SCOTUS Watch

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malchior
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 7:32 pm There's no such thing as "basic" on the Supreme Court. Each Court is its own special animal, with its own quirks and habits. This Court appears to lean heavily towards textualism, although its worth noting that this court is quite young and has lots of room to evolve. Is textualism inherently inferior to pragmatism or structuralism? I know of no way to objectively determine that. Every legal scholar I've ever known has a slightly different spin on that question.
I see why you might have an affinity with the textualists considering the extremely literal read on the usage of the word 'basic' there.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

The Atlantic

@ElGuapo - this addresses the question you asked earlier
So far, so good for abortion providers. But look a little harder, and today’s ruling seems like less of a victory for abortion rights—or, for that matter, for those concerned about state efforts to nullify other constitutional rights. First, the Court did not allow providers to sue anyone other than the state licensing officials—including the attorney general or the state clerks who docket cases. Taking suits against clerks off the table will make it hard to block every S.B. 8 suit from going forward. Providers will be in and out of court—and will have to rely on state cases. A clean solution that would end S.B. 8 once and for all may not be possible.
What I was describing as legal chaos and the court's radical nature is covered here. And we have to keep in mind this is one issue. They've staked out some really radical positions that could make the United States ungovernable. Combine this pressure with the larger democratic issues and I can't have anything but a pessimistic outlook at the moment.
Today’s decision is a win not for abortion providers but for constitutional chaos. It will encourage states, conservative and progressive alike, to see how much they can bypass judicial interpretation of constitutional rights. The decision will lead some to think that abortion rights will be restored in Texas while the Court plans to hold that those rights never existed in the first place.

During the Dobbs argument, the Court gave a clear impression of being indifferent to the political consequences of its actions. This conservative majority looks ready to transform the Constitution and its interpretation in radical, perhaps unpopular ways, the consequences be damned.

Today’s decision only reinforced that impression. Allowing states to perfect the S.B. 8 model will encourage constitutional anarchy. The same might be true of reversing Roe, but the Court’s conservatives don’t seem to mind.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

malchior wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 1:58 am
Alefroth wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 10:14 pmIn Texas, they left the law in place, but are allowing suits against it.
Finally caught up on this. They are allowing ONE suit to stand. They dismissed the DOJ suit outright and a lawsuit against the AG and clerks in Texas. They sent it back down to the lower courts to play out but Roberts pretty much said in his dissent that they majority just laid down a roadmap to shred the constitution. Roe is clearly the immediate focus but the United States just took one big step towards possible dissolution in some possible future. It was a consequential Friday night and most people don't even know it yet.

If you think I'm exaggerating the peril here is what Roberts said -
"The clear purpose and actual effect of S. B. 8 has been to nullify this Court's rulings. It is, however, a basic principle that the Constitution is the "fundamental and paramount law of the nation," and "t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). Indeed, "f the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery." United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch 115, 136 (1809). The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake."


Ironically this is somewhat what Drazzil has talked about in the past. He might be getting his wish - the Supremes may take actions that weaken the holding in Marbury v. Madison. It is setting up a possible disaster and civil war. Does anyone still want to argue that SCOTUS isn't possibly on a trajectory as a politicized radical judicial body? As an aside, Newsom was right to be utterly outraged. And his unfortunate reaction to press on it is a natural escalation in our cold civil war. No matter what SCOTUS seemingly has invited dozens of laws and a burgeoning anti-federal frenzy that might turn the United States into an even more ungovernable legal wasteland with regionalized pockets of law across this nation. It'll be bad for stability, human rights, business, and more.


I never wanted it wholesale. I wanted a Democratic president in office to fuck off the SC, hopefully at the end of some egregious piece of shit ruling then reform the court. If the SC is going to MvM itself then I dunno how to take that.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

PS: An actual civil war would be bad. Because we're so purple it wouldn't be like the last civil war. It'd be like Somalia or Syria. A lot of people (myself included) would be dead in a week.

That said. If we *MUST* have a civil war, I want it soon. The sooner the better. I'd prefer it now vs in 20 years when the ecological damage and disaster will be much worse. I would hope that the right side wins, because I dunno what happens when a country loses a civil war started over human rights abuses and bad government, and the bad government wins.

