Obama, during a soon-to-be-forgotten controversy, said that Republicans take pride in being ignorant.
Here’s a relatively minor example that illustrates the point: During the saddleback forum (EconomistMom posted the relevant part of the transcript), McCain said:
My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue…
(LAUGHTER)
… but the point is, it was $3 million of your money. It was your money. And, you know, we laugh about it, but we cry – and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars.
This is a argument McCain has reused year after year — it’s part of his stump speech.
So what is McCain talking about? The funding (which was actually $5 million, spread out over several years) was for a project that measures the population of grizzly bears by conducting DNA tests on grizzly hair.
“The main question we’re trying to answer is how many grizzly bears are now in the NCDE,” says Kate Kendall, who coordinates the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. A U.S. Geological Service research biologist stationed at Glacier National Park, Kendall explains that wildlife managers can’t effectively protect, control, restore, or otherwise manage grizzly bears or other wildlife population unless they first know how many animals exist and whether the population is increasing or decreasing. […]
An accurate number of NCDE grizzlies has eluded biologists for decades. Comprising Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, Great Bear, and Mission Mountains wildernesses, the ecosystem is one of the wildest and most inaccessible in the contiguous United States. Moreover, grizzly bears are among the most difficult animals to count. For decades, biologists thought a reliable population estimate of these secretive bears in the NCDE would be impossible to obtain.
Then came DNA hair follicle sampling. By snagging the hair of bears visiting lure stations or using rub trees, researchers can now identify individual animals and accurately estimate population size with the same DNA technology police use to solve crimes.
“In addition to being quick and relatively inexpensive, one major advantage of DNA analysis is that we don’t have to trap, tranquilize, collar, and otherwise handle bears,” says Kendall. “In fact, there’s really no interaction between bears and people.”
The project involves nearly 5,000 stations, some of them as much as 50 miles from the nearest road. Each station needs to be set up by trained technicians (among other things, you need someone who won’t get in trouble with bears despite wandering around in the woods with big bottles of extremely effective bear bait — the project has so far had nearly 100 bear sightings but zero bear-related injuries). The bear fur samples also need to be collected and the stations sterilized and reset for the next bear, and eventually dismantled. Each sample needs to be tracked (they use bar codes), packed, shipped, identified by DNA, and then the data needs to be interpreted.
First of all, let me just say: Damn, that’s really cool.
It’s a clever and innovative solution to a measurement problem that scientists recently thought impossible to solve. And without it, we can’t be certain if the grizzly bear population is going up or going down — which is important, because federal law requires the government to protect endangered species, and that can’t be done without good data.
Here’s some questions I’d like to see McCain asked:
1) On dozens of occasions, including just last week, you’ve cited the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project as a prime example of wasteful government spending. Can you tell us what the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project’s purpose is?
2) Are you opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears to make sure they don’t go extinct? Are you opposed to protecting endangered species?
3) If you’re not opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears, then what less expensive but equally effective means do you propose?
4) Why did you vote for a program that you’ve cited dozens of times as an example of useless government pork?
It’s possible Senator McCain voted for the program because he knows it’s a good program and a responsible use of taxpayer money. But Candidate McCain is so lacking substance — and so certain that the way into Republican hearts is through aggressive ignorance and mockery of good science — that he might discredit a program he knows is valuable in order to advance his anti-government, anti-science campaign. What matters to an empty shirt like McCain isn’t substance, and certainly not good science; the only thing that matters is votes.
Alternatively, McCain is such an ignoramus that he thinks the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project really is a bad idea. Finally, it’s possible that he’s been speaking against it for years, on dozens of occasions, without even knowing what the project does.
(See also: Scientific American, The New York Times.)
It’s a valid point against McCain.
As someone who has degrees in Biology and Biochemistry, I am in general sick and tired of politicians who pick out and ridicule expenditures on scientific studies that are in fact being conducted for entirely valid reasons. It’s either cynical exploitation of the general scientific ignorance of the Americna public for crass partisan purposes, or it’s evidence of appalling scientific ignorance among the candidate’s staff. I wonder if either McCain or Obama have any legitimate scientific advisors and if they have any role in vetting such things.
As a libertarian, aren’t you opposed to government spending on science and, well, anything?
Since when have I ever self-identified as a Libertarian?
I thought you did – with a small ‘l’.
