Oh look, an optimist, how adorable -- and look, he cares about social issues! How cute, someone take a picture.
I may be quoting your avatar, I'm not sure, but wow, sarcasm how original. It's punks like you that stop progress. If you care so much get out there and DO something. MLK didn't advance civil rights by sitting at home complaining.
You're sitting at home complaining, too, just about something else.
Okay, fine. While I think Jack is being rather optimistic, he's got a point. The winds of change are blowing, that is not in question, the question that remains to be answered is if they're blowing rain or a hailstorm. He's still being a bit of a bellend - Yeah, you're not stopping a damned thing, nor are people like you stopping anything, it's the wankers who are getting out there and actively working against it that are the primary problem, not people like us.
And MLK bloody well DID advance civil rights while sitting at home complaining, as much as he was able to turn a hell of a speech, he didn't write The Strides Toward Freedom or The Measure of a Man while walking a protest line, and the man was a prolific writer - every speech he ever made is outweighed tenfold by his letters on the very same topics. It's arguable that his correspondence did as much to further the movement as his speeches, and that was nothing if not sitting at home, complaining to people who were not present.
Greg, brother, I have to address you too. You know I hate bringing this up - Frankly, I just noticed I'm grinding my teeth in annoyance at not being able to find another way to put it - but you're a young chap yet, and that kind of jaded cynicism fits on you like a cheap suit that was made for someone else. We both know I'm not that much older than you, and I've seen changes big enough to make something like Gay Marriage becoming federally legal look like a high school Mock Parliament. Or Mock Congress, I guess. Wars, worldwide change, scientific discovery. Make no mistake, it's not all good, bad shit happens, everywhere, every day. Almost everybody gets to see some real dark shit in their time, some more than others, some darker than others, but everybody sees some shit. But despite that, this is not a hopeless cause, it's not a foolish hope, and really, as hopes and goals go, it's a pretty good one to shoot for, and to hope for as soon as possible - and certainly not a worthy target of cynicism and derision.
Or in short, Fucking stop it the pair of you. Jack, You've got a point, but you're still being a cockhead and overreacting. Get over it, mate, no need to bark back twice as loud just because you got barked at. Greg, stop trying to pointlessly piss on his parade just because you don't share his optimism and/or because you don't like the guy. If you have an actual objection, articulate it, or let the issue lie.
And that's TWO lectures for today, any more and I'm going to have to start invoicing you bastards.
I only piss on naive optimism parades. Same-sex marriage will come, eventually, I'm just trying to keep everyone grounded in reality. It was over 50 years between Wyoming granting women's suffrage (the first state/territory to do so), and the Feds granting it -- and that was a much greater injustice than this. I know that things are different and social forces will hasten the change, but that's what they said about the racial civil rights movement, and that only took about a century. I know, the religious zealots will die out and society will progress, but that's what they said at the Scopes-Monkey Trial, and creationism is still taught in Tennessee.
My cynicism doesn't even have to do with this shit, really. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care much about gay marriage. It effects up to %3 of the populace, and that %3 is a disproportionately affluent white part (it's because of what conditions are conducive to someone coming out, I don't want to get into the details now, though). For a country like ours (or rather, mine, since you're a Goddamn socialist 'Stralian heathen) -- the most prosperous in the world that still faces starvation, homelessness, and plutocratic health care; the most powerful military that won't provide for the people who make it work; a country that regulates substances without knowing what they are -- the plight of this oppressed %3 of disproportionately affluent white people is fairly unimpressive. I'm not delusional enough to say that we shouldn't progress on this issue, since the Judicial system doesn't really have anything better to do, but the amounts of the electorate's attention I see going towards same-sex marriage instead of those is astounding. The only person I see attacking these issues is Bernie Sanders, whose state suffers disproportionately less than the rest of the country from them.
"But, Greg, someone who cares about your issues will come along," I hear you cry. "Someone who wants to promote peace and apply our domestic policies to the rest of the world." He did, and I was 50 years too late for him. His name was Henry Wallace, he believed in forming an alliance with the Soviet Union after WWII, and supporting capitalists abroad through financial and agricultural aid, not military. He was cast out for fighting within the party for what he believed in -- a classic example of partisan politics screwing over progress.