I dunno anymore.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

malchior wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 8:57 pm The Atlantic

@ElGuapo - this addresses the question you asked earlier
So far, so good for abortion providers. But look a little harder, and today’s ruling seems like less of a victory for abortion rights—or, for that matter, for those concerned about state efforts to nullify other constitutional rights. First, the Court did not allow providers to sue anyone other than the state licensing officials—including the attorney general or the state clerks who docket cases. Taking suits against clerks off the table will make it hard to block every S.B. 8 suit from going forward. Providers will be in and out of court—and will have to rely on state cases. A clean solution that would end S.B. 8 once and for all may not be possible.
What I was describing as legal chaos and the court's radical nature is covered here. And we have to keep in mind this is one issue. They've staked out some really radical positions that could make the United States ungovernable. Combine this pressure with the larger democratic issues and I can't have anything but a pessimistic outlook at the moment.
Today’s decision is a win not for abortion providers but for constitutional chaos. It will encourage states, conservative and progressive alike, to see how much they can bypass judicial interpretation of constitutional rights. The decision will lead some to think that abortion rights will be restored in Texas while the Court plans to hold that those rights never existed in the first place.

During the Dobbs argument, the Court gave a clear impression of being indifferent to the political consequences of its actions. This conservative majority looks ready to transform the Constitution and its interpretation in radical, perhaps unpopular ways, the consequences be damned.

Today’s decision only reinforced that impression. Allowing states to perfect the S.B. 8 model will encourage constitutional anarchy. The same might be true of reversing Roe, but the Court’s conservatives don’t seem to mind.
Okay. So here is a question that might not have been broached here: Why is the SC so bound and determined to invite challenge to their legitimacy?
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Little Raven
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:26 pmOkay. So here is a question that might not have been broached here: Why is the SC so bound and determined to invite challenge to their legitimacy?
The legitimacy of the Court has survived Dred Scot and Buck vs. Bell. It muddled through Korematsu and Plessy vs Ferguson, Lochner vs New York and Hammer vs Dagenhart.

In the Venn Diagram of "people who think the legitimacy of the Court is in danger" and "people who know very little about the history of the Court," the former is almost entirely contained within the latter.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:45 pm
Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:26 pmOkay. So here is a question that might not have been broached here: Why is the SC so bound and determined to invite challenge to their legitimacy?
The legitimacy of the Court has survived Dred Scot and Buck vs. Bell. It muddled through Korematsu and Plessy vs Ferguson, Lochner vs New York and Hammer vs Dagenhart.

The Venn Diagram of "people who think the legitimacy of the Court is in danger" and "people who know very little about the history of the Court" is almost a perfect circle.
Any of those opinions endanger the running of a country in the way that the SC has in the years since BvG?
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by geezer »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:45 pm
Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:26 pmOkay. So here is a question that might not have been broached here: Why is the SC so bound and determined to invite challenge to their legitimacy?
The legitimacy of the Court has survived Dred Scot and Buck vs. Bell. It muddled through Korematsu and Plessy vs Ferguson, Lochner vs New York and Hammer vs Dagenhart.

The Venn Diagram of "people who think the legitimacy of the Court is in danger" and "people who know very little about the history of the Court" is almost a perfect circle.
I don't think I would agree with that, and you might be confusing "apathy" with "legitimacy." A radically textual or originalist court is going to undo decades of social progress, and for what? An ideal created by men who were crafting a compromise to govern a nation that, as a practical matter, no longer exists. There comes a point when, even if the decisions have a foundation in a strictly originalist interpretation, trying to apply those structures to a 2021 world is going to look insane.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Holman »

If an authoritarian party achieves power and legislates itself into perpetuity, courts at every level become nothing but punditry.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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geezer wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:50 pmA radically textual or originalist court is going to undo decades of social progress, and for what?
If that's your standard, then the Court hasn't had any legitimacy since 1883, when it struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And there's Bowers vs Hardwick, back in 86.

The SC has made plenty of truly awful rulings in the last 250 years. Way, WAY worse than anything this Court has even suggested. If a Court becomes illegitimate once it issues a terrible ruling, that ship sailed a long, LONG time ago.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