Or maybe that was Brandon Berg – you non-lefties all look the same to me. :-)
IIRC I haven’t self-identified to any party or to any specific political/philosophical classification.
I do think there’s a need for government. I think that the founders of this country got it pretty damn close to right. I think that if people want to change the Constitution it should be done by the rules as laid out in Article V and not by a majority vote of the Supreme Court.
As far as spending government money for science goes – well, that money helped support both me and my research while I got my M.S. in Biochemistry. But I have to say that it’s proven to be a good idea. Governmental support of basic research has supported all sorts of endeavors in this country. In the end it has been our intellectual capital that has kept the U.S. in it’s foremost position in the world.
What was this a swipe at?
Nothing directly related to this thread – just a general observation.
Right. I mean specifically.
Was there a case where the Supreme Court changed the constitution?
—Myca
i’m not RonF, but i could point to the several cases that have rendered the interstate commerce clause meaningless. (it’s my own favorite hobby horse, that clause.)
when the constitution says congress may “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states”, and the supreme court interprets that to cover regulation of produce raised in one state and given away at no charge to end users within that same state, then it’s very hard for me to not think the supreme court is changing the constitution. with the blessing and at the initiative of congress, true, but still not in accordance with article V.
Oh, so you mean that they’ve made a different interpretation of the Constitution than the one you favor? That’s weak.
I thought you were referring to a situation where they’d actually changed the constitution, as RonF said. As in: The constitution used to say one thing and now says another.
—Myca
Or even a different interpretation of the plain clear text. When the USSC reinterprets the constitution it IS, in effect, changing the constitution. Another case in point: Kelo. Changing “public use” to “public benefit” effectively changed the constitution (at least until some non-activist judges reinterpret it the correct way using the actual text of the constitution and not what they wanted it to say or their intended effect.)
Another case in point: McCain- Feingold. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
What part of “Congress shall make no law” gives the slightest bit of leeway for congress to make a law (McCain-Feingold) that abridges freedom of speech. It doesn’t say “Congress shall make no law unless there is a compelling need to do so.”
I don’t have a problem (well, usually) with legitimate interpretations of ambiguous clauses, laws, etc. Using the above example, determining whether campaign contributions, etc. are “speech” could legitimately be considered, though I might disagree with the interpretation. But when the constitution says “X” and they interpret it as “not X”, or “X except in this case”, or “Kinda X” its just wrong and undermines our democracy. We have the legitimate means to change our constitution if we need to change it that doesn’t depend on the mood of some unelected, unaccountable robed lord.
Larry, do you oppose laws against slander and libel?
How about laws punishing advertisers or con men for false claims?
How about laws banning child pornography?
I predicted that would be the answer from, if not RonF, the folks on the right. They somehow don’t understand that it’s the SCOTUS responsibility to interpret the constitution. They also don’t seem to understand that they can disagree (even vehemently, even with good sound arguments to support their point) with a SCOTUS ruling without that meaning that SCOTUS has “changed the constitution.”
There are a multitude of SCOTUS rulings (interpretations) with which I vehemently disagree. I believe a noticeable percentage of those decisions with which I disagree were made in bad faith/inconsistency with prior rulings of those same justices. Yet, I have never, even for a moment, thought that the court has “changed the constitution.”
But I’m certainly going to change the way that I address rulings from the SCOTUS with which I disagree. I’m going to start saying that those rulings have changed the constitution. I’m going to start w/ Bush v Gore.
Here’s a bit of obscure trivia – the Supreme Court is constitutionally prohibited from changing the constitution.
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if “interpreting” the giving away of material which never crosses state lines as being “interstate commerce” does not yet count as “changing” the constitution, what ever possibly could?
if “interpreting” the giving away of material which never crosses state lines as being “interstate commerce” does not yet count as “changing” the constitution, what ever possibly could?
Actually changing the constitution counts as changing the constitution. You are arguing that the SCOTUS ruling is an atrociously bad interpretation, but you haven’t provided any proof nor any argument that the ruling changed the constitution.
Really, SCOTUS has the job of interpreting the constitution. To then accuse them of changing the constitution because they did their job, no matter how awful a particular decision may be, would seem to render the concept of the court into nothingness. If SCOTUS isn’t permitted to interpret the constitution, why should it exist at all? Just leave that to the lower courts or a popular vote.
