Last Night's Debate and the Dread Scott case

[Sherry Darling]

Will one of my fellow educators please explain to the board and the POTUS what the freakin Dread Scott case is? How I wish Kerry had nailed him on this!



SD

 

[Danospano]

The Dread Scott case of 1857 declared the Missouri Compromise invalid. Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri would be a slave state if Maine were deemed a free state. This quelled nerves between the North and South and their different directions for the future of the country.

In this complicated, controversial case, Scott, a slave in Missouri, was left to a relative of his owner who lived in Illinois, and sued for his freedom, claiming Missouri citizenship. In the appeal to the Supreme Court, Northen justices argued that Scott should be freed under the Missouri Compromise because he had traveled north of 36/30 (the lat/long that determined free states from slave states). The notorious ruling that came from the pen of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney nullified the Missouri Compromise, and held that blacks---even free blacks--- could not be citixens and that slaves could not become free by traveling north of the dividing line.

 

[U2democrat]

Yeah last night as Bush was talking about it I was thinking "That's not exactly what Ms Flowers taught me in history last year...." Maybe if we elect Kerry bush can go back to school.

 

[Dreadsox]

My oh my....what in the world did he bring that up for? I am still scratching my head.

 

[STING2]

Will one of my fellow educators please explain to the board and the POTUS what the freakin Dread Scott case is? How I wish Kerry had nailed him on this!



SD

Perhaps Kerry's knowledge on this is equal to W's.

 

[deep]

My oh my....what in the world did he bring that up for? I am still scratching my head.

he is going after the african-american vote

 

[diamond]

he is going after the african-american vote

 

[sharky]

indeed. i thought the same thing. The Pledge case went to his Christian base and the Dred Scott case was to get African-Americans. He also was trying to prove he knew something about the Supreme Court, which he doesn't. Kerry seemed prepared to get a question like that and cited specific tests for new justices, which I liked.

 

[foray]

Do you have links to all, or some, of the transcripts for the debate? I've been looking but all I have found are the veep ones, and I don't have tv. Thanks anyone.

foray

 

[foray]

edit: I mean, transcripts for the debates so far.

foray

 

[Diane L]

I've been reading that the reference to Dred Scott in last night's debate was a message to anti-abortion advocates that Bush WILL use Roe v. Wade as a litmus test for Supreme Court appointees.

 

[Sherry Darling]

Diane--Really? How so? I'd be most interested in hearing about this!

Deep

It's also worth noting that very few commentators have talked about this either. Please tell me there is a journalist out there SOMEwhere who was going, "Uh...." Pretty please? With Bono on top?

SD

 

[Diane L]

Sherry,

Dailykos.com has a diary on its site that discusses this correlation. The diarist says that if you Google the terms "Dred Scott" and "abortion," you get the links for anti-abortion websites that have linked the two.

Here is one of the explanations from such a site as reprinted by the dailykos.com diarist:

"The reasoning in Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade is nearly identical. In both cases the Court stripped all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. Compare the arguments the Court used to justify slavery and abortion. Clearly, in the Court's eyes, unborn children are now the same "beings of an inferior order" that the justices considered Blacks to be over a century ago."

You can find the full diary at www.dailykos.com It is to the right of the home page, listed under Recent Diaries.

Diane L.

 

[meegannie]

Do you have links to all, or some, of the transcripts for the debate? I've been looking but all I have found are the veep ones, and I don't have tv. Thanks anyone.

foray

CNN has transcripts and vidoes (not sure how much they show since I haven't watched them yet) on their politics site: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/

if those disappear of that front page for some reason, this site has transcripts:
http://www.debates.org/pages/debtrans.html

 

[joyfulgirl]

he is going after the african-american vote

 

[foray]

Thanks meegannie, someone passed me the links too, and I read them, and I am sorry that I can't observe their mannerisms or speech nuances, cos that would inform me a lot instead of merely their words. Too bad for me. Have a nice day.

foray

 

[Sherry Darling]

Thanks Diane! Very interesting indeed. It sure would explain why he brought it up to begin with, which would otherwise seem like a huge flub!

