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Scalia says torture is not illegal. And he has stupid nonsense about the supreme court giving bush the election. 6 minutes. Also http://politics.videosift.com/video/Olbermann-Incredulous-Supreme-Court-Justice-Scalias-Bunkum
April 28, 2008
MSNBC Dan Abrams
April 28, 2008
MSNBC Dan Abrams
http://www.videosift.com/video/Antonin-Scalia-Torture-Is-Not-Cruel-and-Unusual-Punishment
also there's an olbermann one that I enjoyed! (but discarded)
http://politics.videosift.com/video/Olbermann-Incredulous-Supreme-Court-Justice-Scalias-Bunkum
I hate Scalia. I just want to say that right out. He is my least favorite Supreme Court Justice. I think his legal opinions are at odds with good ethics, and I find his friendliness to conservatives to be misplaced.
That said, this video gives exactly the wrong reasons to dislike him. One does not become a Supreme Court Justice by making errors as basic as MSNBC asserts. Bush v. Gore was a unique case in US history, with a number of reasons NOT to make it precedent. Given the pressures involved in the situation, I don't think you can fault the Supreme Court for jumping in and making a decision either way. Gore may have won the state courts, but should a national election be decided on that level? I'm not entirely sure that stepping in was the wrong idea for them. And once they stepped in, the decision they made was the decision they made.
Granted, I dislike Scalia's tolerance for torture, but under the legal definition, it's NOT cruel and unusual punishment because it does not legally qualify as punishment. This is not twisting words or playing with semantics. This is the kind of distinction on which our justice system is based. If you're going to go after Scalia, go after his rejection of the right of habeas corpus in the case of non-citizen "terrorists."
From a legal perspective, torture is not punishment. Legally, punishment is what happens to you after you've been convicted of a crime. You can't technically be punished if you haven't been on trial.
That doesn't mean torture isn't wrong, of course. Torture is its own crime.
You are saying, we cannot torture convicted criminals, but torturing babies and innocents is just fine?
Damn the Democrats and Republicans.