Why * used Dred Scott

[edhopper]

Even though he completely misrepresented what the Dred Scott decision was, he used it for a reason.
It is the Supreme Court ruling used by the anti-abortion crowd to show how the Court can be very wrong. If they were wrong to say slavery was constitutional in 1857 (Legally speaking, it was) then Roe v Wade can also be seen as a mistake and not be the law of the land.
He was speaking to his base, not answering about judicial appointments.

[Goldmund]

1. Good catch

I agree.

[Claire Beth]

2. exactly!

[onebigbadwulf]

3. The historical irony....

is that slavery was supported by right-wing christian nuts and not supported by left-wing free-thinking liberals.

To parallel his stance on black civil rights, he would also have to change his other stances to pro-life and pro-gay marriage.

[Still_Loves_John]

17. Actually

lots of leading abolitionists were driven by religious convictions. Just to be fair.

[Bandit]

4. They can be wrong about overruling a State Supreme Court

on State law as well. The 2000 decision which for the one and only time in the history of the United States is not supposed to be used as precedent. That is the entire purpose of the Supreme court, Establish Precedent. when they said that decision could never be used to establish precedent they as much admitted it was not a worthy decision.

[TheFarseer]

5. Then he urinates all over Kerry's position

He asks if that was confusing enough for ya' or whatever after Kerry was done talking about abortion. It's pretty simple if you're paying attention and you have any idea what separation of church and state means - which this administration does not. Kerry's position is my exact position on this one.

I think it really demonstrated how Kerry can live and let live and bush has to have his own little psychotic way on everything.

[still_one]

6. and it went right over his bases heads

bush only appealed to his base last night, while Kerry reached out to everyone

THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE, and that is why within three days, the undecided voters will vote for Kerry

[Seeking Serenity]

7. DH's Constitutional Law professor said that Roe v. Wade

and Dred Scott were similar in that the Supreme Court was trying to federalize, constitutionalize issues that were rending the country politically. The thinking is, the (very liberal) prof said was that if the Court would put each issue under the rubric of the Constitution, the political debate over the issues that were dividing the country would end.

Didn't work, did it?

Now, I don't believe that Shrubby is sophisticated enough by half to come up with that kind of argument. I thought I'd just throw that out for DU consumption, since we are on the Dred Scott topic.

[patrice]

8. His handlers told him to use phrases that African Americans will recognize

Karl Rove - that's why.

[donco6]

9. I have a different idea on that . . .

. . . I think it was the only Supreme Court decision he could think of as an example - his HS civics class came back to his addled brain.

[oly]

10. I see your point on this, but I thought at the time that Bush

was speaking to the neo-confederates that think that DS was decided corectly and that the wrong side won the Civil War -- that part of the Repug party.

[edhopper]

11. I think he was coached on this one

(Well he was coached on everything). But he used Dred Scott because the anti-abortionist talk of it. It isn't over their heads, they know it well.
His point would have been better made with Plessy v Ferguson. But his folks like the idea of "separate but equal".

[oly]

12. Ok, you're right. My excuse, I watched at a cascino in Vegas.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. First of all, I don't believe that * heard of Dred Scott until lunchtime

yesterday, courtesy of Prof. Rove.

Second, Dred Scott is possibly the worst decision the Supreme Court has ever rendered, with first and second runners up to Komatsu (Japanese internment) and Buck v. Bell (state-sponsored sterilization of the public). * wanted to show that he's not THAT dumb.

Third, like it or not, the Dred Scott decision was based on a statute (states rights) and the analysis was done on a constructionist basis (like the way Scalia and Thomas do it: they read and don't go any further with interpretation). If the decision were to have invalidated the statute, then there would have been the accusation of judges legislating from the Bench. Sound familiar? The more things change . . .

I just think that the allusion to Dred Scott was irrelevant. * would have been better off fudging by lying about appointing moderates.

[Gman]

14. The Right Wing feels Marbury v Madison was decided wrong

(of course, they have to have a starting point for all their bitching). I think that is the whole point. A play to not just the fundies, but the entire RW.

[Orangepeel]

15. there are two right wing arguments against Roe. Bush was trying for both

I don't buy either of these arguments, and they are totally contradictory, but this is what they are, as I understand them:

One "argument" against Roe is the strict constructionist view. That is, states have the right to ban abortion because the constitution doesn't explicitly say they can't. The 4th Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, but doesn't provide rights to privacy beyond that (hence the "strict constructionist"). So, states can't ban unreasonable search of your uterus, but they can ban abortion.

The second argument is that a fetus is a person, with the rights of a person even if the law doesn't recognize it (like black people should have been recognized). They compare Roe to Dred Scot (as another faulty SCOTUS decision) because they are trying to compare fetuses to black people in the way that the law doesn't recognize citizenship.

Bush, in playing to the base, was doing an ineffective job of trying to use both arguments at once.

[gratuitous]

16. It's possible you're right

But I don't think his base is in any position, intellectually speaking, to connect those dots. Remember, this is the crowd that believes the nonexistence of WMDs in Iraq justifies the invasion.

In any event, it was piss-poor point, stupidly made by a buffoon.

[WoodrowFan]

18. It's code

It's code for the anti-choice crowd. I've had several toss Dred Scott at me as proof that the SCOTUS has made poor decisions in the past.

[TahitiNut]

19. It was the MISSOURI Supreme Court's decision that the USSC upheld.

The Smirking Fascist was in Missouri and this was "paying his respect."

In its 1857 decision that stunned the nation, the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. All of this was the result of an April 1846 action when Dred Scott innocently made his mark with an "X," signing his petition in a pro forma freedom suit, initiated under Missouri law, to sue for freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. Desiring freedom, his case instead became the lightning rod for sectional bitterness and hostility that was only resolved by war.

Initially, Scott's case for freedom was routine and relatively insignificant, like hundreds of others that passed through the St. Louis Circuit Court. The cases were allowed because a Missouri statute stated that any person, black or white, held in wrongful enslavement could sue for freedom. The petition that Dred Scott signed indicated the reasons he felt he was entitled to freedom. Scott's owner, Dr. John Emerson, was a United States Army surgeon who traveled to various military posts in the free state of Illinois and the free Wisconsin Territory. Dred Scott traveled with him and, therefore, resided in areas where slavery was outlawed. Because of Missouri's long-standing "once free, always free" judicial standard in determining freedom suits, slaves who were taken to such areas were freed-even if they returned to the slave state of Missouri. Once the bonds of slavery were broken, they did not reattach.

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/scott/scott.asp

[Aristus]

20. Wouldn't Plessy vs. Ferguson been a better example to use?

Or is it because more people know and respond to the name Dred Scott?

[TahitiNut]

23. Much of his base agrees with Ferguson.

As the USSC did in ruling against Homer Plessy. After all, Homer was 1/8th black, so he was obviously required to ride in the "separate and equal" railway car designated for those whose blood was "polluted." Justice John Harlan was a 'demon lihbrul' for a century for "polluting" the USSC with his lone dissension. :eyes:

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

21. What a "fastle" argument!

;)

[calimary]

22. Man, GREAT stuff. GREAT research. GREAT fact-finding and analysis!

My husband and I both assumed that it was something random that he pulled out of the hat to prove that he actually had heard of it, to make himself sound smarter than he is. But all this makes sense, too. Especially since it's certainly true that he speaks in code to his Bible-thumper followers, using references, phrases, and buzz-words that are designed to aim directly at them.

[Hephaistos]

24. He confused him with Judge Dredd

his *other* favorite political philosopher