ditto

Hopefully the last thought to run through his mind was "Oh shit, Obama will pick my replacement"

Personally, I think some people should hang up the liberal badge. Because when you cheer over someone's death; can't understand why some people might be opposed to abortion on the basis they consider it killing a child and otherwise spout your ideology as "Good" vs the opposition's "Evil", you are no better than those you think you are better than.

While I'm not a fan of Scalia's decisions in general, I think anyone expressing joy over this man's death has a screw loose...

I just include everyone in the evil f***wits category, it's simpler. And 95% right.

Seeing as all the Republicans in the Senate will either abstain or vote no until the next president is sworn in - it is unlikely President Obama will be able to get anything done regarding a new justice for his final term. It would require the approval of at least 14 Republicans to confirm a justice at this point.

The GOP would likely prefer someone conservative as opposed to someone liberal (most likely Obama's choice).

[EDIT] There's also the Thurmond Rule. Not necessary in this case since the GOP controls the majority of the senate. But if the president somehow convinced 14 Republicans to his side - the Thurmond Rule can be invoked to prevent the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice in an election year.

We understand why some people might be opposed to abortion. They have batshit beliefs. Fine for them. Not good for people who don't share said beliefs.

Look, if someone was opposed to you
- existing, because you're possessed by a demon,
- owning property, because all property is sin,
- taking meds, because only God decides whom to kill and when,
- owning pets, because Animals are More Noble and Pure Than Dirty Hyoomans --
you'd understand full well they were batshit or evil. But somehow, if a random douchenozzle believes the growth in a human's body has more rights than the human and acts on that belief, it's a-okay pluralism, everyone sing kumbayah.

edit: and while it's Not Cool to wish death on people (because it provokes crazies and criminals into attacking the designated target, and is in fact often used as oblique death threats / kill orders), and it's Not Okay to celebrate murder (nothing good about murder being standard practice, no matter the victim), being glad when an active evildoer dies of natural causes or gets hoisted by their own petard is fine.

I guess that's the problem with having someone in a position of power where he can do a lot of harm who can basically, barring some extraoridnary and extremely unlikely circumstances, remain in office indefinately. I don't think anyone is actually cheering the fact that guy is dead, just the fact that he is no longer in office, and as it happens his death was the only thing that could bring that about.

I know nothing about the guy, and I don't feel like doing much research about this, so I have no judgment of my own on what kind of a person he was, and whether the US is better off without him in the Supreme Court. I'm just saying the circumstances make "expressing joy" understandable, even if you yourself don't agree.

To be honest, I think a lot of the dereps are coming from the crowd who I've seen around on social/political/justice-related topics (not necessatily left- or right-leaning) who seem to fall in to the "Keep politics out of our game discussion forum!" crowd.

That said, I'm doing my part to try to counteract the ridiculous dereping here. i for one wouldn't downrep people who'd be trying to express an opinion against gay marriage, abortion/rights of women, etc. Oh well. I guess it's because we're all just dirty, rotten evil SJWs who want to take away their precious video games. </sarcasm>

I think that may be the case in places like jefe's gamergate thread. Mine are actually coming from right-wingers. I made an anti-fascist statement the other day (about neo-nazi organizations) and I've been hit for -6/day since. I'm pretty cool with that.

As much as I side with budjovice on the political side of this, I personally think it's important to remember that it's wrong to cheer for someone's death. As a "liberal", I was utterly shocked and appaled at some of the downright sociopathic glee that came with the death of Jerry Falwell.

The troubling thing is, it's more than likely that Scalia's replacement will be someone who will be just as Far Right as he was, if not more so.

Pretty much this.

I don't think anyone in this thread was cheering, though. Not sad is not the same thing as cheering. I feel bad for his family. There are lots of sad grandkids right now.

Scalia's views were very outdated and archaic.

He won't be missed.

Even Glenn Frey?

I get the impression some people think judge = powerful decision-maker = crusader for Good or otherwise for Evil. While there are theories of virtue jurisprudence and so forth, they're pretty constrained by the wider expectation that judges should interpret the law instead of legislating from the bench. (Of course, there may be cultural differences involved in people's perceptions of how a judge should operate: e.g. where I am judges are appointed in the name of the Crown and only specialists could tell you who the 'liberal' or 'conservative' ones might be.)

Part of the problem (as far as I've seen in the US) is that if a Supreme Court judge were to say, rule in favor of gay marriage on the basis of them intrpreting the 14th Amendment, the decriers say that it's actually them legislating from the bench. Hence why people like President George W. Bush frequently used terms like "Activist Judges" as a pejorative against Supreme Court judges who came from the Democrat side or at the very least didn't toe the GOP party line.

The same of course, also applies the other way, for Judges who may issue rulings that could be seen as Right-leaning, that actually may have a defensible Constitutional and/or legal basis.

IMHO, it ultimately comes down to culture, specifically what some choose to see as a battle between Far-Right/Neo-Conservative Fundementalist Evangelical Protestant Christianity vs. Everyone Else.