"But, Greg, he was before his time," I hear you cry. "A movement will come along like the Civil Rights movement that will attack these issues you speak of." And again, it did, and I was 100 years too late. It was the American Socialist Movement, headed by such icons as Eugene V Debs, Rose Pastor Stokes, and Max Eastman, each of whom were arrested and sentenced to 10 years for speaking against American involvement in the Great War. The elected officials who followed their doctrine and party in the New York Legislature were expelled. Their followers were jailed without trial in 1920 by the FBI on suspicion of being agents of Soviet Russia -- a country that only technically existed at the time -- who had been sent to subvert democracy by participating in the democratic system.
I could continue, talking about the robbery of 1896 from William Jennings Bryan and my 116 year grudge with progressives, talking about Eugene McCarthy and the manipulation of the electorate in both 1964 and 1968, or how the one victory my beliefs have had was Andrew Jackson and the grand ways he fucked up once in power -- but I think you get my point. It's not that I lack enthusiasm in my beliefs of populism and marxism (which is just populism applied to economics), but rather that I lack nativity to believe that this time will be any different than the others.
I've done the slacktivism and signed petitions, I can't really do much more due to my schedule. Point taken, criticism received but if someone isn't a ray of sunshine then there's no rainbow.
Now the other choice to my idea is have SCOTUS rule on the issue, like they eventually did with Civil Rights. It ends up with more slings and arrows but gets the job done, and a lot faster. I prefer such issues coming from the states, but sometimes the only solution is a hammer.
Why am I so full of sarcasm today? I was like this in school, too.
Eh, just one of those days. Happens to everybody. Still not letting you off the hook because you had a shite day
You don't lack the naivety, you clearly have it by the truckload, to the point where you're naive enough to think that you're not. What you DO lack is perspective and knowledge. The world as it stands is a very different place to the events you speak of, in part because of those events, and other events around the world left unmentioned. The world moved on.
Also, you're good at rhetoric, but your arguments do need some work. And you need to learn to better use the "I hear you say" technique. Top marks, but you still need some polish.
I must take issue with your examples, though - Henry Wallace wasn't cast out for standing up for what he believed in, nor was he really before his time. He was fired by Truman for standing up specifically at a time where it undermined and damaged peaceful negotiation with the soviets in Paris. He was, frankly, a terrible politician, and he wasn't fired for what he thought - in fact, Truman rubber-stamped the very speech about his beliefs that got him fired - but because he played the political game badly, and nearly fucked over the home team. Unless you're talking about his general alienation from the party which was, again, because he was shithouse at politics and interacting with his co-workers, rather than specifically his political beliefs - which became a bludgeon to beat him with, but were not the underlying reason he was being beaten on. It's not an example of partisan politics screwing over progress, it's an example of someone screwing himself over by acting like an idiot, and being bad at his job. The system didn't screw Henry Wallace over, Henry Wallace screwed Henry Wallace over. What you said sounds good, damned good, but it simply isn't true. It was also more than sixty-seven years ago.
Also, your usage of the American Socialist Movement is inspired, but foolish - Yes, they were arrested for protesting the Great War, as in WORLD WAR ONE. Are you trying to tell me you're considering something that occurred before the American civil rights movement - which the later parts of the American socialist movement were heavily involved in, by the way, Bayard Rustin was the one who gave the idea of Pacifism to MLK, and it was Rustin and A. Philip Randolph who primarily organized the famous March on Washington, where the "I have a dream" speech occurred - to be a legitimate comparison of what's happening right now within the civil rights movement, barely less than a century in the future from that point? That can't be anything more than naivety and naive cynicism hunting for justification, because I know you're not that stupid.
Rose Pastor Stokes was sentenced, but never spent a day inside - the case was dismissed by the Eighth Circuit as being, as I recall, sheer speculation and nonsense. Eastman, as far as I can tell, never went to jail, was acquitted at every trial, only forced to close The Masses because of the Espionage act.