SD

 

[Se7en]

Do you have links to all, or some, of the transcripts for the debate? I've been looking but all I have found are the veep ones, and I don't have tv. Thanks anyone.

foray

all three of the debates are on apple's itunes music store, available as free downloads. you can listen to GW in all his glory..over and over again!

 

[U2democrat]

all three of the debates are on apple's itunes music store, available as free downloads. you can listen to GW in all his glory..over and over again!

heaven help us!

 

[nbcrusader]

"The reasoning in Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade is nearly identical. In both cases the Court stripped all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. Compare the arguments the Court used to justify slavery and abortion. Clearly, in the Court's eyes, unborn children are now the same "beings of an inferior order" that the justices considered Blacks to be over a century ago."

Well, that seems like an interesting issue to discuss....

 

[U2democrat]

i try to avoid abortion arguments as often as possible. normally i love to argue, but people get way to angry and overheated about it that i just get turned off.

 

[Se7en]

heaven help us!

abortion is a touchy subject. i don't think it is as black/white as the one side makes it, nor as grey as the other side makes it. very complicated indeed.

 

[Felicity]

Agreed......

 

[deep]

the President demonstrates his
"No Child Left Behind" program.

 

[anitram]

I am unsure why abortion is even brought up in the debates.

It is an issue which is divisive and people's minds are made up one way or another. There is no way on God's green earth I'd ever vote for Bush based on this issue, and I am sure there are people who would never vote for Kerry for similar reasons. There is nothing here except shameless pandering.

 

[U2democrat]

I am unsure why abortion is even brought up in the debates.

It is an issue which is divisive and people's minds are made up one way or another. There is no way on God's green earth I'd ever vote for Bush based on this issue, and I am sure there are people who would never vote for Kerry for similar reasons. There is nothing here except shameless pandering.

 

[speedracer]

Sherry,

Dailykos.com has a diary on its site that discusses this correlation. The diarist says that if you Google the terms "Dred Scott" and "abortion," you get the links for anti-abortion websites that have linked the two.

Here is one of the explanations from such a site as reprinted by the dailykos.com diarist:

"The reasoning in Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade is nearly identical. In both cases the Court stripped all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. Compare the arguments the Court used to justify slavery and abortion. Clearly, in the Court's eyes, unborn children are now the same "beings of an inferior order" that the justices considered Blacks to be over a century ago."

You can find the full diary at www.dailykos.com It is to the right of the home page, listed under Recent Diaries.

Diane L.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that that's pretty much what the Supreme Court declared in Roe v. Wade -- they declared that constitutional protection of a woman's rights trumped a first-trimester fetus but not a third-trimester fetus without bothering to explain why.

I have always thought that Roe v. Wade should be overturned because of its poor foundation and that the question should be returned to the states. We might have states where abortion is completely legal and states where it's illegal except in "hard cases". If 75% of people in 75% of states agree, we might have a constitutional amendment. And so forth.

 

[U2democrat]

The main reason I am pro-choice is because if it were to become illegal again, women would STILL get back-alley illegal abortions. this not only would destroy the fetus, but the woman's life would also be in great danger. women who get abortions today seem to me would be desperate to get an illegal abortion, which is SO deadly. i have conflicts with myself over this issue, but the safety for the woman is my main concern.

 

[speedracer]

The main reason I am pro-choice is because if it were to become illegal again, women would STILL get back-alley illegal abortions. this not only would destroy the fetus, but the woman's life would also be in great danger. women who get abortions today seem to me would be desperate to get an illegal abortion, which is SO deadly. i have conflicts with myself over this issue, but the safety for the woman is my main concern.

So the fetus's right to live, if it exists, is not inviolate?

If the fetus has an absolute right to live, as born children do, then the government is obligated to protect this right, regardless of the policy consequences (deadly back-alley abortions, poverty, etc). To draw an analogy with slavery, the constitutional abolition of slavery created a lot of social upheaval in the United States, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do.

If the fetus does not have an absolute right to live, then there's no problem. However, it seems like you're arriving at this statement backwards by arguing from its consequences. I don't think it's such a good idea to treat questions about fundamental rights this way. If the fetus doesn't have such a right, that fact needs to be established first.

Just my 1/20th of one cent's worth.