I love the smell of the SCOTUS in the morning!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It smells like....VICTORY!

[opebo]

It smells like....VICTORY!

Oh, what does that have to do with you, worker?

[Alcon]

I don't think that SCOTUS is the only thing you inhaled this morning.

[opebo]

I don't think that SCOTUS is the only thing you inhaled this morning.

The poor cultist freak is on various psychoactive drugs, I hear.

[The Duke]

Do you ever join a conversation, or do you only start new threads?

[Joe Republic]

Do you ever join a conversation, or do you only start new threads?

This is the first one in a while that hasn't involved his train fetish, so credit where it's due.

[angus]

It smells like....VICTORY!

I know you've been known to watch Hardball.  Did you catch it tonight?  Very insightful I thought.  He had Russert as a guest, as well as Shrum and Buchanan.  Russert, Matthews, and Buchanan, now there's a trio of self-congratulatory Bush supporters.  Sort of like a circle jerk.  Still, I found it refreshing.  What with all the anti-Bush hysteria in the mainstream press.  Buchanan's response to Shrum about returning to federalism and democracy, described as a democratic reprieve from authoritarian Left by Buchanan, caused Matthews to ask "Do you think the Bill of Rights would be passed by congress today?  I mean gun rights, religion rights, speech rights, and all the rest."  I think it's an interesting question.  Of course the subtext is:  Do you want The People, via their elected representatives in their state legislatures, making decisions.  Or do you want appointed judges making decisions.  Thus the Matthews/Buchanan position seems to be that Alito "turns back the clock"  It's just that "turning back the clock" isn't considered a good thing in all quarters.  Neither is democracy, it seems.  That is, there is a case to be made that democracy run amok can be damaging, and that the people somehow need an activist liberal judiciary to let 'em know what's what.  I'm not trying to make it here.  Just wondering whether you caught the show.

[© tweed]

I love the smell of the Senate in the morning...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

It smells like....VICTORY!

I know you've been known to watch Hardball.  Did you catch it tonight?  Very insightful I thought.  He had Russert as a guest, as well as Shrum and Buchanan.  Russert, Matthews, and Buchanan, now there's a trio of self-congratulatory Bush supporters.  Sort of like a circle jerk.  Still, I found it refreshing.  What with all the anti-Bush hysteria in the mainstream press.  Buchanan's response to Shrum about returning to federalism and democracy, described as a democratic reprieve from authoritarian Left by Buchanan, caused Matthews to ask "Do you think the Bill of Rights would be passed by congress today?  I mean gun rights, religion rights, speech rights, and all the rest."  I think it's an interesting question.  Of course the subtext is:  Do you want The People, via their elected representatives in their state legislatures, making decisions.  Or do you want appointed judges making decisions.  Thus the Matthews/Buchanan position seems to be that Alito "turns back the clock"  It's just that "turning back the clock" isn't considered a good thing in all quarters.  Neither is democracy, it seems.  That is, there is a case to be made that democracy run amok can be damaging, and that the people somehow need an activist liberal judiciary to let 'em know what's what.  I'm not trying to make it here.  Just wondering whether you caught the show.

If we had the people we have now but in 1775, we would have remained part of the British crown. "Opposing King George would be political suicide, especially in the Redcoat states, blah blah blah".

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It smells like....VICTORY!

I know you've been known to watch Hardball.  Did you catch it tonight? 

 

No, I missed it.  What time does MSNBC show its rerun of Hardball?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I love the smell of the Senate in the morning...

I always knew you were a fan of mine!

My next "victory smell" thread will go something like this:

"I love the smell of closed abortion clinics in the morning.  They smell like.....LIFE!"

[Beet]

If we had the people we have now but in 1775, we would have remained part of the British crown. "Opposing King George would be political suicide, especially in the Redcoat states, blah blah blah".

I remember seeing a blurb on TV about why "The Madness of King George" wasn't marketed as "The Madness of King George III" in the USA.  Of course the answer was that most americans would not watch it because they don't like to see sequels if they haven't seen the original.  I thought that this wasn't giving US-educated folks enough credit.  surely the average american understands enough history not to assume the "third" in the title referred to the third movie in a series.  Every post you type makes it clearer to me why so many around the world underestimate the general awareness level of americans.  Still, it's interesting you should say that.  paradoxical too, because you're not quite aware of what you're saying I suspect.

jmfcst,
2 o'clock CST I think.  kinda late.

Actually, what's most interesting about that quote is that jfern is upset about the general smarmy conservative attitude that prevails today among the chattering classes, which is a result of a 30-year conservative tide (the chattering classes, being intelligent and rational as they are, follow the tide) most remarkable for breaking an almost continuous string of progressive victories that began... in 1775.

Certainly the years 1775 to 1815 were marked by great change, which then migrated to Latin America in the 1820s. When that settled down, there was the July Revolution in France and the Reform law in Britain. Less than a decade and a half later, the revolutions of 1848 would sweep the continent, with permanent affects in France, to be followed less than a decade and a half subsequent by the triumph of nationalist movements in the U.S., Germany, Italy, Japan, etc... by the 1870s and 1880s, slavery and serfdom had been abolished, social security invented, and the franchise steadily expanding. 1886 saw the beginning of Congressional intervention in economic affairs with the passage of the interstate commerce act, 1890 with the sherman antitrust act, then at the 1900s, the progressive movement had begun, the socialists became the largest party in germany, the English aristocracy was collapsing, the dreyfus affair in france, the duma established in Russia. The 1910s saw the collapse of the old empires, germany and austria no less than china and ottoman, further expansion of the franchise; within a generation there was the red decade, the new deal, and the keynesian consensus in the west. The new left emerged in the 50s and 60s, postmodern culture went to the masses in the 70s.