"marxism (which is just populism applied to economics)"
What the stuttering fuck are they even teaching you in school? Are they teaching you? That is so vastly fucking wrong that it's not even wrong, it's just nonsense, and it's nonsense that's insulting to the very idea of Marxism.
"My cynicism doesn't even have to do with this shit, really." Then drop it. If you can.
"My cynicism doesn't even have to do with this shit, really." Then drop it. If you can.
I couldn't really, at the time, because it was just one of those days. I knew I shouldn't post it here, but I needed to post it somewhere and here was most relevant.
I couldn't really, at the time, because it was just one of those days. I knew I shouldn't post it here, but I needed to post it somewhere and here was most relevant.
I'll admit, I have to consciously rein it in a lot. Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don't. I could have put that last bit better.
Usually when I get incredibly cynical I also lose energy to rant. I believe this comes from social conditioning, because I used to make impassioned political speeches in middle school. You can imagine how well that went.
For the one of you who hasn't heard yet, this morning the Supreme Court overturned Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 4 contains the rules that determine which states are required to submit proposed changes to their voting laws to the federal government before they enact them - this was applied to states and districts which had a history of discrimination in their voting laws.
The overturning was based on the fact that the formula was based on the practices being used when it was enacted (in 1965), and therefore "no longer reflects 'current conditions'".
While Justice Roberts didn't go so far as to declare that racism is over, he did claim that "[The record shows nothing] approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant, ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the nation."
Ginsburg's dissent pointed out that striking down the law because the voting discrimination isn't as important as it used to be is downright stupid, since that in itself proves that the law is currently effective. Additionally, Congress held nearly two years of hearings on the Voting Rights Act in 05-06 before reaffirming it, which should show that Section 4 was very strongly considered and was deemed to be still valid.
The effect of this is that: A) These places can effectively pass whatever voting laws they want for the time being, as long as they aren't blatantly violating constitutional rules, and Congress now gets to spend the rest of this term and probably much of the next trying to get together a rewrite of that part of the Voting Rights Act, which is going to suck.
Needless to say, I'm a bit angry right now.
Oh, also, the Court has announced that they'll announce all the remaining opinions for the term tomorrow, which means we'll be getting rulings on Prop 8 and DOMA.
In effect, the SC has issued a challenge to the "formerly" racist states. "OH, you claim you're no longer racist? Prove it."
This isn't as big of a deal as everybody is making it out to be. You can still challenge a law that is obviously racist or is applied in a racist way. All this means is that those states don't have to get prior approval for the voting system.
This might lead to racist voting laws in the short term (though there is no guarantee of that), but if it does then that will be followed by lawsuits challenging them and court opinions striking them down, which is more definitive and binding.
It seems weird that only the racist states have to get their voting law changes pre-approved. Couldn't this whole thing be solved by holding every state, racist or otherwise, to the same approval process?
The thing is, challenging voting laws is incredibly expensive and time-consuming, and tends to lead to fairly narrowly-scoped victories - the reason those sections were part of the Voting Rights Act in the first place was that by the time a group could win a case and strike down a law, the local government would have time to come up with a slightly different law with a similar effect, slowing the actual pace of change to something a bit below a crawl.
It seems weird that only the racist states have to get their voting law changes pre-approved. Couldn't this whole thing be solved by holding every state, racist or otherwise, to the same approval process?
Unfortunately, the Constitution gave the right to regulate voting to the States, so a blanket act would be unconstitutional. The VRA was an exception because it was fulfilling Congress' power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.
Honestly, I'm almost more upset that we're going to have to watch a Congressional circus for the next infinity years over whether they can find criteria for a new version of that section.
Sometimes laws with good intentions are unconstitutional. Limited powers, deal with it.
This.
It seems weird that only the racist states have to get their voting law changes pre-approved. Couldn't this whole thing be solved by holding every state, racist or otherwise, to the same approval process?
It could if Congress had that authority. As Linkigi said, that power belongs to the states. The fact that this law applied only to states with a history of racist problems, and not *current* racist problems, is the main reason it was held unconstitutional.
