Aren't you the one who thought that the court's five conservative justices was made up solely of white men? Is it that you don't care about this issue? Or are you really that stupid?

Hi oomomex,

Perhaps you hadn't heard, but Sonia Sotomayor made the comment (many times, as it turns out) that a wise Latina makes a better judge than a white man. A majority of white men just overturned her decision at the Supreme Court. If you want to hang your hat on the idea that I was unaware Clarence Thomas is black, feel free.

Cause your side (racist, tribal, identity politicking) just lost.

You stopped when you were asked to show this horrible, horrible discrimination of today that would warrant the punishment of some innocents to give preferential treatment to others. Others who had not even been discriminated against themselves.

You stopped when asked to justify giving A unfair advantage over B because X had been unfair to Y at some other location, at some other time.

Yep. I can see why you stopped.

I stopped when it became clear you were not interested in anything remotely resembling an intelligent dialogue.

Again, and for the last time, I'm not going to help you maintain the fiction that you are interested in a rational exchange of ideas.

You may have the last word.

Bullshit.

You stopped when I wanted dialogue from you as to an important question rather than you getting to ask all the questions. It is a simple thing that you decided meant that I "was not interested in intelligent dialogue" --- I asked a question you did not care to answer.

I'll ask again, and you can answer for all those "bright boys out there". What horrible, horrible discrimination is going on today that would warrant punishing innocent X to favor Y just because someplace in time and space W discriminated against Z, knowing full well there is no connection between the situations.

You choose to favor group warfare by saying that the USA government should treat some individuals better than other individuals. The onus is on you to demonstrate that treating individuals non-equally is morally supportable --- and that it will not lead to ever more resentment, hatred, and violence.

If you ever want to know why the political climate in this country is so poisoned, you need look no further than your previous reply. Rather than reply substantively, as I did to your post, you asserted - without knowing me - that I did not know the law (ignoring the fact that I quoted directly from it), and concluded that my analogy was "ludicrous and laughable."

I was more than fair to you. You've merely been victimized by your own ignorance. That does not give you the opportunity to pretend that I turned you into a victim. The fact is, as I said earlier, "you don't know the law." Believe it or not, there is long running precedent on this matter. If you knew it, you'd see how Kennedy and company radically departed from that precedent. As for comparing it to a Presidential election, it was such an absurd and inapplicable analogy that I a stand behind my description of it being "ludicrous and laughable" 100%. Get over it.

How much more helpful it would be if you could have responded, directly, to my thought experiment of switching the race of the fire fighters.

It wasn't a thought experiment. It was ignorant babble. Had you known the law, you'd already know the answer. The problem is, you were making an offbase scenario based on what you want to believe happens or would happen in the world. You haven't based anything in any understanding of the law and how it applies. Why should I engage your sophistry as anything more than that? :)

"Once upon a time, the goal in America was that every individual would be equal before the law --- now all are equal, but some are more equal than others."

The above is a very amusing construction. The famous "Once upon a time" rears its head. Anyway, notice how the author talks about the supposed goal but somehow just forgets to mention the fact that for the vast majority of this country's history there was open, rampant and pervasive discrimination, which was often coded into law, against women and racial minorities in pretty much all areas of life.

I know the author is trying to pretend that the recent equality under the law somehow magically and instantly mitigated the real life effects of the previous long standing discrimination though that is fairly ridiculous but, I do love the dramatic wailings.

"This was a joke of a ruling and Ginsburg is right in saying it will have no staying power."

Yep. Ginsburg's dissent was spot on and this ruling will have the staying power of a fart in a hurricane.

Instead she sounds like an old bitter woman nursing a grudge. I thought she was so anti-descrimination. Her actions and words sound like something completely different. I can only guess at her motivation.

I can take the critique. (Since our last exchange, I have taken several hours of spiritual counseling, and had a mani-pedi, and I feel at peace now.) However, I note with interest that while you continue to say that I "don't know the law", you fail to cite the law you suggest you know better. But do go ahead and take another crack at it.

As for ignoring my thought experiment, I'm not surprised you chose not to respond to that either, as it would show that your position is built on sand.

Well, whatever you thought my knowledge of the law was BEFORE, we all know what the law is NOW: Disparate treatment is unconstitutional when used to address disparate impact, unless there is a strong-basis-in-evidence that disparate impact liability would arise from business practices or policies that are not consistent with business necessity.

What staggers me is the continued comfort of people like Ginsburg and the other dissenters with comments like, "other approaches would likely have had LESS adverse impact", or cite approvingly claptrap like "Members of different racial groups, Helms told the CSB, sometimes do their jobs in different ways." Does this mean that the tests should be different for members of each racial group, so that we can test the "black" way and the "white" way to attach a hose, drive a truck, administer various chemicals to various types of fires, or run up and down ladders? Ignoring the fact that Title VII outright forbids differential testing by race (not to mention the 14th amendment), WHY ARE THOSE ON YOUR SIDE SELLING BLACK PEOPLE SHORT? Can you imagine Barack Obama, Harvard grad, editor of the law review, constitutional lecturer, state and US senator and president of the United States, telling Sasha and Malia that "it's okay to get lower grades and test scores - after all, you're black"? Or, "You want to be a doctor? Great. Here's the way black people do heart transplants?"

Real equality means real equality. In this case, a test the composition and wording of which was overseen by nine three-person panels, each consisting of a black, a white and a hispanic is STILL not good enough to satisfy those, like you, who INSIST on judging black people on a lower standard, because of the unspoken but clear-as-crystal presumption that they cannot compete successfully. I dissent.