Myca, Jake: what would you two say the constitution is for?
me, i think it’s there to help shape our society, largely if not only by limiting what government may do and what laws congress may pass. maybe i’m wrong. if you think so, please convince me.
as such, juridical “interpretations” that end up reshaping our society by dramatically changing the limits of what laws may be passed or what congress may do counts to me as “changing the constitution”, because they interfere directly with the purpose of the constitution, and end up having effects that constitutional amendments were supposed to be necessary to create.
i guess i’m feeling a little like Larry Lessig before SCOTUS must have felt, arguing that congress introducing a perpetual copyright on the installment plan by simply lengthening the terms of existing copyrights whenever Mickey Mouse was about to go public domain should not be constitutional. how is that “limited times”, he asked. how, i ask, is what Raich and Kelo accomplished mere “interpretation”? what are the limits of “interpretation”, and what is not included within them that we might instead refer to as “changing”?
maybe that’s an unfortunate simile. Lessig lost, after all, in another travesty that i consider to be unconstitutionally changing the constitution. Mickey will never enter the public domain, said the supremes in effect, because congress is free to give Disney another fifty years of copyright whenever the last fifty are up — forever. this too, i must presume, you would call “interpretation”?
i ask again: what wouldn’t you consider to be mere “interpretation”? what, if anything, would you consider to ever actually change the constitution?
what are the limits of “interpretation”…
As far as I’m aware, there are no limits on the Supreme Court’s ability to interpret the constitution. By it’s definition, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what is and is not constitutional. If we’re unhappy with that (and, generally, we’re not), we are free to define the limits of the Supreme Court’s ability to interpret by amending the constitution.
Throughout the history of the US, the Supreme Court has returned rulings that were viewed as exceptionally good and rulings that were viewed as exceptionally bad. But it has plowed along satisfactorally enough that, so far, the country has found no need to limit its powers or to change its mandate.
If I were to make one change to the Supreme Court, it would be to limit the term of each Justice to, say, 10 years. They could be reappointed for another 10 year term, though.
Although I’m sure there is a better model for dealing with constitutional questions, I’ve never seen one. What change(s) would you suggest?
Asked and answered, counselor.
You know, through constitutional amendments and the like.
Q: What’s the difference?
A: The difference is that a later court may well disagree with a certain interpretation and reverse an earlier decision, but a change either actually alters or clarifies the plain text of the constitution.
Q: Why do I care enough to make a distinction?
A: Because the right refers to any decision they dislike as ‘changing the constitution’. It’s bullshit, it’s dishonest, it’s verbal slight-of-hand, and there’s no reason to let them get away with it.
Argue against interpretations you dislike. That’s fine! Hell, I’m not well-versed in the interstate commerce clause, and I don’t really have a dog in the fight one way or another … but right-wing hucksters refer to the courts as changing the constitution each time they rule in favor of gay rights too.
Because it’s an interpretation they dislike.
And that’s bullshit.
—Myca
and how shall we stop the court from interpreting our amendment to mean they can do just as they please? by your standards, there ought not to be any checks and balances on the power of the judiciary. this is not wise.
here’s my suggestion for how to deal with the matter: congress may, with a sufficient majority, dismiss any given supreme court justice — or the court in toto, if they please. a vote of no confidence of the legislature against the judiciary, if you wish. the justice(s) so dismissed may never serve on the supreme court again, and are to be replaced by appointment in the usual way as soon as the executive can manage to find nominees. the people may petition congress for such a vote of dismissal somehow; perhaps by voter initiative.
of course, this would likely need a constitutional amendment to be enacted. and if we are to take you at face value, we’d also have to arrange for the immediate dismissal of the current court, just to make sure that amendment would mean anything. i’d campaign and vote for such a proposed amendment, though — happily.
of course, the best option of all would be if the supremes understood that regular people (us who have to live with the laws they make) normally understand the word “interpretation” to be different from, and lesser in scope, than the word “change”, and stuck to actually interpreting the law. not interpreting black to white and reading the words to mean entirely new things. i know judges can spot this difference; Kozinski has pointed it out once or twice, including in that famous second amendment dissent of his from a few years back. but apparently that’s a horribly “right wing” sentiment these days…
Amp.
Similar to what I wrote above, those all fall under interpreting what is “speech”, or rather what is “protected speech.” Just like the tired example of yelling fire in a…. In Kelo, campaign contributions are recognized as protected polical speech and covered under first amendment. With that being the case, the first five words of the 1st amendment leave no room for deviation.