Of course the dissenting argument that the REASON they don't have a current racism problem with voting laws is BECAUSE of this provision is totally valid. But I guess not compelling enough.
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the glorious ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in the original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterward,'; but everywhere, spread over all the characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, -- Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!
It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.
As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty [btw, the Know Nothings were the best named party in our history, simply because they were the only ones to follow the laws of Nominative Determinism]
Setting aside discrimination problems, Federal elections are Federal and should be run with Federal regulations. There were already serious problems with the way we select our electorate, but this is just compounding the problem.
Setting aside discrimination problems, Federal elections are Federal and should be run with Federal regulations. There were already serious problems with the way we select our electorate, but this is just compounding the problem.
Doesn't matter though. Even if the Federal elections are controlled, the state elections can be monkeyed with completely, and that can allow for all sorts of Gerrymandering shenanigans to effectively disenfranchise people from the Federal elections.
Doesn't matter though. Even if the Federal elections are controlled, the state elections can be monkeyed with completely, and that can allow for all sorts of Gerrymandering shenanigans to effectively disenfranchise people from the Federal elections.
there were already serious problems with the way we select our electorate, but this is just compounding the problem.
SCOTUS will speak on gay marriage today. If it follows the same principles it used with the voting rights act DOMA will be declared unconstitutional and CA prop 8 will be legal.
Main reason I say this is because the states have jurisdiction over marriage (not feds) and DOMA is an attempt by the feds to give themselves jurisdiction over the issue (in a negative way) when they have no legal power to usurp said jurisdiction.
As for prop 8... The supporters followed the rules and won at the ballot box. Constitutional amendments are the clearest expression of the will of the people. Constitutional amendments that in the past have conflicted with the current constitution override the existing document. If this were not true senators would not be directly elected, Presidents would not have term limits and on and on... Like it or not prop 8 was passed legally and resulting conflicts in the constitution should be resolved in favor of prop 8 (or any amendment) and not used to invalidate said amendment.
While there is precedent for feds usurping powers from the states such power grabs have been done through the constitutional amendment process (citizenship for one, it used to be up to the states) not by lesser means.
I'm going to disagree with you on Prop 8 - it clearly violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, and protections in the federal constitution supersede state constitutions. Your argument would only be valid if Prop 8 was a federal amendment. There wasn't actually much question on that in oral arguments - the major worry is actually that the case will be dismissed because those defending it lack standing, which will also invalidate the Ninth Circuit case. The final decision will resolve to when the District Court found it unconstitutional, which will only apply to a quarter of California.
Then we get the interesting question of what happens when a government refuses to defend its own laws in court.
Comments
And MLK bloody well DID advance civil rights while sitting at home complaining, as much as he was able to turn a hell of a speech, he didn't write The Strides Toward Freedom or The Measure of a Man while walking a protest line, and the man was a prolific writer - every speech he ever made is outweighed tenfold by his letters on the very same topics. It's arguable that his correspondence did as much to further the movement as his speeches, and that was nothing if not sitting at home, complaining to people who were not present.
Greg, brother, I have to address you too. You know I hate bringing this up - Frankly, I just noticed I'm grinding my teeth in annoyance at not being able to find another way to put it - but you're a young chap yet, and that kind of jaded cynicism fits on you like a cheap suit that was made for someone else. We both know I'm not that much older than you, and I've seen changes big enough to make something like Gay Marriage becoming federally legal look like a high school Mock Parliament. Or Mock Congress, I guess. Wars, worldwide change, scientific discovery. Make no mistake, it's not all good, bad shit happens, everywhere, every day. Almost everybody gets to see some real dark shit in their time, some more than others, some darker than others, but everybody sees some shit. But despite that, this is not a hopeless cause, it's not a foolish hope, and really, as hopes and goals go, it's a pretty good one to shoot for, and to hope for as soon as possible - and certainly not a worthy target of cynicism and derision.
Or in short, Fucking stop it the pair of you. Jack, You've got a point, but you're still being a cockhead and overreacting. Get over it, mate, no need to bark back twice as loud just because you got barked at. Greg, stop trying to pointlessly piss on his parade just because you don't share his optimism and/or because you don't like the guy. If you have an actual objection, articulate it, or let the issue lie.
