It's only anger seeking a target, just as with so much else that (loudly) self-proclaimed "conservatives" froth and foam about.

The anger comes first, then it finds (or is guided to) a target. This was the genius of Rove, and before him of Atwater and Nixon: they saw this untapped well of anger as a huge political force, and they channeled it to their advantage.

The root cause of the anger is a matter for speculation. My guess would be a combination of financial anxiety and sexual frustration overlaying deeper insecurity and fear of the unknown or different. This would help to explain how easy it is to demonize women, gays and lesbians, other races, and all things "foreign" (unless, of course, they're white and English-speaking).

It's pathetic, really. Except that it's also dangerous.

Maybe I have Don Surber confused with the guy who used to write for Mad Magazine but I don't think he thinks "british common law" is ok because it "helps establish originalist interpretations." I think he thinks its ok because its kinda white and not associated (in his mind) with evil wogs 'n frogs and other foreigners. Its important to remember that the very things that baffle you, Steve, or Publius, exist on the far right precisely *because* they make no inherent moral or intellectual sense. Baffling you, a pathological aversion to the broader world, extreme ideological nationalism...[jingoism, agression for its own sake, racism, bigotry, homophobia]--these are all enjoyed for their own sake and because they (supposedly) piss off and bewilder liberals. Very few of the right wing base who parrot this stuff have the faintest idea what law is, in this country. They couldn't tell you if its based on statute or on common law traditions and precedent. They don't know that huge swathes of the US had prior government (french or spanish) with different legal systems and that in the case of Louisiana that still obtains. They don't know that treaties of all kinds created areas in which ordinary laws don't apply, or apply in more complex ways, they don't know there's something called "civil" or "criminal" law. And since it is to those people that the right is appealing when it postures about creating new laws governing the behavior of judges it is simply not necessary that the arguments make any ordinary kind of sense. In fact, it would be too complexify the matter beyond need. The lowest level of reasoning and argument is appropriate to something that is really just raw meat for the base dogs.

aimai

Publius is right: there's little "not to understand" in all the overheated brouhaha about "foreign law" - it's just more hysterical right-wing jingo nonsense ginned up by wingnuts to try and embarrass/discredit President Obama and/or anyone in his Administration that they can.

Which is only typical for a political/ideological movement whose fundamental interpretation of the world is founded on "American exceptionalism" - or, more precisely, the definition of that concept which translates as "our sh*t doesn't stink".

does this include the ten commandments?

Don't tell the wingnuts about Louisiana, then. (Napoleonic code. )

Also, better not tell them that Napoleon was French.

Yes - just ordinary American superiority. Citing a foreign law would tend to suggest that other nations contain people of an equal value to us, and that just cannot be.

briefly...

American law tends to be guided by precidents... ergo this is what other judges have decided over the last 200 odd years

French law, based on Roman law, tends to be based on direct interpretation of statutes without regard for precidents... (although this is changing.) (as for Louisiana, I di not know enough about how their system works to comment)

Everything evolves ....

"...Everything evolves...". Kurt @ 11:20 AM
Perhaps Kurt has stumbled onto the Grand Unified Theory of Wingnuttery?

Earth to wingnuts. Most of the laws in the U.S. are based on foreign law. Does the Magna Carta mean anything to these subchimpanzees. No offense intended to chimps.

Modern Republicanism:

If it doesn'ttake money out of someone else's pockets & put it into ours...

If it doesn't glorify the God we pretend to cherish to pander to our base...

If it makes our political opponents look wise or just or just plain good...

WE'RE AGIN' IT!!!

Now all we have to do is come up with better cover excuses that the simps who vote for us will swallow, or at least pretend to swallow for the even simpler simps in our ranks...

I ABSOLUTELY think that listening to all these "foreign laws" is dangerous. Imagine what shape the world would be in if all the governments of the world had listened to Bush, the Bush (in-)Justice Dept. and these "foreign laws" (well, foreign to them, at least). Imagine the precedent that would be established if every gov't. of the world decided that these "foreign American laws" establishing "habeas corpus free zones" was a good idea?

Nah, git them furrin laws outta my face, y'all...

1) it is the height of foolishness to argue rationally against wingnut rantings. wingnuts are completely irrational, incapable of rational thought.

2) on this particular topic: reference to foreign judicial rulings, wingnuts would argue just the opposite - that US judges should consider foreign rulings, if a foreign judicial ruling supported a wingnut position.

There is no integrity in wingnut thought. They can only think as deep as the thought of the moment and their perceptions of what is a winning arguement to them.

Imagine what shape the world would be in if all the governments of the world had listened to Bush, the Bush (in-)Justice Dept. and these "foreign laws" (well, foreign to them, at least)

"listening" to foreign judicial rulings doesn't mean agreeing with them. Other nations DID listen closely to the bush regime criminality: the nations believing in justice, civil rights, and the rule of law rejected the bush regime out-of-hand; dictatorships and totalitarian regimes OTOH have found great solace and support in the bush regime proceedings.

"Foreign" immediately arouses the ire of the right who are still mentally in the time of immigration restriction and nativism. Obama will have to help them -- the voters -- progress. With opponents like these, Obama will succeed.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers did listen to, well, at least read, the thoughts of a "foreign" person, that being John Locke.

And is the Magna Carte a list of Magnas?

This is just a subcase of a general right-wing problem: they don't understand the concept of "listening" to the ideas of others.

They don't have a mental conception of the process of hearing an idea, trying to understand the reasoning behind it, comparing that reasoning to your own, and responding by either accepting the idea or rejecting it, perhaps taking insights away to improve your own reasoning, by contrast or comparison.

Wingers don't do any of that, and they find it threatening, like all things they don't understand.

For them, "listening" to another idea means to automatically accept it, which is why they get so upset when Obama promised to listen to them, then didn't automatically do what they said. And it's also why they think courts "listening" to the opinions of foreign courts means being ruled by foreign laws.

It's an almost pathological aversion to the broader world -- and it's hard to understand this as anything other than extreme ideological nationalism."

No, it's just what happens when you're born without a neocortex and are therefore incapable of higher thought beyond "me hungree - kill fuud".

oh, Teh Irony, it hurtz!

The only one it is ok to cite is British Law, you know, the only country we actually fought a war to not have to follow its laws. priceless.

I think a lot of conservative anger stems from the sense of inferiority and disadvantage that comes from illiteracy. Otherwise I'm not sure how they got from what Ginsburg actually said to accusing the justices of "following foreign law."

Their fear of foreign law is fear of war-crimes trials. The foreign-domination hysteria is being whipped up for use in case of indictments in Spain or elsewhere, where they can't intimidate the courts.

And is the Magna Carte a list of Magnas? -- berttheclock, @12:46

No, no, no! It's a Magnificent Magnetic MENU, for Magnates and other Magnoli-me-tangeres. It consists entirely of Mangoes.

I'm surprised that a right winger acknowledges British Common Law as being a basis for our own legal system. After all, these people seem to believe that the US was founded on Christian principles, but British Common Law was founded on Anglo-Saxon and Viking principles, both groups decidedly pagan. If you want a legal structure founded on Christian principles, you have to go to Italy or Spain (or, heaven forbid, France.)

no...no...no..

conservatives know you don't show deference to foreign law...

just rules of etiquette...