How Many People Know Harry Blackmun Was A Conservative?

Political ignorance, especially among politicians no less, is rampant and appalling I think. So I will just give you all a little political quiz:

How many of you knew allegedly ultra-liberal Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun was in fact a liberal? Or so people thought, when he first joined the court in 1970 (appointed by Richard Nixon).

To be honest, many people don't realize his opinion on obscenity and capital punishment. He believed that true obscenity wasn't protected by the constitution. And he did support capital punishment, in a limited fashion, until shortly before his retirement (I believe he ultimately called it a 'failed experiment').

Now, to be fair, he believed there were limits to both. He didn't believe the state had any interest in telling people what books they may read or what movies they may watch in the privacy of their own homes. And to be sure his definition of obscenity, to say nothing of freedom of expression, would be radically different from so-called modern conservatives. And on capital punishment, he didn't believe a person should be executed for stealing a pig. Or a loaf of bread. But still.

In any event, call him whatever you like. But one thing you can't call him is a Democrat. Because he was a lifelong Republican. I know Rush Limbaugh, among others, would call him and anyone who disagrees with Rush Limbaugh a Democrat. But I hate to break it to you (and him) that it just doesn't work that way.

What do the rest of you think on the subject?

 

Not me - He's \across the pond' - so I'm not familiar with him

 

Dunno what happened here. Didn't mean to reply.

 

I now realize I said he was a liberal, when I meant to say he was appointed as a conservative. In any event, I assume you all knew what I meant.

 

Interesting topic, even if it's probably not destined to go viral! But I'm not sure what you are asking people to respond to. The distinction between "liberal" and "ultra-liberal" strikes me as in the eye of the beholder.

Does anyone today outside of Saudi Arabia believe in executing someone for stealing a loaf of bread? (ok, ok, even there I suppose it's "only" amputating a hand). I for one think there are cases for which forgiveness in this world is not possible and capital punishment should be employed. Moreover, I think it can have a deterrent effect (although probably not if you wait 20 years to carry out the sentence). I also think for some range of cases, including all involving death sentences, there should be a judicial review of the facts of the case. I don't think the jury system we have today works well.

I do note there is a considerable history of SCOTUS justices not working out to the satisfaction of the POTUS' who appointed them.

 

Slapping a label on people is exactly how it works. I listen to NPR in the morning and Limbaugh in the afternoon. I don't agree entirely with either side, but if I dare to agree with Limbaugh, on anything, I'm locked in as a "conservative". And I've despised Limbaugh for almost as long as I have despised Trump.

But when they are right, they're right. There's nothing to be gained by labeling them as "wrong" just because they are reviled. Which is why I think the impeachment circus is so fatally flawed.

I don't know how you're trying to quantify Blackmun's position as a "conservative" when that was only a secondary aspect of politics in the 70s. Back then there were Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats all over the place (though still a minority for the most part). Today, even if they are conservative in any way, democrats will deny it to their grave lest they be set upon by 21st century goon politics. We can't accurately measure events from the 70s using today's yardstick.

Myself and the Zulu nation agree with you absolutely on this. During the 19th century, rapists in the western US were executed (often by angry mobs). It stopped them from raping any more people, in absolute terms.

 

I think you may have made a typo. in your opening sentence. I think you meant to say "conservative" instead of "liberal', since that's what you said in the thread title. With Blackmun, we hearken back to the days when there were such things as moderates. On the Burger court, those were the ones who held the balance of power, and several of them were Republicans. Ford's appointment of Justice Stevens, also a Republican, is another example. On the Burger and Rehnquist courts, Republicans held a solid majority. Blackmun was a moderate conservative Republican, but is depicted in the Woodward and Powell classic The Brethren as one who agonized over his decisions. Roe v. Wade is probably his best known and most controversial opinion. As for obscenity, most justices believe obscenity is not protected speech. The real issue is what is obscenity. In 1973, the Supreme Court switched from the more liberal "utterly lacking redeeming social value" test to the three-pronged test in Miller v. California, a 5-4 decision substituting "lacks serious literary, artistic,scientific, or political value" . Chief Justice Burger wrote the opinion, and Blackmun, along with three fellow Republicans and one moderate Democrat, voted with the majority. Republican Stewart joined the dissent, along with three Democrats. Those were the days!

 

Why WP, you dreadful conservative (con for short, eh?). As you might expect, rape was a rarity on the Old West. A single woman, I understand, could travel alone with no fear of being violated. How far we have "progressed" since those backward days.

 

I feel like the entire "tough on crime" thing is farcical. I don't feel any patriotism for it and think that his positions are old and misguided; though admittedly I also am old and arguably misguided.

 

Depends on the crime really, some aren't worth enforcing. Some are so heinous they should not be ignored. I don't think it's a conservative position to want to mitigate some crimes. I don't agree with pot laws or other laws where people aren't getting hurt or losing their homes.

However, crimes against people, where they are beaten, maimed for life or killed should be handled very very harshly. There should be no way to get off for "good behavior" if your victim remains crippled or dead.

And anyone who rapes a child should be executed in a very public way. Who could ask a child or their parents to "look the other way" because the asshole who raped their baby had a tough life and was abused and yadda yadda yadda. Fuck that.

But I agree, an across the board "tough on crime" policy is an enforcement nightmare that clogs courts and renders them nearly useless. An absolute farce.

 

We seem to agree on a lot, but I wonder what you think of as a child. Is, say, statutory rape of a 14 year old girl raping a child? To an old lady like me, she certainly is a child. Under your rules, there would be a lot of public executions.

 

This is splitting hairs, states have age-based statutes already for this sort of thing. I'm only interested in bringing executions into the equation for the particularly heinous cases AND I think "The Needle" is way too kind for such trash, but I understand that barbarism would be counterproductive (although I've had folks in the Middle East tell me that barbaric executions are powerful crime deterrents).

Still, I am amazed that we have people in cages, breathing today, who raped and murdered children. So I don't see an actual solution while that condition remains. It's amazing to me that the nation has a backlog of executions. But sometimes, business is taken care of in other ways. Like it or not.

Wisconsin has no death penalty, so one of these bastards who raped an 11 year old girl was killed by an inmate after wasting away in prison for 13 years of a life sentence. My opinion is that it should never have been possible for that to happen, our prisons are mismanaged gulags that we can't even keep free of heroin.

I sure don't want justice to be delivered by a God damned convict. What I can't get over is how many people in news site comment threads applaud prison killings.

But I'm casting a stone with this since I was actually glad to hear that Fr. Goegan was strangled to death in prison.

 

The same was true of John Paul Stevens, and in fact most Supreme Court Justices in recent years appointed by Republicans have been more liberal than what people might have thought, (Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch not withstanding). Perhapse they are afraid of getting Borked.

 

That was back in the days when there were moderate and liberal Republicans. Seems so long ago, although it was only the seventies: pre-Reagan and Gingrich.