Continued Conservative SCJ Assault on WomenFollow

And yet when Scalia said that it didn't prohibit discrimination against women, you called him a chucklehead. You clearly think that it does apply in that case, right? Why in that one and not any other?

You are either having a serious brain fart, or are deliberately pretending not to understand what I'm saying because you've realized that you're wrong but don't want to admit it.


Let me go in the other direction:

1. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment does not specifically mention women, or sex.

2. It does mention "all people".

3. In order to assume that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment must mean that the government is prohibited from discriminating based on sex, you must also interpret it to mean that discrimination is prohibited based on all other things which "all people" might be discriminated by.

4. Thus, it must be equally prohibited from discriminating based on any other characteristic we can think of.


It's just amazing to me that you can't see this logic. "All people" includes women and men. But it also includes the rich and the poor, the right and left handed, people of different hair color, blind, deaf, healthy and sick, etc. All people means "all people".


Since there are numerous examples of government allowing or imposing discrimination which applies to "all people", we have to conclude one of the following:

1. Massive parts of our government and laws are in violation of the constitution and we should fight to eliminate it immediately!

2. "equal protection of the law" is not as exactly equivalent to "government may not discriminate" as you think.


I have argued this entire thread that number 2 is correct. Equal protection does not guarantee no discrimination. And guess what? That's exactly what Scalia said. You just got so wrapped up in the specific context of the question he was asked that you didn't see that it's not about women at all. It's about the relationship between "discrimination" and "equal protection".


Please tell me that this is starting to sink in? I'm running out of incredibly obvious examples which should have caused a lightbulb to go off in your head dozens of posts ago.

Edited, Jan 5th 2011 6:46pm by gbaji

Yeah, you still don't get it. I've run out of ways to explain it so have fun being ignorant.

Edited, Jan 5th 2011 8:53pm by Jophiel

Id say your point is based on the premise of universal health care. Since universal health care covers everyone equally, then I would say your point is redundant.

Or did you mean something else when you said Universal Health Care.....Discrimination.....government categorizes people based on......and distribute the benefits of the care based on those things.

Please tell me you meant something else other than Universal Health Care. (which you obviously do not understand the workings of).

Delicious grease though.

You're an idiot, gbaji. Either because you're so massively ignorant and you don't know it, or you DO know it and think you're actually going to fool me.



Uh, it is saying that the law can't discriminate, not in its programs, services, and essentially, in its treatment. It does NOT refer solely to CRIMINAL law. But I'll give you that it does not say that the law has to prevent all discrimination.

Where is that thing, anyway?



So you want to talk about context? What about "shall not abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens" and all that? The "equal protection clause" is only one such clause.

This is amendment has been used in many cases to prohibit discrimination under a number of instances. For example, it's the constitutional basis for Title IX, which requires schools to provide EQUAL services, such as athletic programs, to girls. It requires that disabled children are entitled to a free and appropriate education, which is EQUAL to other children.

Your little list of exceptions is cute. Surely you know the term compelling state interest? Strict scrutiny? Ring a bell? The test that measures whether or not a breach of the literal constitutional law is warranted? Yeah.

I think we're done here.

Yes. I meant "universal health care". Didn't mean to confuse anyone by abridging it later. I included it in a list of things which represent government discrimination, so it's kinda amusing that several people got their hackles up over just this one. Why not talk about affirmative action, or income assistance, or any of the other things on the list?


But since you asked. The fact that universal health care "covers" everyone does not mean that everyone gets the same thing. In fact, let me take a moment to topically compare another issue which was raised to illustrate how inconsistently we apply this so called principle of non-discrimination:

Title IX requires that funds be allocated equally for sports programs between men and women. It does so regardless of actual demand, based on the assumption that if you fund womens rugby, women will sign up to play rugby. In theory, it's not a terrible idea. But in practice it has some problems. I'm not going to talk about those in detail though, since I don't want to distract from the point.

