Saturday, January 12, 2008

Mostly Harmless

No this is not yet another pointlessly self-referential post. Rather, "mostly harmless" is my gloss of Associate Justice Scalia's position on the pointless (unless you're a Republican-controlled legislature trying to restrict the franchise) Indiana voter-id law which was recently argued before the supreme court. I was perusing the transcript of the oral arguments and did a search for something that Scalia said. This led me to perversely read all of Scalia's comments in sequential order, and what a read it makes. Basically he just cannot seem to get too excited about what will be an "inconvenience to a small number of people" when it comes to voting rights. (Because elections are large-scale statistical things, small numbers of votes, much less individual ones, never really count in actual practice.) It is just too bad that the kinder, gentler Antonin Scalia of the past is no longer with us. You know, the one who used to care about the rights of individual petitioners, who was willing to act quickly to correct any hint of perceived harm in an election.

So in the spirit of that kinder, gentler Antonin Scalia, I propose that the Supreme Court should make itself more accessible to every one, because I know that in their heart of hearts they want every vote to count and for no one to be deprived of their rights as citizens. I offer the following modest example of a streamlined application for justice.

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JUSTICE 'R' US
FORM 531:1046-EZ: APPLICATION FOR KWIK-STAY®
GUARANTEED ONE-DAY TURN AROUND!!

[insert your perceived harm here] does in my view threaten
irreparable harm to me, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what
I claim to be the legitimacy of [insert your desired outcome
here
].
[insert your name here]

Signature: __________________ Date:_______
Have a nice day!

Special two-for-one Bonus offer: Get a free Writ of Certiorari if you are the Republican Presidential Candidate!
*****
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2 comments:

spyder said...

The trouble comes from trying to figure out which of the many faces of Antonin you are going to have to face? Sometimes you get a originalist states righter, and sometimes you get an interpretive contemporarian willing to twist straight forward clauses into gobbity-gook in order to help his corporate friends.

JP Stormcrow said...

The trouble comes from trying to figure out which of the many faces of Antonin you are going to have to face?

I think the key is to ask 'cui bono?'.