And that's TWO lectures for today, any more and I'm going to have to start invoicing you bastards.
My cynicism doesn't even have to do with this shit, really. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care much about gay marriage. It effects up to %3 of the populace, and that %3 is a disproportionately affluent white part (it's because of what conditions are conducive to someone coming out, I don't want to get into the details now, though). For a country like ours (or rather, mine, since you're a Goddamn socialist 'Stralian heathen) -- the most prosperous in the world that still faces starvation, homelessness, and plutocratic health care; the most powerful military that won't provide for the people who make it work; a country that regulates substances without knowing what they are -- the plight of this oppressed %3 of disproportionately affluent white people is fairly unimpressive. I'm not delusional enough to say that we shouldn't progress on this issue, since the Judicial system doesn't really have anything better to do, but the amounts of the electorate's attention I see going towards same-sex marriage instead of those is astounding. The only person I see attacking these issues is Bernie Sanders, whose state suffers disproportionately less than the rest of the country from them.
"But, Greg, someone who cares about your issues will come along," I hear you cry. "Someone who wants to promote peace and apply our domestic policies to the rest of the world." He did, and I was 50 years too late for him. His name was Henry Wallace, he believed in forming an alliance with the Soviet Union after WWII, and supporting capitalists abroad through financial and agricultural aid, not military. He was cast out for fighting within the party for what he believed in -- a classic example of partisan politics screwing over progress.
"But, Greg, he was before his time," I hear you cry. "A movement will come along like the Civil Rights movement that will attack these issues you speak of." And again, it did, and I was 100 years too late. It was the American Socialist Movement, headed by such icons as Eugene V Debs, Rose Pastor Stokes, and Max Eastman, each of whom were arrested and sentenced to 10 years for speaking against American involvement in the Great War. The elected officials who followed their doctrine and party in the New York Legislature were expelled. Their followers were jailed without trial in 1920 by the FBI on suspicion of being agents of Soviet Russia -- a country that only technically existed at the time -- who had been sent to subvert democracy by participating in the democratic system.
I could continue, talking about the robbery of 1896 from William Jennings Bryan and my 116 year grudge with progressives, talking about Eugene McCarthy and the manipulation of the electorate in both 1964 and 1968, or how the one victory my beliefs have had was Andrew Jackson and the grand ways he fucked up once in power -- but I think you get my point. It's not that I lack enthusiasm in my beliefs of populism and marxism (which is just populism applied to economics), but rather that I lack nativity to believe that this time will be any different than the others.
Now the other choice to my idea is have SCOTUS rule on the issue, like they eventually did with Civil Rights. It ends up with more slings and arrows but gets the job done, and a lot faster. I prefer such issues coming from the states, but sometimes the only solution is a hammer.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
Why am I so full of sarcasm today? I was like this in school, too.
You don't lack the naivety, you clearly have it by the truckload, to the point where you're naive enough to think that you're not. What you DO lack is perspective and knowledge. The world as it stands is a very different place to the events you speak of, in part because of those events, and other events around the world left unmentioned. The world moved on.
Also, you're good at rhetoric, but your arguments do need some work. And you need to learn to better use the "I hear you say" technique. Top marks, but you still need some polish.
I must take issue with your examples, though - Henry Wallace wasn't cast out for standing up for what he believed in, nor was he really before his time. He was fired by Truman for standing up specifically at a time where it undermined and damaged peaceful negotiation with the soviets in Paris. He was, frankly, a terrible politician, and he wasn't fired for what he thought - in fact, Truman rubber-stamped the very speech about his beliefs that got him fired - but because he played the political game badly, and nearly fucked over the home team. Unless you're talking about his general alienation from the party which was, again, because he was shithouse at politics and interacting with his co-workers, rather than specifically his political beliefs - which became a bludgeon to beat him with, but were not the underlying reason he was being beaten on. It's not an example of partisan politics screwing over progress, it's an example of someone screwing himself over by acting like an idiot, and being bad at his job. The system didn't screw Henry Wallace over, Henry Wallace screwed Henry Wallace over. What you said sounds good, damned good, but it simply isn't true. It was also more than sixty-seven years ago.
