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I'm not sure what you're asking.

I'm not offering privileges. I'm offering a fairer and quicker way of handling such said issues. Admittedly, it was a partially loaded statement, but my focus was to address the irony. The irony of supporting a system that makes it harder for the aforesaid privileges.

You're not offering a fairer and quicker way of handling anything, just a pointless fantasy that would never work in real life.

You obviously don't know what it is and/or don't understand, given the fact that's exactly how the business world operates. I understand that governing a nation isn't the same as running a business, but you're obviously clueless to label it a "pointless fantasy that would never work in real life". At this point you're just a tool who went with the default "Alma is stupid" as opposed to actually knowing what is going on. You can't even provide a logical counter... You can do better..

Edit:

I recapped the concept in post #117. It's intermixed with a counter. It's sub-defaulted though, so make sure it isn't filtered.

Edited, Jul 9th 2013 2:14am by Almalieque

I didn't say that it did. I said that the concept that I'm proposing is how the business world operates. That same concept just so happens to be quicker and fairer methods of operations, which should be a huge concern as a government.

I said "less likely" (than in California), not "it wont happen". In California, there's close to zero odds that the folks in charge wont be Democrats through the entire process. In Pennsylvania, that could easily change in the time it takes this case to wind its way through the courts.

Um... And one's position on the issue aside, I still think it's complete BS for a state AG to refuse to defend the state law.

It's a terrible use of "ends justify the means" though. If you have to use trickery to get your agenda through, you might want to reconsider what you're doing.

Are they appointed or elected? If they're appointed, then I agree. If elected, then disagree.

Also, I'll point out that the situation is still not identical anyway. In California, it was a special case because the law in question was passed by public referendum. I believe that the Pennsylvania law was passed by their legislature (don't feel like looking it up, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Assuming that is the case, then any member or group of members of said legislature can choose to defend the law. The California case was a special one because since the legislature didn't pass the law themselves, they were not legally a party to the laws creation, and thus could not defend it. And the Court ruled that "the people" didn't have standing to defend it either (which is why they handed it back to the lower court).

I happen to also think that was a bad decision for the court, not because of any effect on gay marriage, but because it sets a horrible precedent with regard to the creation of a huge gaping hole in the representation of the people with regards to public referendums. Several states have referendum processes, but now any referendum has less protection in the courts because of what I view as a short sighted decision. As suggested prior, any party to the creation (or maintenance) of a law can defend it if the AG of a state chooses not to. But the court just ruled that those parties have to be "official" in some way (ie: part of the state government). Which means that if the AG choose not to defend the law, no one can.

Which is IMO a much bigger issue than the gay marriage issue itself.

Public pressure can require the person who appointed them to request their resignation though. We could argue that's technically quicker. Neither changes the fact that the AGs job isn't to decide what laws to defend though.



When prosecuting, yes. When defending the constitutionality of the law itself, it's generally assumed that this is part of their job description and not optional. Obviously, anything is optional if you want to be technical enough though. Hence why I said I think it's "BS", and not "illegal" or somesuch. Although one could make an argument that failing to do so qualifies as failing to "faithfully fulfill the duties of the office of ...", but that's still only subject to whatever pressure can be applied. Who's going to charge the AG with failure to fulfill his duty?


Kinda similar to the issues with the DoJ right now. Who watches the watchmen. When it's the part of our government which is charged with enforcing the law, which is either failing to do so or even breaking it themselves, who does something about that? I know that many people get so caught up on supporting "their side" that this sort of thing gets lost, but we really ought to be concerned about this kind of behavior by our government regardless of which "side" we're on and whether something happens to benefit us at the moment. It's just a bad practice to allow to happen.