[19:31]	Yewnyx	speaking of black panthers
[19:31]	Yewnyx	http://www.vox.com/2016/2/14/10981986/black-panthers-breakfast-beyonce?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=voxdotcom&utm_content=sunday
[19:31]	Yewnyx	also, dammit, since when am I a mod here
[19:31]	Yewnyx	D:
[19:36]	Elara	since the great flustercuck of '16 Yew
[19:36]	Elara	learn to love it
[19:36]	Somecrazyguy	oh lord
[19:36]	Somecrazyguy	vox
[19:36]	Yewnyx	elaborate?
[19:36]	Somecrazyguy	yeah let's ignore the hostage situations and various other shit the black panthers got up to
[19:36]	Yewnyx	who's saying that?
[19:36]	Somecrazyguy	it's all about the free lunches
[19:36]	Yewnyx	...
[19:37]	Yewnyx	why does "let's think about X" always become "yeah let's ignore Y"
[19:37]	Somecrazyguy	When the article only talks about X
[19:37]	Somecrazyguy	without saying hey they also did Y
[19:38]	Somecrazyguy	That's my issue, Yew. It's only giving one very narrow side.
[19:38]	Yewnyx	the article is literally mentioning that Hoover said something the context for which is rarely provided
[19:38]	Somecrazyguy	Without any other context, it paints the Black Panther Party as something that was positive
[19:38]	Yewnyx	does anything that doesn't fit the common mode of thinking has to acknowledge it?
[19:38]	Yewnyx	have to*
[19:38]	Elara	varies
[19:39]	Somecrazyguy	I just don't think it's good reporting, as is.
[19:39]	Somecrazyguy	It's like talking about how the KKK was also a good place to find singles
[19:39]	Elara	I mean, I think it's fair to say that the gaming sites reporting Scalia's death as "judge that ruled on a case about video games once is dead" are failing their responsibilities
[19:39]	Somecrazyguy	without mentioning that they are an awful hate group that went after a lot of minorities
[19:39]	Elara	they don't have to go into how bad he was as a justice
[19:39]	Elara	but they should at least mention some of the other stuff he did
[19:39]	Somecrazyguy	He was a pretty awesome justice though
[19:40]	Yewnyx	...
[19:40]	Yewnyx	i'm sorry the man died but he was an incredibly racist and backwards judge dude
[19:40]	Somecrazyguy	Other than CU
[19:40]	Yewnyx	he's negatively impacted hundreds of millions of lives
[19:40]	Yewnyx	like
[19:40]	Yewnyx	seriously
[19:40]	Somecrazyguy	Racist? I'd disagree.
[19:40]	Somecrazyguy	Backwards? I'd completely disagree.
[19:41]	Somecrazyguy	Pretty serious accusation to just throw around
[19:41]	Somecrazyguy	Negatively impacted how, exactly?
[19:41]	Elara	he was on the wrong side of almost every civil rights, gay rights, healthcare etc case in front of the court
[19:41]	Elara	on frequently specious grounds
[19:42]	Somecrazyguy	right side*
[19:42]	Yewnyx	dude
[19:44]	Yewnyx	he was anti-gay, at least
[19:44]	Yewnyx	at the least
[19:44]	Somecrazyguy	Anti-Gay marriage
[19:44]	Somecrazyguy	iirc
[19:45]	Somecrazyguy	I don't think that's the same thing as anti-gay
[19:45]	Elara	he was in favour of anti-sodomy laws
[19:45]	Elara	i.e. locking people up for having gay sex
[19:45]	Yewnyx	"If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of [legendary former Chief
[19:45]	Yewnyx	 Justice] John Marshall and [former Justice] Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie." -- Antonin Scalia
[19:46]	Yewnyx	"Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct…. [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the
[19:46]	Yewnyx	 democratic rules of engagement are observed.
[19:46]	Yewnyx	So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously ‘mainstream’; that in most States what the Court calls ‘discrimination’ against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal." -- Antonin Scalia
[19:46]	Yewnyx	he was anti-gay
[19:47]	Yewnyx	not just anti-gay-marriage
[19:47]	Somecrazyguy	Ah, fair enough.
[19:47]	Somecrazyguy	Little bit far, on that spectrum.
[19:47]	Elara	amusingly, there's a blog I read occasionally which lists things like Pride events under a heading "The Gay Agenda"
[19:47]	Somecrazyguy	But he isn't exactly wrong about the constitution
[19:48]	Yewnyx	he was a strict construcitonist when it served him and flexible to the extreme when it didn't
[19:49]	Somecrazyguy	Sounds like every justice ever
[19:49]	Yewnyx	not really
[19:49]	Elara	Scalia struck me as more disingenuous about it than any of the other conservatives on the current Court
[19:50]	Yewnyx	the supreme court justices are literally empowered by the constitution to decide matters of constitutionality
[19:50]	Elara	obviously I'm not going to assess him vs the liberal justices fairly
[19:50]	Yewnyx	^ to the disingenuous line
[19:50]	Somecrazyguy	It's literally impossible to be a strict constitutionist to the letter
[19:51]	Yewnyx	also unwise
[19:51]	Somecrazyguy	Unless you want to say that only white people should become citizens, which we all disagree with
[19:51]	Yewnyx	indeed
[19:51]	Elara	but out of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, the others seem to me to be arguing more based on what they actually believe to be true, where Scalia would write opinions that were politically convenient
[19:51]	Somecrazyguy	I'll concede that the anti-gay agenda was fucked
[19:52]	Yewnyx	he was morally against homosexuality
[19:52]	Elara	certainly when I was following stuff like Windsor, and the healthcare cases
[19:52]	Somecrazyguy	I literally just conceded that yew
[19:52]	Yewnyx	he wasn't just anti-gay agenda
[19:52]	Yewnyx	he was anti-gay people
[19:52]	Somecrazyguy	He had an anti-gay agenda
[19:52]	Somecrazyguy	is what I meant
[19:52]	Yewnyx	k
[19:52]	Yewnyx	fair enough
[19:53]	Somecrazyguy	But other than that, and CU, I don't see much wrong
[19:53]	Somecrazyguy	And he was frequently overruled when it came to gay rights, iirc
[19:53]	Somecrazyguy	The SCotUS should have members at opposite extremes, and moderates as well.