And there it ended. A string of steadily progressive changes in world history which began in april 1775, the american revolution, ended almost exactly two centuries later. It has now been some 30 years, with reactionaries on the offensive the entire time. One cannot find a 30 year period between 1775 and 1975 where the cause of progress...progress as defined as the scale of policy ambition, the implicit optimism underlying such ambition... was less advanced at the end of it than at the beginning. But now we are here. Is the energy that gave birth to the american revolution and spread around the world exhausted?

Interestingly, this change over began to happen around the same time that human population growth stopped accelerating. When cheap oil stopped flowing. When we stopped believing that 2001 space odyssey could really happen in 2001. In an era of diminished expectations, perhaps humanity has lost faith in progress, lost faith in its own abilities. We are thrown back to religion, to pre-western, pre-enlightenment deism. The great rebellion that was western civilization against the ancient forces saw great glory, but, in the end, like a bell curve, is destined to fall flat. We will eat up the world's resources, destroy the climate, and begin an inevitable decline marked not by lack of energy but the ever-increasing cost of it, until, dollar by dollar, the bulk of everything that has been gained from the time of thomas newcomen has been lost.

500 years in the future, men will live on renewable energy, and america will be seen much as the medeivals saw the roman empire; the glorious peak of the species, whose spirit was born in defiance and ended in failure born of limitations. They will recognize that conservatism was not the cause but only the symptom, perhaps, of the era of diminished expectations.

[A18]

Or maybe we don't define "progress" as the erosion of human freedom.

[AuH2O]

It smells like....VICTORY!

I know you've been known to watch Hardball.  Did you catch it tonight?  Very insightful I thought.  He had Russert as a guest, as well as Shrum and Buchanan.  Russert, Matthews, and Buchanan, now there's a trio of self-congratulatory Bush supporters.  Sort of like a circle jerk.  Still, I found it refreshing.  What with all the anti-Bush hysteria in the mainstream press.  Buchanan's response to Shrum about returning to federalism and democracy, described as a democratic reprieve from authoritarian Left by Buchanan, caused Matthews to ask "Do you think the Bill of Rights would be passed by congress today?  I mean gun rights, religion rights, speech rights, and all the rest."  I think it's an interesting question.  Of course the subtext is:  Do you want The People, via their elected representatives in their state legislatures, making decisions.  Or do you want appointed judges making decisions.  Thus the Matthews/Buchanan position seems to be that Alito "turns back the clock"  It's just that "turning back the clock" isn't considered a good thing in all quarters.  Neither is democracy, it seems.  That is, there is a case to be made that democracy run amok can be damaging, and that the people somehow need an activist liberal judiciary to let 'em know what's what.  I'm not trying to make it here.  Just wondering whether you caught the show.

If we had the people we have now but in 1775, we would have remained part of the British crown. "Opposing King George would be political suicide, especially in the Redcoat states, blah blah blah".

One of jfern's better posts, I thought I would point out. Humor and a hint of truth.

Not that I oppose Alito. But if you're a Democrat, you have to wonder if getting more Senators really *will* keep everyone in line all the time. I kind of doubt it.

[Gabu]

I wasn't aware that old people in black robes smell like victory.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I wasn't aware that old people in black robes smell like victory.

You're right, Stevens still smells like a loser.

[Citizen James]

Are you saying the Supreme Court of the United States is an incindiary device which destroys all it touches?   I suppose that could be considered an arguement for extreme judicial restraint.

I wouldn't mind a bit of judicial restraint if it were actual restraint rather than a euphamism for conservatives practicing judicial activism.

But I take the long term view - the union has survived many trials and travails, and it will survive the present regression as well. 

The people of these United States are not stupid.  We are not the "sheeple" that the far left claim nor the "useful idiots" as claimed by the far right.  We are, as a people, perhaps a bit too trusting for our own good - but I believe that is because in our hearts we are a nation of optimists.  We like to believe in the general goodness of our fellow man - and when one of them betrays our principals it takes a while for the betrayal to wear in.

Whether Aillo will be another Roger Tainy only time will tell, but the union will survive.  And I suspect history will not be kind the Bush when all is said and done.  And though the lesson will be painful, it won't be nearly as painful as the one we endured almost a century and a half ago.

But you just keep sniffing the napalm.  I bet it at least clears your sinuses.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

And though the lesson will be painful, it won't be nearly as painful as the one we endured almost a century and a half ago.

I'm glad losing the SCOTUS invokes memories of the Civil War in your head.  The Republicans won that one too.

[opebo]

And though the lesson will be painful, it won't be nearly as painful as the one we endured almost a century and a half ago.

I'm glad losing the SCOTUS invokes memories of the Civil War in your head.  The Republicans won that one too.

Technically that Republican Party was analagous to the modern Democratic Party, and the South was analagous to the modern Republican Party (racist).

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Technically that Republican Party was analagous to the modern Democratic Party, and the South was analagous to the modern Republican Party (racist).

No, the GOP was always been the party standing against immorality, whether it be slavery, abortion, or gay marriage.

[opebo]

Technically that Republican Party was analagous to the modern Democratic Party, and the South was analagous to the modern Republican Party (racist).

No, the GOP was always been the party standing against immorality, whether it be slavery, abortion, or gay marriage.

There is no such thing as 'morality', simpleton.  I was only referring to the fact that Republicans are the more racist party now - though yes, as you say, they also hate the female and the gay quite strongly as well.