Charlie Rose

AntonGrambihler  10/10/2010 08:50 AM Report

Justice Breyer does only have one vote, but how many votes does it take to decide not to hear a case. Since the decision not to hear a case is a vote for the current ruling on the case, does it takes a vote of all the Justices to throw out a case?

Burke  09/22/2010 01:07 PM Report

Breyer was a professor at Harvard for decades, and still relates that way. He was an undergraduate classmate of mine at Stanford, where he was already in the honorary legal society, and led an association welcoming foreign students to university life. . Today he has a more benign view of the American political system than I do, including a good deal of wishful thinking, to the point of myth making. That's an option professors often choose, because they can. Who can prove them wrong?

Given the lack of insigh by the public into reality, it is comforting to know that Stephen Breyer is still making a difference.

anne4444  09/20/2010 09:15 PM Report

Wow, another great intelligent conversation.

Thank you

alanm321  09/20/2010 12:23 PM Report

Check out Justice Stephen Breyer and Jeffrey Rosen of The Atlantic will LIVE tonight from NYPL. They will be talking about the vital relationship between the US Supreme Court and the American public. http://fora.tv/conference/nypl_breyer_rosen

robdverity  09/19/2010 04:37 PM Report

Cogent observations mabraham. Unlike you and REMant, I've never read De Toqueville (couldn't spell it w/o copying as now).

REMant: As too often (for me), I lose your point in your erudition. How does your quoted Second Treatise of Government refute Justice Breyer? And how can a sense of justice replace fear or anything else except thru a formal structure of government - under any name?

As you can see, your lengthy quote was wasted on me. Perhaps others will fare better.

As an atheist I hope you weren't suggesting some form of deism (a la the Laws of Nature????) Our recent financial melt down was the Laws of Nature personified (with Lloyd Blankfein being the Supreme Being under those Laws of Nature - he manipulated the laws and he won - as in WHATEVER IT TAKES TO WIN IS KOSHER, so to speak). Would there be a Nature Pope? Would it rotate to the current financial guru on top (as that's how we measure our Holy)?

mabraham  09/19/2010 11:30 AM Report

Interesting conversation but I have two major objections about American exceptionalism.

First, neither of you has actually defined what it is.

Second, as individuals who happen to be born American we can't take credit for the wisdom of those who wrote the founding documents of this country unless ... you are also ready to take the blame for its dark sides.

It's just to easy to feel proud about what others achieved just because we happen to be of the same nationality. It also omits the fact that the US is no longer the only democracy as was the case in the mid 19th century when De Toqueville traveled this continent.

REMant  09/19/2010 10:47 AM Report

Sorry about the spaces, have to look into how to ensure that doesn't happen.

REMant  09/19/2010 10:45 AM Report

The recommendation of Tocqueville and Adams notwithstanding I believe I could make the same arguments against Mr Justice Breyer as I did against the two recent Court nominees, but not to be tedious, I will simply refer to the timeless position Locke took on this question and which no doubt the majority of of the Constitution's authors and ratifiers believed. Both Hobbes and Locke made the same argument and were vilified by Church and Tories alike, and I suspect Breyer would have been among them. For both the objective is to replace government by what Montesquieu would in Spirit of the Laws call the ruling principle of fear, with justice. From the Second Treatise of Government:

"The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and

infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s

pleasure. And, being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorise us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours [the Bible does say that]. Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another...

Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of Nature, being but in an ill condition while they remain in it are quickly driven into society. Hence it comes to pass, that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to by the irregular and uncertain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their property [defined as oneself and the product of his labor]. It is this that makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of punishing to be exercised by such alone as shall be appointed to it amongst them, and by such rules as the community, or those authorised by them to that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the original right and rise of both the legislative and executive power as well as of the governments and societies themselves.

For in the state of Nature to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has two powers. The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself and others within the permission of the law of Nature; by which law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society distinct from all other creatures, and were it not for the corruption and viciousness of

degenerate men, there would be no need of any other, no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and associate into lesser combinations. The other power a man has in the state of Nature is the power to punish the crimes committed against that law. Both these he gives up when he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular political society, and incorporates into any commonwealth

separate from the rest of mankind.

The first power-viz., of doing whatsoever he thought fit for the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself and the rest of that society shall require; which laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of Nature.

Secondly, the power of punishing he wholly gives up, and engages his natural force, which he might before employ in the execution of the law of Nature, by his own single authority, as he thought fit, to assist the executive power of the society as the law thereof shall require. For being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many conveniencies from the labour, assistance, and society of others in the same community, as well as protection from its whole strength, he is to part also with as much of his natural liberty, in providing for himself, as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society shall require, which is not only necessary but just, since the other members of the society do the like.

But though men when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative as the good of the society shall require, yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse), the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property by providing against those three defects above mentioned that made the state of Nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so, whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees, by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people."

BTW, the country from the beginning had considerable cultural if not racial diversity altho even there you'd have to consider the Africans and the Indians. We had considerable numbers of Scots and Irish and Germans and French and Spanish from the beginning and later various Scandinavians, still more Irish, Italians, eastern Europeans and Russians, Japanese and Chinese.

robdverity  09/18/2010 04:50 PM Report

charlize - only the top one per cent.

robdverity  09/18/2010 04:42 PM Report

One smart dude. Too bad Roberts isn't of the same caliber.

charlizecourriers  09/18/2010 03:46 PM Report

Are the People still sovereign?