Needlenose

Okay ladies...burkha up!

According to SCOTUS “Justice” Scalia, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t protect women from discrimination. His fundee/wing-nut impulse to ‘divine’ the original ‘intent’ (in this case of the 14th Amendment) and ignore precedent seems more akin to Sharia law than contemporary Western Law:

Sharia judicial proceedings have significant differences with other legal traditions, including those in both common law and civil law. Sharia courts do not generally employ lawyers; plaintiffs and defendants represent themselves. Trials are conducted solely by the judge, and there is no jury system. There is no pre-trialdiscovery process, no cross-examination of witnesses, and no penalty of perjury^[101] (on the assumption that no witness would thus endanger his soul)^[102] Unlike common law, judges’ verdicts do not set binding precedents^{[103][104][105]} under the principle of stare decisis^[106] and unlike civil law, Sharia does not utilize formally codified statutes^[107] … Instead of precedents and codes, Sharia relies on medieval jurist’s manuals and collections of non-binding legal opinions, or fatwas, issued by religious scholars (ulama, particularly a mufti); these can be made binding for a particular case at the discretion of a judge.

I bet he’s sore that he doesn’t have the power to issue fatwas.  Maybe he’ll get his wish under a GOP Presidency, the last one didn’t worry about intent at all, he just ignored the Constitution altogether when it suited him.

*Update 1/5/11* Dublin Anarchist points out that by Scalia’s logic, it should be imperative to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, as the key argument against it was that women were already protected by the 14th Amendment.

No automatic citizenship for the uneducated

I actually think the Tea Baggers may be on to something with their calls to repeal the 14th Amendment.  Just because somebody is born here doesn’t mean they’d make a valuable addition to the US, right?  Here is what I’d do – when the person turns 18, I’d have them hand-letter a sign.  If the sign is misspelled or ungrammatical, the candidate is denied citizenship and deported to some random 3rd-world country.

By the same token, we should fast-track the citizenship process for immigrants with Masters and Doctorates to replace the vast swath of stupid conservatives we’d be deporting.  It’s a win-win proposition!

US Rep Nathan Deal of Georgia is the Repug Asshole du jour (there are so many, it’s so hard to pick!) with his stated desire to repeal the 14th Amendment to deny automatic citizenship to folks born on US soil.

Hey I could get behind that!  Let’s make all those Johnny Rebels south of the Mason Dixon line swear a loyalty oath to the USA or lose their citizenship.  Or maybe we should just limit citizenship to folks with a 4-year University degree!

Seriously, it’s a pretty sorry state of the Union when a dumb jackass like Deal represents anybody.