therealtruth

May 14th, 2009 at 4:13 PM ^

For the last time: I don't care enough about Scalia to be "biased" against him. Your story of him "laying into" a law student made him sound, to me, dickish. Why can't you just accept that's all I based my statement on, instead of fabricating this story that I have this enormous axe to grind with the man that I seek out opportunities to do so on a fucking college football blog? I didn't even say "Scalia is an asshole", as I don't know that to be true. What I said was that the single incident you cited made him seem, to me, an asshole. That's all. You're doing anything to pick a fight. Just stop it.

Joined: 04/04/2009

MGoPoints: 26

Clarence Beeks

May 14th, 2009 at 6:05 PM ^

No see, you don't get it. My story did exactly what it was supposed to do. It was illustrative of Scalia's character, yet at the same time worked perfectly to smoke out bias (not saying you had bias) and bad assumptions (you definitely made a bad assumption). The wording of your post here is kind of funny, actually, because you say that I didn't give enough information to make assumptions, yet you made an assumption. Good stuff.

Joined: 09/06/2008

MGoPoints: 22855

Blue Durham

May 13th, 2009 at 10:42 AM ^

...find a tactful way of dismissing the question rather than wasting his considerable intellectual talents shredding a law student apart. That actually sounds like something an asshole would do. But isn't that exactly the complaint a number of posters here have regarding the old WLA members? They didn't suffer fools well, and perhaps (we don't know how the question was phrased or the manner it was asked) Scalia doesn't either. Sometimes this is not a bad thing. Regardless, even though the two forums are quite different, when in doubt this [finding a tactful way] is sound advice to a number of posters on this here blog.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 6082

BlueTimesTwo

May 13th, 2009 at 12:26 PM ^

I agree that Scalia can sometimes be a dick, but there are definitely times when the person asking the question had it coming. I can't speak for his conduct other places, but when he came to speak at Michigan some of the people asking questions were not subtle about their disdain for Scalia and his ideals. Speaking at a place like Michigan is like entering the lion's den for someone like Scalia, and I don't see a problem with him responding to their obvious attitude with a little attitude of his own. That, and watching him give students at an elite law school a little dose of humility is also pretty entertaining.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 13517

BlueNote

May 13th, 2009 at 1:46 PM ^

There were some law students who made it their mission to heckle Scalia. For instance, someone asked Scalia if he would compare him and Justice Thomas to Batman and Robin. That's just downright disrespectful. That guy, and others, had it coming. But he opened the lecture by yelling at the law school's photographer. I don't want to blow this out of proportion, because I've already mentioned it once. All in all, he just seems like a brash man . . . . a litigator. Other people in the legal world should be used to this character type. It's not shocking, and if it hurts you emotionally, then as others said, you probably shouldn't be in law school. It is a little unusual to see the litigator attitude on the Supreme Court though. Our preconceived notions say that a Justice should be objective, thoughtful, and reserved. That's not Scalia. He definitely breaks the mold. While I think many disagree with his legal analysis, many more are reacting to his persona because it conflicts with what they think a Justice should be. Even though I don't like his persona, I have to admit that I like the way he's enlivened debate about the law. He's instigated people into taking viewpoints. He's breathed life into a dusty, boring institution. I have to give him credit there. I think he also sold a lot of copies of his book after visiting various law schools.

Joined: 08/07/2008

MGoPoints: 1198

Blue Durham

May 14th, 2009 at 4:03 PM ^

I'm sure you recall a number of instances, and the reaction to it varied depending on (1) who did the name-calling and (2)the WLA member responding. For the most part, it was ignored (or I even imagine, laughed at) since the attack came from someone who held a grudge due to a prior run-in with them. But if the "you" refers to me specifically, yes I think they would object, because it would be contrary to virtually everything I have expressed. They could be outrageous, they could be over the top, but they were always interesting. I think they forced some people to check their facts and think a little more before posting. I suspect you already knew this, though. Regarding the larger matter to which you commented to, I do take issue in referring to both the WLA and Scalia in that manner. However, people are allowed to express themselves the way they see fit, but I think in both cases the blog is worse off.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 6082

Snowden

May 13th, 2009 at 2:08 PM ^

This is awesome to watch. It's also forcing me to reevaluate my presuppositions on the MGoBoard community. For some reason, while there a lot of quality posts around these parts, I thought 95% of all posters here were freshmen dicking around in the UGLi, McFarlin-esque teen trolls, and bored recent-graduates killing time in their first engineering job. Apparently we could form our own law firm from the MGoBoard (MGoBarristers? MGoLaw?). Awesome sauce.

Joined: 07/07/2008

MGoPoints: 85