Supreme Court upholds Solomon Amendment
Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog breaks the good news:
In a sweeping legal victory for the U.S. military, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that Pentagon recruiters must be assured an equal opportunity with other employers to sign up students at the nation’s law schools. Upholding the so-called “Solomon Amendment,” the Court ruled in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., that the military must be given access to those campuses
UCLA Law prof Steve Bainbridge adds that, “this opinion tends to confirm the very high hopes many of us had for Roberts – well-argued, cleanly written, and sufficiently persuasive to pull in 9 votes.”
Harry Callahan at Ace of Spades HQ looks beyond the obvious positives of this decision and adds, “the fact that it also will enrage all manner of leftist college professors and moonbats is icing on the cake.”
For all of their non-support, their attempted obstructionism, and their out-right opposition to our troops, I too find any discomfort that this brings to anybody as “icing on the cake”.
***
Schools still have the choice to stick to their principles and not allow Military recruiters access to their schools; they’ll just have to fore go tax payer subsidies if they so choose.
AJ at The Strata-Sphere wonders, “so, let’s see how firmly these colleges believe in their principles. Are they willing to sacrifice money for principle? Don’t count on it.”
McQ at The QandO Blog offers this answer: “The schools, of course, will capitulate. When it comes to a choice between sucking up taxpayers money or standing on principle, you can bet that the money will prevail.”
Yale prefers Taliban to ROTC
Why do I say that this is a win for the good guys? Because, in case you missed it on your evening news, Yale has rolled out the carpet for former deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi — all the while while blocking ROTC training from its campus and arguing for the right of its law school to exclude military recruiters.
Ed at Captain’s Quarters noticed the hypocrisy at Yale, too:
And let’s remember that while Yale opens its doors and arms to a man who belonged to a government that would chop the fingers off of women who dared to paint their nails and forbade the flying of kites, it still refuses to allow the military to recruit and for the ROTC to train on its campus. Why? Because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the US armed forces. Why doesn’t Yale ask Hashemi how the Taliban treated homosexuals? The US military just gives gays general discharges — it doesn’t bulldoze brick walls onto their prostrate bodies.
The Left Reacts
I was curious as to how the Left would receive this unanimous decision from the Supreme Court. I wasn’t surprised to find more “supporting the troops” as only the Left can do it (from Dadler commenting at TalkLeft):
Considering the military just another “employer” strikes me as quite twisted, if not Orwellian. On the most simplistic level, you have the right to quit a job; you have the right to be convicted and imprisoned if you quit your military “job”. The military is a tyrannical institution at heart, that’s how it operates, in a mode counter to genuine freedom and democracy. When you are in the military you are a few hairs short of a slave. With some benefits, that can arguably not nearly measure up to what you are commanded to do by your “employer”.
And the military, an “employer” with a long record of killing innocent people, mistreating its own soldiers, lying to their families, discriminating against homosexuals, suppressing dissent, etc.
Like I said at the beginning, a win for the good guys.
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The left’s opinion?
SCOTUS Gets It Right on Military Recruiting
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/6/151448/0894
Good point, Preston. But if you’ll start reading through the comments on the Kos diary that you linked, you’ll see the true feelings of the Left filtering through.
The second comment gets the tone started nicely:
“Just put the recruiters in Campus Free Zones to keep the students safe.”
There are competing values at work here- the right of an institution to choose not to do business with another institution that practices discrimination against homosexuals versus the right of congress to impose the contrary will.
Look you claim to want the Constitution as it was written 200 years ago to dictate the decisions now. But your insistence on results-based decisions belies that.
There were also people 50 years ago that wanted the Court to overturn acts of Congress because they felt that they were discriminatory. They felt this was one of those types of cases.
I think that the decision was probably correct but the losing side had valid issues.
The SCOTUS opinion relies principally upon the legal theory that the government has the authority to require all colleges to give military recruiters access regardless of whether the school receives federal funding. Otherwise, it might run afoul of the “unconstitutional conditions” jurisprudence.
As a modest proposal in furtherance of Robbie’s desire to keep cannabis illegal irrespective of any real commerce clause basis for prohibition, the selective service could simply consider all enlistment-age people as being drafted into reserves and prohibit such conduct on pain of court-martial and summary punishment.
[...] Last week, we wrote about Yale admitting — nay, clamoring for the privilege of admitting — Sayed Ramatullah Hashemi (the former spokesperson for the Taliban — yes, that Taliban) into their hallowed Ivy-halls. [...]
Thanks for quoting me. Have you any actual rhetorical reply to my logical points? Or is the reality of military “employment” and abuse just too much for you to handle?
To parody their recruiting slogan: It’s not just a job, it’s an indenture.
You have little to no rights and your compensation is pitiful for the vast majority of soldiers. Not to mention, of course, that their civilian leaders have yet again committed them to a deadly quagmire, with inferior resources and manpower, and lied about it day in and day out in the process.
Since my little brother is one of those soldiers, having served a year in Baghdad, now hiking through the mountains of Afghanistan, I’ve see the effect on my family directly.
Disagree, fine. But have at least a smidgen of rhetorical chops as you do.
Peace.
Also Robbie,
Forget Yale and one former Taliban official, right up until 9/11 the U.S. Government was PAYING MILLIONS to the Taliban for the “good job” they’d done in the “drug war”. We knew they were thugs and extremists, abusing the rights of their female citizens, executing whomever they wanted…but they were doing what we wanted at the time and we were REWARDING THEM HANDSOMELY.
Wake up, my friend. Reality comes in many more shades than basic black and white.