[19:54]	Elara	problem is lately SCOTUS has had 4 liberals, 4 conservatives, and Kennedy in the middle
[19:54]	Yewnyx	the scotus is the last place i want to be subject to the overton window
[19:54]	Elara	the reason for having more than 1 justice is so it's not all on the whims of one man
[19:55]	Elara	so there's a bit of a problem when he's the deciding vote on almost everything
[19:55]	Yewnyx	The court should be composed of nominations reflecting the legacy of lawfully elected leaders
[19:55]	Somecrazyguy	Yeah but now there's gonna be 5 liberals 3 conservatives and kennedy
[19:55]	Somecrazyguy	which is an issue as well
[19:55]	Yewnyx	i.e. the nominations should happen when they happen
[19:55]	Yewnyx	yeah the american people elected Obama, deal with it
[19:55]	Somecrazyguy	They also elected the republican majority congress
[19:55]	Somecrazyguy	so deal with that when they block every entry
[19:56]	Yewnyx	we've had a scotus that's more right than left for a long time
[19:56]	Elara	that's just obstructionist SCG
[19:56]	Somecrazyguy	Obstructionism is literally part of the system
[19:56]	Elara	the Senate is meant to consider nominations the president sends them
[19:56]	Yewnyx	no, it's not
[19:56]	Yewnyx	it's a safeguard, not a tool
[19:56]	Somecrazyguy	What is a filibuster
[19:56]	Yewnyx	depends on when you ask
[19:56]	Elara	yeah, if Obama picked himself, they should chuck that out
[19:56]	Yewnyx	before ~2000s it was a good safeguard
[19:56]	Yewnyx	then the 60 vote cloture requirement kind of threw things off
[19:56]	Elara	but they should hold hearings and then an up-down vote on any nomination he sends
[19:57]	Yewnyx	medicare (not obamacare, original medicare) was barely passed even way back when
[19:57]	Somecrazyguy	I honestly take issue with the president himself being the one to choose
[19:57]	Somecrazyguy	Rather than, for example, the whole of the house, with the president able to veto
[19:57]	Yewnyx	a lot of really influential and actually positive gov't programs haven't passed with huge margins
[19:57]	Yewnyx	so votes have gotten polarized to the point that you can say that no, letting the senate obstruct is not normal
[19:57]	Somecrazyguy	lol who would confused medicare and obamacare (reagancare)
[19:58]	Yewnyx	you mean eisenhower
[19:58]	Yewnyx	what the fuuuuuuuck
[19:58]	Elara	nah because SCG the whole point is having the executive pick the judiciary, and the legislature getting to approve or disapprove it
[19:58]	Somecrazyguy	Really?
[19:58]	Somecrazyguy	I could have sworn Reagan put it forward as well
[19:58]	Elara	if the legislature picks the judges that's too closely entangled
[19:58]	Yewnyx	Eisenhower and LBJ
[19:58]	Somecrazyguy	Huh
[19:58]	Somecrazyguy	TIL
[19:59]	Yewnyx	Elara: wait, aren't you a brit?
[19:59]	Somecrazyguy	Could have sworn Obamacare was based on EMTALA
[20:00]	Yewnyx	*shrug*
[20:00]	Elara	yeah Yew, I am
[20:00]	Elara	why?
[20:00]	Somecrazyguy	Honestly, medicaid and social security are two of the best programs that have been put out
[20:01]	Somecrazyguy	Along with food stamps
[20:01]	Yewnyx	Elara: I consistently forget that the rest of the world thinks about the American system
[20:01]	Somecrazyguy	@Yew the American government has a huge sphere of influence
[20:01]	Yewnyx	of course it does
[20:01]	Elara	heh. you're big, you speak English, you yell at each other a lot
[20:02]	Somecrazyguy	It helps when you control both Atlantic and Pacific trade
[20:02]	Somecrazyguy
[20:02]	Elara	also, speaking as a political nerd, the American system is so fascinatingly arcane it's unreal
[20:02]	Yewnyx	yeah
[20:02]	Somecrazyguy	I actually agree
[20:03]	Somecrazyguy	The whole damn thing needs a restructure
[20:03]	Somecrazyguy	But it won't ever happen
[20:03]	Yewnyx	i think that one thing we might agree on is that we need leaders that exist outside the entrenched power structure
[20:03]	Yewnyx	though we disagree wildly on who
[20:04]	Somecrazyguy	Of course we do
[20:04]	Somecrazyguy	We want wildly different forms of government
[20:04]	Elara	you guys need a Parliamentary system, tbh
[20:04]	Somecrazyguy	please god no
[20:04]	Yewnyx	what's wrong with the parliamentary system?
[20:05]	Yewnyx	(genuinely asking for clarification)
[20:05]	Somecrazyguy	It's boils down to 'congress has a lot more power'
[20:05]	Somecrazyguy	And I trust them 0.0%
[20:05]	Somecrazyguy	to do the right thing