J.S.
When people refer to them changing the constitution they don’t believe they applied white-out to the physical document and over wrote it with a pen. They mean that the meaning has changed. Effectively, the constitution is currently what ever the USSC says it is. If the USSC decides next year that there is a “compelling interest” for all government run schools to require children to say the lords prayer every day then guess what, its going to happen no matter what the actual text of the constitution says.
If they decide that the 4th amendment means that all searches and seizures are reasonable, then from that point the 4th amendment means that you have no right privacy from the government.
They just decided, by only one vote, that the 2nd amendment means you have an individual right to a firearm. Had they decided the other way, it would have effectively and radically changed the constitution as understood by probably the vast majority of Americans throughout American history.
One more example: We have a contract that says I will buy X widgets per month from you at $1.00 per widget for the next five years. Two years into the deal I decide to reinterpret the contract so that $1.00 actually means 90 cents per widget when taking into account my increased expenses. If there were no higher authority to enforce the original deal, couldn’t it be said that I de facto changed the contract?
Myca
Over-simplistic bullshit. There are many decisions (most, in fact) I disagree with that don’t rise to the level of “changing the constitution.” Nuance is hard.
Jake’s right. They’ve never changed the constitution. But, at some point “not change but interpretation” becomes a distinction without difference.
But, at some point “not change but interpretation” becomes a distinction without difference.
I really don’t think so. Look at Myca’s comment # 20:
The difference is that a later court may well disagree with a certain interpretation and reverse an earlier decision, but a change either actually alters or clarifies the plain text of the constitution.
That is both a difference & a distinction.
FLFE:
Effectively, the constitution is currently what ever the USSC says it is. If the USSC decides next year that there is a “compelling interest” for all government run schools to require children to say the lords prayer every day then guess what, its going to happen no matter what the actual text of the constitution says.
Exactly. That is the way our government works. If we don’t like it, it is up to us to change it. The only way to change the SCOTUS is to amend the constitution or to have a revolution and create a new governmental structure – or not.
If there were no higher authority to enforce the original deal, couldn’t it be said that I de facto changed the contract?
That’s exactly the thing. At some point, there is no higher authority. In the US, that highest authority is the Supreme Court. It’s not possible to have higher levels of authority to the point of the infinite. We – and our resources – are finite. Eventually you are going to hit that “highest authority.” And if you don’t like the result, you are free to disagree. But that doesn’t invalidate it.
But, in the end, the constitution means what the Supreme Court states that it means. Why? Because that is how our government is structured. The Supreme Court has never, will never, can never change the constitution. They can certainly change the common understanding of some facet of the constitution, but majority rule doesn’t determine the meaning of the constitution. Our government was specifically set up so that the majority doesn’t determine the meaning of the constitution or any facet of it.
[right wing style dismissal] Why, oh why do you all hate our country? You are trying to change the very basis of our government and if that isn’t hating our country, I don’t know what is. Conservatives hate the US and all it stands for.[/right wing style dismissal]
Although these are not my view, I can think of two answers beginning with “yes, I do oppose…” that do not seem to me to be untenable:
“Yes, because such laws are unconstitutional. The Constitution should be changed to permit such laws.”
“Yes, because such laws are unconstitutional. Although these kinds of speech are undesirable, the Constitution should not be changed because the erosion of Freedom of speech engendered by such a change would be a greater evil than allowing these kinds of speech.”
Unless the SC’s interpretation of the Constitution is that the Constitution permits the SC to change the Constitution.
concerning slander & libel laws, and suchlike restrictions on rights:
no, i do not oppose such laws, because they’re clearly limited and the reasons for them are good, obvious, and explicitly stated. it’s that whole swinging-of-fists and tips-of-noses concept; we have freedoms, but may not use them to harm others, or to restrict the freedoms of others.
that much, i would say, properly is actual interpretation of the constitution. that much, i think, the average English speaker would agree still falls in the field of meaning of the verb “to interpret”, as the results of these laws do not negate or drastically change the nature of the constitutional language interpreted.
but there are things one can do to a text that do not fall within that field of meaning, things that some people will refer to as “interpretation” where the end result is that the written word “black” gets “interpreted” to mean “white”. you see religious people doing this sort of “interpretation” to their holy writ a lot, when they’re faced with bronze age ethics and need to fit them into a space age society yet are dogmatically forbidden from just putting the holy book on the shelf and making up something new. it’s ridiculous when they do it, but it is i think dangerous when done to the laws of the land.