Holman wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:56 pm If an authoritarian party achieves power and legislates itself into perpetuity, courts at every level become nothing but punditry.
Yup and the current court may end up exacerbating divisions even if we don't stumble into autocracy. That seems more certain than not considering even Roberts is warning that danger lies ahead.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:49 pmAny of those opinions endanger the running of a country in the way that the SC has in the years since BvG?
That's an...interesting question, and the answer is going to turn heavily on how you think a country should be run. :?
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 10:03 pm
Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:49 pmAny of those opinions endanger the running of a country in the way that the SC has in the years since BvG?
That's an...interesting question, and the answer is going to turn heavily on how you think a country should be run. :?
How do you think a country should be run? You seem to be okay with a rather strict reading into the constitution that doesn't really mesh with running a modern country. Leaving aside the morals of governing one of the most populace "democracies" on earth in the methods an elite white group of planter owners thought things should be run, who would, or should benefit under such a scheme?
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 10:01 pm
geezer wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:50 pmA radically textual or originalist court is going to undo decades of social progress, and for what?
If that's your standard, then the Court hasn't had any legitimacy since 1883, when it struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And there's Bowers vs Hardwick, back in 86.

The SC has made plenty of truly awful rulings in the last 250 years. Way, WAY worse than anything this Court has even suggested. If a Court becomes illegitimate once it issues a terrible ruling, that ship sailed a long, LONG time ago.
It’s not about “issuing a terrible ruling.” Its about a wholesale change in what vast swaths of our nation see as their basic protections. It’s a combination of multiple terrible rulings in service of a retrograde philosophy that together have the cumulative effect of disregarding 50 years of progress. However meritorious the rationale of “the founders intended it this way” might be, you can’t hand wave away what, for many of our entire lifetimes, has been a system that at least nominally protected disadvantaged people from regional or local infringements.

Edit: I might also add that in the cases you cited, the court was ruling in ways that at the time would not have run grossly counter to the prevailing public opinion. I think that makes a difference, because this court seems to be allowing states to take away rights that have been enjoyed for decades, unless they’re expanding religious freedom. I don’t have an answer for you on the vaccine mandates though. Maybe that’s too stupid even for them. Well, except for Gorsuch, Alito, and of course, Thomas. (And do you really think that this court would defend Ogberfell or Griswold against a state law? I don’t.)
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote:
Drazzil wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:26 pmOkay. So here is a question that might not have been broached here: Why is the SC so bound and determined to invite challenge to their legitimacy?
The legitimacy of the Court has survived Dred Scot and Buck vs. Bell. It muddled through Korematsu and Plessy vs Ferguson, Lochner vs New York and Hammer vs Dagenhart.

In the Venn Diagram of "people who think the legitimacy of the Court is in danger" and "people who know very little about the history of the Court," the former is almost entirely contained within the latter.
Almost entirely

Sotomayor warns of danger to supreme court legitimacy

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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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geezer wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:00 pmIt’s a combination of multiple terrible rulings in service of a retrograde philosophy that together have the cumulative effect of disregarding 50 years of progress.
Sure, but like I've been trying to stress, this isn't the first time the Court has done that. Hell, it has done much, MUCH worse in the past.

I'm not saying that you should or should not "consider the Court legitimate"...whatever that means to you. I assure you, a great many people have in the past considered the Court wholly illegitimate, and for excellent cause. If you choose to join them, you'll be in very good company - some of the most vocal critics have been Presidents. :D
I might also add that in the cases you cited, the court was affirming things that at the time would not have run grossly counter to the prevailing public opinion.
It might surprise you to learn that lots of people in 1918 thought children UNDER 14 laboring in factories was an abomination that no sane court could ever sanction. Lots of people in 1927 kinda had a problem with sterilizing people against their will. In fact, as a general rule, cases where prevailing public opinion leans overwhelmingly to one side don't make it to the Supreme Court at all - those issues get settled by lower courts and the 9 decline to take the case. The Supreme Court is where the really thorny issues get threshed out, and there's almost always lots of people who are unhappy with whatever it is they end up saying.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:49 pm
geezer wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:00 pmIt’s a combination of multiple terrible rulings in service of a retrograde philosophy that together have the cumulative effect of disregarding 50 years of progress.
Sure, but like I've been trying to stress, this isn't the first time the Court has done that. Hell, it has done much, MUCH worse in the past.

I'm not saying that you should or should not "consider the Court legitimate"...whatever that means to you. I assure you, a great many people have in the past considered the Court wholly illegitimate, and for excellent cause. If you choose to join them, you'll be in very good company - some of the most vocal critics have been Presidents. :D
I might also add that in the cases you cited, the court was affirming things that at the time would not have run grossly counter to the prevailing public opinion.
It might surprise you to learn that lots of people in 1918 thought children UNDER 14 laboring in factories was an abomination that no sane court could ever sanction. