Continued Conservative SCJ Assault on WomenFollow

This is easily the most inane semantic argument I've ever read out of gbaji. And that's saying a lot.

Edited, Jan 7th 2011 8:56am by Eske

So we're required to address everything within that context? Scalia was asked a broad question about whether the 14th amendment prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. Not how discrimination itself interacts with the somewhat vague concept of diversity.



The problem is that the practical one you are talking about is incredibly ill defined and is more about a label for "treatment we don't like", then any really useful definition. The sheer inconsistency in terms of what is labeled "discrimination" within that context (which I've pointed out in this thread already) is pretty good evidence of that. It's kind of a useless word to use unless you're just trying to get an emotional reaction out of people.



Yes. And they teach that exactly because you're supposed to learn that the word doesn't just mean what you commonly hear it to mean. Apparently you should have paid more attention.



Yes. But the very fact that you have to say that suggests that said discrimination is a subset of all discrimination. Thus, when Scalia says that the amendment doesn't "prohibit discrimination", he's correct, right? Obviously, discrimination which is prohibited by the 14th amendment is prohibited by the 14th amendment. But discrimination which is not, is not. Kinda axiomatic, but there you have it.

We can either conclude from Scalia's statement that he's saying something that is axiomatically false and conclude he's an idiot (or, as Joph suggested, that he doesn't think women are part of "all people"), or we can give a supreme court justice the benefit of the doubt that he does actually know what the hell he's saying, and that he was using the word discrimination in the broadest sense. In which case his statement makes complete sense and is absolutely true.


I'm going to assume the latter case, since it's more likely. I mean, I suppose for some people they might think it's fun to assume he's either stupid or so sexist that he doesn't consider women to be people, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. Seems far more likely that he was just using a strict definition of the word discrimination. Occam's razor and all of that, right?

Yeah, he was also asked by an interviewer for a legal magazine which would suggest that maybe they were using "discrimination" in a legal sense and not in a mentally retarded "You picked an apple instead of an orange! DISCRIMINATION!!!!" sense.