bong hits 4 dahlia

I’ve been following this story over the last few weeks as it has sidled up to its Supreme Court crossroad. I think I fall on the side of the student in this case, even a goofball like this kid, since I don’t know how disruptive the behavior really was and I think the principal overreacted. As with any case, the justices can reach to almost any scenario to suggest that an action, or free speech event, would clearly be out-of-bounds. Either side of the bench (and even though the seating arrangements are by longevity on the court, there are clear sides) can use what I call the “torturing the nuke hider” attack plan against any argument or law placed before them. This plan, or line of logic, is loosely based on the argument for torture that invokes the “we’ve got a terrorist, he has a nuclear bomb set to explode in NYC in 30 minutes, and we need to know where it’s located” basis for saying that torture is okay. If decisions are made solely on absolute extremes, any possible extreme that can be considered inflammatory, then I consider it invalid. I think Scalia is treading down this path a bit when he asks about the rape button during arguments. I wouldn’t answer that question any differently than most…it is unacceptable, but that question isn’t valid law in my mind.

Now that I’ve pawned off my lack of legal training on everyone I’ll give you Dahlia Lithwicks’s much better, and hilarious, summary of yesterday’s session.

T.