Examine a school which has a mens rugby team. In order for them to keep that team, the school must fund a womans rubgy team with the same amount of money. What this means is that if men get a rugby team, so do women. If men get a soccer team, so do women. If men get a fencing team, so do women. And so on. The principle at work is that in order to not discriminate against a group on the basis of sex, you *must* provide anything given to one to the other as well, even if it's not wanted. Doing otherwise is considered discriminatory since you are treating women and men differently.

With me so far?


Let's apply this to universal medical care. So if patient X needs a heart bypass, can we not provide it to him unless all other patients also receive a heart bypass? Clearly not. We only grant any specific procedure to those who need it. It would be silly to do otherwise, right? But wait! By the definition we're using under title IX, this is discrimination. Anything provided to one group must be provided to the other. No exceptions.


The point is that the principle of non-discrimination by government is best illustrated by something like title IX, and this is *not* how most government programs work. In fact, most of them are very very discriminatory. I suspect that the problem most of you have is that you equate discrimination with something being unfair to a minority group. But that's not what it means. It means any time you provide something different to two different people based on any difference between them. Period. So if I need a heart bypass, and you need a liver transplant, the government is discriminating with how it provides the service if it gives me the bypass and you the transplant.


It would be absurd for it *not* to discriminate, as I think we can all agree. That's what Scalia was talking about. Government must discriminate to function. The courts job is to ensure that it does not discriminate in ways that single out for harm one group or another. But as he said, it does not "prohibit discrimination". It can't.

I just think most of you are reading into his words based on a flawed assumption about what he meant when he spoke about discrimination. He's using the actual literal meaning (as am I). And when you apply that meaning into place, it makes perfect sense.

yep Gbaji doesn't know what universal health care is, but you can't blame him fully, the fact that the US is the only westernized country without universal health care is a big reason why.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.gadling.com/media/2007/07/healthcareworldbig.jpg

(yet he seems cool with paying for iraq and afghanistan citizens to have it)

Edited, Jan 6th 2011 6:24pm by rdmcandie

WTF? As long as government is paying for health benefits and it does not actually pay the exact same amount for every single person to receive the exact same thing, it's discriminatory.

Do you get this? I don't care how the exact mechanism works. As I said, my point isn't about health care. We can debate that elsewhere. My point is that if the government provides people with different services based on their needs, then the government is discriminating. Since I'm going to assume that only people who break their arms will get casts, and only people who get cancer will get chemo, and only people who need a transplant will get a transplant, that we can safely say that universal health care involves the government discriminating among the recipients of the care. It has to. If it doesn't, the result is ridiculous, much like the large space inside your head.

What do you think "discriminate" means? Seriously. You sound like you don't know what the word means, but have just heard it used in sentences having to do with "treating people bad" or something. Go look up the word then get back to me.

Because I can see where you're coming from on those.

Have you tried getting heart bypass surgery? It may be available to you, but you just don't use it, much like many women do not take advantage of the fact that all of that funding is there for sports.


Ok, I got nothing. You want to fall back on a technicality like that, go for it. It's a great place to put your back to a wall.

You obviously do not know how Universal Health Care works. keep trying though I am sure you find an argument sooner or later. I mean all these countries must be doing terribly with their universal health care programs.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.gadling.com/media/2007/07/healthcareworldbig.jpg

oh wait...thats right the majority of them are currently better off than the USA economically my bad.

(also does it make you feel better knowing American funded universa health care is working in iraq and afghanistan go go Bush Govt!)

Is there something wrong with you? Dropped on your head as a child perhaps?

Oh and in case you missed it.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.gadling.com/media/2007/07/healthcareworldbig.jpg the blue ones must be wrong, and the orange ones were paid for by bush.

Anything else tonight Gbaji?

oh p.s. see that your country is on par with africa in the terms of its medical welfare as an entire nation. (btw africa is an entire continent.)

Edited, Jan 6th 2011 7:10pm by rdmcandie