "reptilian." Yes, he is old and wrinkled, but he looks younger than
> Warren Christopher. Could it be what he says?
You bet it is. Not to mention the permanent semi-whine in his voice,
which I'd like to think he could overcome if he'd just put some effort
into it.
> As far as I can tell, both
> of these men have stuck to presenting the facts in a one-sided manner,
> not unlike a lawyer advocating a position for his client.
Jim Baker, an attorney, was the front man for the ridiculous proposition
that determining "the intent of the voter" require psychoanalyzing six
million Floridians. You can't get past the first month of law school
without knowing that "intent" really means, and I'll do AUEers the
credit of assuming that if they've paid any attention to the election
mess at all they've found out how the term is used in legal arguments
and opinions. This was far beyond "spin." It was such an egregious
example of intellectual dishonesty that I began watching Baker to see if
he would commit more. He didn't let me down. In calling him reptilian,
I had in mind, among other things, the snake in the Garden of Eden.
Farfetched? Yeah, I guess so. But that's what his conduct reminded me
of.
> Are people
> allowing their desire for a particular outcome to color their perception
> of the advocates? [IMHO, younger advocates have made unjustifiable
> statements in support of their side. These two seem to have been more
> careful than some of their colleagues.]
The guy you agree with is obviously more plausible, but IMO neither side
handled itself well. Bush's people wanted anything but a fair count --
hell, they'd won the last "complete" count, so why try another one, no
matter how fair? Gore's people wanted a recount that he was almost
guaranteed to win. I am not alone in observing, with the wisdom of
hindsight, that if Gore had let Harris certify on schedule and mounted a
post-certification contest asking that all ballots be hand-counted, he
might well have beaten the clock and won the election. Or not. It was
no sure thing, but it was a chance to get things right.
There's no glory in this for anyone. The best performance Gore put on
was his concession. Okay, it had its own imperfections, but THAT Al
Gore would have whupped Dubya's ass/arse.
Peter Moylan
>What might not be such a bad idea would be to have a rolling programme
>of elections, so that the composition of parliament changed gradually,
>members still being re-elected every five years.
One of the features of the Australian Senate is that Senators are
elected for two terms, so that (barring a double dissolution) we
vote for only half of the Senate at each election. This of
course tends to smooth out any short-term fluctuations in the
popularity of a political party. Another smoothing factor is that
we have ten Senators per state, giving us a rough approximation to
proportional representation.
These factors don't apply to the lower house, so it's relatively
common for a government to have a majority in the lower house but
a minority in the Senate. I gather, however, that that's also
common in many other countries.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au
Peter Moylan
>Not that car alarms serve any purpose but to annoy. I drive a ten year
>old car with well over 100,000 miles and an appearance to match. Now
>THAT's theft protection.
My last car was stolen when it was about 18 years old. I've now
moved up to a 1988 model, but that's already been broken into several
times. My fault: when a car's that new, you shouldn't leave it
parked on the street.
Luckily, the housing prices are on the way up in my area. Ten
years from now the car thieves will have been forced into another
low-rent district, and my 22-year-old car will at last be safe.
Olivers
should not be heard concurred with the majority that by ordering only a
recount of undervotes the Florida SC had grievously erred, violating the
equal treatment provision, according some votes greater value than
others, resulting in a 7-2 verdict on that portion of the case. Were
they purists, I suppose, they would have not opined, considering since
the Court shouldn't hear the case, they shouldn't even render an
opinion. Instead they said that the Floridian justices sucked eggs and
ran rabbits, simply not with reckless abandon.
Al in Dallas
Robert Lieblich <Robert....@verizon.net> wrote:
[snip]
> Jim Baker, an attorney, was the front man for the ridiculous
proposition
> that determining "the intent of the voter" require psychoanalyzing six
> million Floridians. You can't get past the first month of law school
> without knowing that "intent" really means, and I'll do AUEers the
> credit of assuming that if they've paid any attention to the election
> mess at all they've found out how the term is used in legal arguments
> and opinions. This was far beyond "spin." It was such an egregious
> example of intellectual dishonesty that I began watching Baker to see
if
> he would commit more. He didn't let me down.
I have to agree with you about the abuse of "intent," but I don't know
what you mean by "far beyond 'spin.' " I thought that phrasing things to
fool the uneducated (usually a jury) was a primary activity of lawyers.
(Or am I being too cynical?) I would appreciate some additional examples
of his intellectual dishonesty. I don't doubt you; I just want to see
how bad they seem to me.
> In calling him
reptilian,
> I had in mind, among other things, the snake in the Garden of Eden.
> Farfetched? Yeah, I guess so. But that's what his conduct reminded
me
> of.
Now I get it.
> > Are people
> > allowing their desire for a particular outcome to color their
perception
> > of the advocates? [IMHO, younger advocates have made unjustifiable
> > statements in support of their side. These two seem to have been
more
> > careful than some of their colleagues.]
>
> The guy you agree with
Umm, I thought I said that I found both Baker and Christopher to be
credible compared to their younger colleauges. So, who is the guy that I
agree with?
> The guy you agree with is obviously more plausible, but IMO neither
side
> handled itself well. Bush's people wanted anything but a fair count
--
> hell, they'd won the last "complete" count, so why try another one, no
> matter how fair?
Exactly. Bush's side had no interest in flipping a coin [IMHO, that's
exactly what recounting would have been analogious to] to determine the
outcome when they could already claim victory.
> Gore's people wanted a recount that he was almost
> guaranteed to win. I am not alone in observing, with the wisdom of
> hindsight, that if Gore had let Harris certify on schedule and mounted
a
> post-certification contest asking that all ballots be hand-counted, he
> might well have beaten the clock and won the election. Or not. It was
> no sure thing, but it was a chance to get things right.
>
> There's no glory in this for anyone. The best performance Gore put on
> was his concession. Okay, it had its own imperfections, but THAT Al
> Gore would have whupped Dubya's ass/arse.
I definitely agree with those points.
If I understood the talking heads correctly. Breyer and Souter agreed
that the recount that had been stayed was using an invalid approach but
also believed that there was time to complete a recount with "corrected"
rules before December 18th. I truly wish that the other five had
consented. Imagine, both a 7-2 decision AND a fair recount. I feel let
down by Rehnquist.
R Fontana
> If I understood the talking heads correctly. Breyer and Souter agreed
> that the recount that had been stayed was using an invalid approach but
> also believed that there was time to complete a recount with "corrected"
> rules before December 18th.
Yes, I believe that's right.
I truly wish that the other five had
> consented. Imagine, both a 7-2 decision AND a fair recount. I feel let
> down by Rehnquist.
I think if you want to blame someone it should be O'Connor and Kennedy,
who presumably wrote the "per curiam" opinion.