Richard Posner: Interpreting the Law 

Citizens' United was decided correctly. Freedom of speech comes first.

He has no business on the Supreme Court. He is an activist judge who interprets based on what he wants the outcome to be.

??? He would destroy Scalia. Constitutionality is a con.

Chicago

@@BigTechWorldx2 Thanks!

Only because the left agree with him, not because Posner is correct.

Sharon Oded I think judges should make decisions based on the law. One judge has a different set of morals than another. Making moral decisions would not allow for any consistency and no one could predict whether or not what they were doing was legal or not.

+GunsNpolitics Ever heard of "conventional" vs. "post-conventional morality"? Or of autism spectrum people being very rule-oriented and righteous vs. neurotypics being able to balance two principles due to their "cognitive empathy"? Ever heard of family court judges who have basically but one standard to follow when it comes to custody and visitation rights, and that this standard is "the benefit of the child", and ever thought of that a rule-oriented person or a person with a conventional morality must be at a complete loss here? That this is not the only big blank in the law system, that there are tons of situations where a judgement needs to be based on cognitive empathy and standards, because the facts are highly disputed and there are no rules or laws to follow. When facts are established, it is easy for a judge to apply the law, says Posner somewhere in his book, a complete idiot can do that (that is what I say). It gets interesting when these facts are disputed, and in situations of conflict, facts tend to be disputed, and people who are on the autism spectrum, or people who are rule-oriented, or people who are zzz enough to write sentences like "judges should make decisions based on law" are simply not fit to make ANY judgments here! They should be honest and leave it up to people who are fit, i.e. neurotypics (if possible rather with some life experience than a 12 years old, although a 12 year old neurotypic will still do better than a 76 year old ex-judge with Aspergers), people with a post-conventional morality, people who dont abide by zzz sentences. I appreciate it very much that Posner is finally honest, or at least more honest than he used to, and declares that the ability to judge depends largely on anthropologic factors. I would appreciate it even more, if he opted for naming it by its true name and not omitting the A-word. BTW if you are interested in what Posner might have refered to with "authoritarian Personality", you could have a look at the book "The Authoritarian Personality". And if your are interested in more on both, rule-oriented judges with Asperger and the racism/eugenics link, I recommend de.pinterest.com/gertrud4617/autism-we-need-to-talk-about-thilo-sarrazin-und-se/.

himbeer Are you trying to reason with me or insult me so you can stroke your superiority complex? Judges should make decisions based on the law. Not their opinion of what is right and wrong, but the law. If the law is that abortion is legal, then a pro life judge should rule on a case that a person has a right to an abortion, a legal act. Family court is different. That's not a place where a law says mom gets the kid or dad gets the kid. A judge has to hear what is going on with the parents, find out how the kid is doing and make decisions based on information that is different in every case. The goal in family court is to decide what is best for the kids. The goal in the Supreme Court is to decide if something is legal or not. I'm not sure what autism or the rest of that stuff has to do with anything, other than to try to confuse things. It doesn't matter what a judge suffers from or what condition he or she has. The law is still the law and should be applied the same by all judges. If it's illegal to carry a gun into a school, then pro gun and anti gun judges should rule that it is illegal anytime the issue comes up in their court. The idea of making moral judgements will mean that no one knows if it's really illegal all the time to carry a gun into a school. It will depend on which judge gets to rule on the case. That would mean the law is whatever a particular judge says it is. There would be no consistency there. Maybe at some point I'll be interested in reading about mental conditions of judges, but I'm not interested in that now. I do read some about judges because that interests me, but I'm interested in what they do more so than why they do it.

I am trying to reason with you. I can just repeat the same in a hopefully more convincing way. Insisting that a judge has to follow the law, is so utterly pointless for 2 reasons. 1. Some verdicts (actually much more than a rule-oriented judge might think) require balancing two or more conflicting principles that govern the laws. 2. 95% of a judge s work has nothing to do with law and rules, but with establishing which statements are correct or not, (or more credible, and how much more), with deciding for which points clarification is needed how badly and how to proceed to get it, and finally knowing whether this or that, or still a third or 4th alternative is the better solution to a conflict. These 95% make up 99% of the interesting part of the job, the remaining 5% is mainly formalism and routine. You wrote: "It doesn't matter what a judge suffers from or what condition he or she has." Are you SERIOUS??? Just imagine what a horrorful judge an Asperger with his severe theory of mind deficits and his huge lack of power of judgement for people s issues would make! Cognitively complex stuff like conflictory people s issues is after all FAR too complex for people on the autism spectrum. (And I did not even mention an Asperger judge s lack of understanding his own emotions involved, or his emotion regulation problems, and what this can lead to, and has led to in history.) As I argue quite convincingly on pinterest.com, quite a lot of Aspergers unfortunately manage to fool themselves into believing that they are able to judge in juridic matters, exactly because they are so bad at judging in normal life. They try (first more, later less successfully) to convince themselves that the laws, rules and procedures, the dominance of the written in the juridic system and the fact to have more time would come to their rescue as it sometimes and mostly only partly does in their normal lifes. The resulting dominance of Aspergers in the justice systems of this world is one of the biggest problems humankind has.

himbeer My god dude, really? WHat I said is not hard to understand. I dont' care if a judge has the cold, or the flu, or a splinter, or aspergers, or anything else. They should make rulings based on the law. Not their opinion, not on what they feel is moral, which is what I was responding to, but the law. Of course there are instances where judgement comes into play, but that has nothing to do with morals or what I was clearly saying. It seems like the OP would be fine with a judge, for example, saying guns are illegal for civilians to own because I feel owning them is immoral. I say that's wrong, they should rule on the law, not on what they find moral. If a judge cannot make rulings based on the law, then they should not be a judge. Clearly I am talking about cases were it is a simple matter of is this legal or not. Not do I think it's moral or not or do I like it as a judge or not. I just cant' read all that stuff you wrote. I skimmed through it. Honestly, it's just not that interesting.

David Lucas He’s the most cited justice outside of the Supreme Court. He’s a pragmatist. Many many times the most important legal issues of our time have stalled because of the restrictive formalism that other justices have pursued. He’s been the voice of reason many times.