I don't necessarily know if I'd make that assessment of Bush. I don't think he's a stupid man, just not capable of the kind of thought needed for the president. There are many smart people who, once they come to an opinion, simply won't budge on it. I think Bill O' Reilly sort of first into this category. And you need to be mentally flexible.

As for common decency, I don't think Bush is a bad person. I think he made some terrible fucking decisions... but I don't feel like they were made purely for his own self interest, at least in his mind. Like, maybe he had a personal motivation driving him to go to Iraq and that bias led to a disastrous decision, but I don't think it was willful. I think due to his bias and inflexible thinking, he just convinced himself it was the right thing to do.

Whereas with Trump, I think he's a genuine sociopath, who does not consider anything beyond what is to his personal benefit.

That being said I fucking wish so badly that Bush would have some balls and endorse Biden. To be fair, Bush has been relatively quiet after leaving office (whether that's due to him feeling that his time is done, or simply republicans not wanted to really associate themselves with him), but there are strong indications that Bush does not support Trump, and his anti-endorsement could actually help put an end to this.

TL:DR Bush was a terrible President. Trump is a terrible human being.

WE definitely seem to agree on all points. Bush wasn't terrible in retrospect, just not great at his job. Trump is just aggressively bad in virtually every way. 

No, I simply put stated how the argument as it was applied in the ruling and in the law and said why it didn't make any sense.

Torillian's argument (and now yours) wasn't what carried the day.

I didn't say that.  There's nothing that says the government has to acknowledge any marriage whatsoever.  Heck, a lot of libertarians used the gay marriage debate to make the case that government shouldn't be involved in it.

I explained the difference between sex and race in the first paragraph.

To begin with, sex as a matter of the 14th Amendment is a much more nuanced subject than race.  Though the Supreme Court moved to include sex as a part of the 14th Amendment, it is only subject to intermediate scrutiny (where race gets strict scrutiny), which gives a lot more leeway for government interests.  And I'll just leave off the government interests opponents of gay marriage believe as I'm sure we've all heard them.

Again, Kennedy did not use the argument you're putting forward in his opinion.  His opinion relied on treating homosexuals as a distinct class in the same vein as the immutable classes such as race and sex.

You're arguing something separate.  That sex should be put into the same category as race in the 14th Amendment (de facto ratifying the ERA).  But that would be expanding the Amendment beyond its original meaning at the time, something that arguably is already being done via precedent.

As a side note, it would also give credence to the argument that I made that the 14th Amendment could be extended to fetal rights.  A position that Originalists currently do not favor as, like sex, the original meaning of the Amendment does not favor that interpretation.

In Bush's defense, I think he was just very homely and a bad speaker. I never got the impression he was stupid, just that he was rednecky and terribly when it came to public speaking. He also seemed to genuinely care about the US people even if he was going about most of it the wrong way. 

Out of curiosity do you have any studies or comparisons for the claim that countries that handled covid better (less deaths I assume as the quality we're looking at for better) have had smaller economic impacts? It's something that makes sense to me but I'd love to have somethin to point to when questions about it later. 

If there were justice in today's America, Trump would be locked away for life, and so would the cops who killed Breonna Taylor (how the fuck he made bail I don't comprehend).

Ask an ye shall receive.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy

Quote: "As well as saving lives, countries controlling the outbreak effectively may have adopted the best economic strategy too."

First one's actually at 50% at this point. And you have assholes like me who just vote for their candidate whether or not they even saw it. Second's only 1000 nonrandom people. So, I'm not really too concerned.

A peculiar nick name for the corona virus...