More originalist stuff

This piece by Randy Barnett needs to be included.

Alito on Jurisprudence

Here it is.

Plagiarism

People who know me know how I despise a certain History professor. One of his big things was the evil of plagiarism. I always thought it was kind of a crock, the kind of thing that Ivory Tower elites get up in arms about but nobody else really gives a damn. This was cemented for me when Stephen Ambrose was accused of plagiarism. Here is a great chapter of a book by Glenn Reynolds that explains my thinking on most plagiarism claims.

 

My favorite quotes:  "It is bad enough when philosophy departments focus on linguistic rules rather than ethics, or when teaching students how to write a research paper has devolved into teaching footnoting at the expense of the quality of students’ arguments. Outside the academic realm, the effects are worse still. When politicians are talking about gimmicks, they are not talking about substantive issues. And politicianspeak doesn't just put voters to sleep: it causes them to disengage from the political process, leaving things all the more open to control by special interest groups whose selfishness provides them enough reason to stay awake."

 

And: "  As Lindey notes, in parallelism cases, "the technique for the presentation of findings is fairly standard. . . . You take excerpts from the supposedly offending work, and corresponding ones from the alleged source, and you put them one below the other, or -- more effective still -- side by side. You see to it that both the selection and the arrangement underscore the resemblances. You make no mention of any differences unless you have to." This is, of course, exactly what the Stewart/Feder plagiarism computer was programmed to do. The problem, however, is that "[t]he technique makes a weak case look strong" because "[m]ost parallels rest on the assumption that if two successive things are similar, the second one was copied from the first. This assumption disregards all the other possible causes of similarity."

Arguments on Feminism

Jeff Goldstein moderates.

This is sick

This story reveals what a bunch of assholes sit in Congress. Corruption in politics? How about "it's corrupt to restrain people from making political speech, as it inherent benefits the incumbents, not to mention being violative of the First Amendment." Those bastards think that the dummies on the Web may "get around" their carefully crafted monstrosity of a free-speech killer, MaCain-Feingold (and similar legislation). So, basically I can say Christopher Shays is a rat bastard now, but once 60 days before the election arrives, that sentence means I'm contributing money to his opponent. Bastards.

Well Explained

 However, I hope he does not make tomorrow (as he suggests he might) what I believe to be the flawed argument that, because elderly or sterile opposite-sex couples are allowed to marry (or more broadly, because procreation is not made an absolute prerequisite to opposite-sex marriage), the purpose of marriage cannot reasonably be viewed as fostering procreation.

As Dale knows, all laws are to some extent over- or under-inclusive. A law designed to encourage (or discourage) behavior A may in practice reward (or punish) people who do not engage in A (or reward/punish those who engage in A only occasionally just as much as those who engage in A regularly). Similarly, the law may reward/punish some people who NEVER engage in A, or it may result in some combination of the above (i.e., rewarding/punishing less than all of those who engage in A while simultaneously rewarding/punishing some who do not).

This kind of imperfection is simply an unavoidable feature of law, and of all human endeavors, and it seems to me entirely unconvincing to point to the mere existence of some over- or under-inclusiveness respecting behavior A as “proof” that the statute cannot have had the purpose (or cannot have the effect) of encouraging/discouraging A.

Most of us would agree that the purpose (and, we hope, effect) of speed limits is to promote automotive safety. Nonetheless, few would deny that there are some drivers who regularly exceed the speed limit without incident. Similarly, most would admit that some drivers who do not exceed the speed limit (like those who drive 35 mph on the freeway or who simply drive badly although observing the speed limit) pose a safety risk. Yet, most of us would consider it silly to point to the safe drivers who regularly exceed the speed limit or the unsafe ones who drive below it as “proof” that speed limit laws have nothing to do with highway safety.

This one's a keeper

This post on QandO explains exactly my trouble with all the crap coming down from the Left about judges and the Supreme Court. I don't understand people who hold all those contradictory beliefs. Like my dad says, all they care about it power, and how to keep it.

Edit: I guess this looks a little silly, now, doesn't it?

People who live in an alternate reality

This guy does. I wonder why he reads Althouse.  Seems a little weird. Anyway, I don't know how to communicate with people like that because his reaction to Harry Reid is so different to mine that I wonder if we're even seeing the same thing. I despise Harry Reid. And the thing he, and our friend, said about Alito are so false and screaming, it gives me a headache just to read it. How often can they cry wolf? Sheesh. I understand that in their world, all conservatives are extremists, and that a conservative becomes a dangerous extremist when he's nominated for a position of influence, but, Come ON.

 

Oh, and Althouse's point was that if Democrats treat ALL conservative jurists as "EXTREMISTS!!!!!!" just because they are conservative, it will necessarily force presidents to nominate someone without a paper trail. When any sort of paper trail leads to EXTREMISTS!!!!!!!!!!, it's hard not to want to avoid that kind of asininity.