Also, your usage of the American Socialist Movement is inspired, but foolish - Yes, they were arrested for protesting the Great War, as in WORLD WAR ONE. Are you trying to tell me you're considering something that occurred before the American civil rights movement - which the later parts of the American socialist movement were heavily involved in, by the way, Bayard Rustin was the one who gave the idea of Pacifism to MLK, and it was Rustin and A. Philip Randolph who primarily organized the famous March on Washington, where the "I have a dream" speech occurred - to be a legitimate comparison of what's happening right now within the civil rights movement, barely less than a century in the future from that point? That can't be anything more than naivety and naive cynicism hunting for justification, because I know you're not that stupid.
Rose Pastor Stokes was sentenced, but never spent a day inside - the case was dismissed by the Eighth Circuit as being, as I recall, sheer speculation and nonsense. Eastman, as far as I can tell, never went to jail, was acquitted at every trial, only forced to close The Masses because of the Espionage act.
"marxism (which is just populism applied to economics)"
What the stuttering fuck are they even teaching you in school? Are they teaching you? That is so vastly fucking wrong that it's not even wrong, it's just nonsense, and it's nonsense that's insulting to the very idea of Marxism.
"My cynicism doesn't even have to do with this shit, really."
Then drop it. If you can.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22605011
Also: Church of England and Wales is banned from opting out of performing ceremonies.
The overturning was based on the fact that the formula was based on the practices being used when it was enacted (in 1965), and therefore "no longer reflects 'current conditions'".
While Justice Roberts didn't go so far as to declare that racism is over, he did claim that "[The record shows nothing] approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant, ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the nation."
Ginsburg's dissent pointed out that striking down the law because the voting discrimination isn't as important as it used to be is downright stupid, since that in itself proves that the law is currently effective. Additionally, Congress held nearly two years of hearings on the Voting Rights Act in 05-06 before reaffirming it, which should show that Section 4 was very strongly considered and was deemed to be still valid.
The effect of this is that:
A) These places can effectively pass whatever voting laws they want for the time being, as long as they aren't blatantly violating constitutional rules,
and
Needless to say, I'm a bit angry right now.
Oh, also, the Court has announced that they'll announce all the remaining opinions for the term tomorrow, which means we'll be getting rulings on Prop 8 and DOMA.
This isn't as big of a deal as everybody is making it out to be. You can still challenge a law that is obviously racist or is applied in a racist way. All this means is that those states don't have to get prior approval for the voting system.
This might lead to racist voting laws in the short term (though there is no guarantee of that), but if it does then that will be followed by lawsuits challenging them and court opinions striking them down, which is more definitive and binding.
Of course the dissenting argument that the REASON they don't have a current racism problem with voting laws is BECAUSE of this provision is totally valid. But I guess not compelling enough.
Main reason I say this is because the states have jurisdiction over marriage (not feds) and DOMA is an attempt by the feds to give themselves jurisdiction over the issue (in a negative way) when they have no legal power to usurp said jurisdiction.
As for prop 8... The supporters followed the rules and won at the ballot box. Constitutional amendments are the clearest expression of the will of the people. Constitutional amendments that in the past have conflicted with the current constitution override the existing document. If this were not true senators would not be directly elected, Presidents would not have term limits and on and on... Like it or not prop 8 was passed legally and resulting conflicts in the constitution should be resolved in favor of prop 8 (or any amendment) and not used to invalidate said amendment.
While there is precedent for feds usurping powers from the states such power grabs have been done through the constitutional amendment process (citizenship for one, it used to be up to the states) not by lesser means.
There wasn't actually much question on that in oral arguments - the major worry is actually that the case will be dismissed because those defending it lack standing, which will also invalidate the Ninth Circuit case. The final decision will resolve to when the District Court found it unconstitutional, which will only apply to a quarter of California.
Then we get the interesting question of what happens when a government refuses to defend its own laws in court.