Charlie Rose

winter  10/07/2010 06:18 PM Report

Much has been made of American educations' shortcomings. Those statistics' fruitions can't stay within talk of high school kids' apptitudes forever. Lately I believe we're witnessing that surfacing in how equal footing is given to popular commentators not fit to carry President Obama's books -- and nothing deeper than their charisma has carried much of the popular sentiment with them. Evidence of it is further made clear by the level of individuals who are being taken seriously as candidates worthy of our highest offices -- resumes that I have no doubt Goldman Sachs would pass over (...save Treasury Secretary). Frankly, I think the trend has been favoring simpleton standard bearers, actually for quite awhile now. The best and brightest don't want any part of it and are smart enough to stay on the sidelines and observe.

robdverity  10/05/2010 10:58 PM Report

Free potty-mouthing and the NRA free gun carry can take us along way to your prediction winter. Yeeeehaaaawww!

winter  10/05/2010 07:25 PM Report

I would submit that when your interpretation of Freedom of Speech begins to invade anothers right to dignity and decorum you'd better rethink that interpretation lest you

want to watch this country further degenerate into nothing better than a mob of zombies with the Freedom to do as they please. We are now at that threshold.

robdverity  10/05/2010 05:28 PM Report

Corporations as "people" merely makes for a legalized big bully. Our corruption is corrosive and rampant enuff as it is. Roberts and Republicans are putrefying what's left of a nation under siege by egregious greed and self-serving pols.

anne4444  10/05/2010 04:38 PM Report

Thank you Charlie, your show is always very intelligent and educational.

Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Many will give up their liberty and happiness for their surviving right.

Over-proportional lawyers making living on lawsuit will not bring justices.

Over-proportional doctors making living on sickness will not bring health.

REMant  10/05/2010 02:26 PM Report

I don't know that it says anywhere the chief justice can't write and deliver every opinion as Marshall did. IMHO, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any idea what the Constitution is about, especially not the 14th Amendment, but also stuff like regulation of trade, and even what its own role is. Hugo Black may have had broader experience, but no one who has ever read his opinions can say it was a very enlightening one. But the point is well taken, the court is much too narrow on the one hand, and too pluralistic on the other. No Protestants. All Harvard and Yale law school grads. All former judges. It's ridiculous. I really wonder why the Democrats favor BOTH interest-group politics AND dictation in security matters, but I think it must go to the heart of their personalities. It might explain why there is so little real animosity. They just homogenize, bureaucratize, sanitize, and sentimentalize everything, and avoid any real thought or decision. That may be why they get less done. That may explain why the rest of the govt and country can't seem to get anything done. Is that not the essence of our ideas of market economy? Obama's understanding of the Constitution makes it all the more puzzling that he has appointed those he has, as it is, similarly, to understand his Fed appointments. It seems the only thing he really cares about is gender quotas.

The trends indicated in the cases discussed are, as I say, disturbing. The situation in the funeral case can easily be handled by the church, funeral home and/or cemetery, tho the demonstrators were parked on a sidewalk, but the opinions expressed are completely irrelevant, and it ought not be before the court. The immigration case is similarly clear and unimportant, except to question the extent of the Federal govt's authority in the clause that gives Congress the power "To establish an uniform rule of naturalization." It is not a Fourth Amendment situation, even if that applied to the states. Like the Maryland case, this casts a long political shadow since free immigration and punishing "hate" have long been Democratic causes, despite the apparent contradiction.

There has been much too much court involvement in matters of opinion, esp matters considered "political correctness" in recent years, and in this we seem to be moving backwards. Corporations ought actually to have no "citizen" rights, nor, of course, ought they to be considered as having violated any rules about them. They are merely aggregations of ppl and it is up to those ppl to bring them into line if necessary. They are feudal holdovers, as much as the regulation of speech (libel) and thought (religion). If the court really wants to get into this kind of legal casuistry, which it would seem from its composition, it ought to require St Thomas be taught in schools.