i won’t harp on the commerce clause any more than i have. i just wish to say that if that level of “interpretation” were applied to every other part of the constitution, we might as well just replace the whole thing with a copy of Jabberwocky and “interpret” it to suit. it surely couldn’t be any more ridiculous, and probably no harder either to do or make excuses for, than the end result in Raich.
this level of “interpretation” makes a mockery of the whole notion of having a written constitution in the first place, because when that constitution can be “interpreted” to mean the exact opposite of what it says, you might as well just make it all up as you go along and admit that that’s what you’re doing. (see also, ACLU and the second amendment. really obvious in that case, because the ACLU is too principled and honest to apply this logic to any other part of the bill of rights.)
in sum: there is such a thing as “interpreting” the constitution, and this is properly the domain of the supreme court. but the word “interpret” is not synonymous with the word “change”, and we should not “interpret” it in that manner. if we do we undermine our legal system at the highest level, not by making the supreme law of the land not mean what it says any longer, but by making it mean nothing at all… or else only what the black-robed humpty dumptys wish it to mean at the moment, which works out to the same thing.
i don’t want the supreme court to be peopled with humpty dumptys. their job is too important for such tomfoolery. i want them to recognize what their job is, and what the limits on it are, so that they can focus on doing it well; if this means overturning federal drug laws (or denying profits to a private developer) because there’s no constitutional authority for them, so be it — leave such laws to the states until an amendment can be passed to create such authority. don’t just pull it out of a dark and smelly place and pretend everything’s just fine.
Nomen said:
here’s my suggestion for how to deal with the matter: congress may, with a sufficient majority, dismiss any given supreme court justice … of course, this would likely need a constitutional amendment to be enacted.
Actually, no – Congress already has the power to impeach and remove from office Supreme Court Justices, Federal Judges in lower courts or any other Federal official. The House issues the impeachment and the Senate tries it; conviction requires a 2/3 vote. No Supreme Court Justice has been impeached, but 13 Federal judges have been impeached and the Senate has convicted six of them. Note that the Constitution says that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior …”. Who but the body with the power of impeachment and trial would have the right to determine what constitutes “good Behavior”? Especially given the precedent of the successful impeachment and conviction of judges of “inferior Courts”?
ah, i think i see the problem then. congress has no reason to see the judiciary dramatically increasing the power of congress as not being “good behavior”. i’ll need to think on this some more, then…
How about this for definition of “not good behavior”: failure to follow your oath (or affirmation) to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? I would probably disagree with most conservatives about when an interpretation is so wildly at odds with the text of the constitution to not be protection and defense of the constitution, but I do agree in principle that a decision CAN meet that criteria, and such a Justice should be impeached.
Personally, I would even go beyond actual decisions to statements that I believe reveal a willingness to ignor the text of the constitution when making decisions. Justice Scalia once gave a speech – while serving as Justice – claiming the authority of the Constitution is derived from God. I beleive the text of the constitution is very clear that its authority derives from We, The People, and God is not mentioned and religious tests for office are explicitly prohibited. Were I a member of Congress, I would introduce articles of impeachment against Justice Scalia for these statements, as well as plenty of others in his offical opinions that contridict the actual text of the U.S. Constitution.
Decnavda, I think it was Gerald Ford who said that the basis for impeachment is whatever a majority of the House says it is. A given member of the House can introduce a resolution of impeachment for any reason he or she wants. But I think it would be impossible to get a majority of the House to agree that expressing a personal belief that the authority of the Constitution is derived from God is an impeachable offense.
OTOH, getting them to attempt to impeach him on the basis of an actual decision is at least theoretically a lot more likely. Then we get to whether we think THIS House would impeach him for a particular decision or set of decisions. I’d bet big against that as well.
It’s OK to spend trillions in Iraq, but any money for science should be questioned, according to McCain, who doesn’t understand wildlife biology. DNA studies on populations of animals that are under stress (bears in Montana) are important. You must know the genetic relatedness between the different populations of a species, for management decisions. As populations of a species decline, inbreeding becomes one of the biggest threats to the survival of that species. This is money for basic science. The lack of understanding of basic science by the politicians, of both parties, is shameful.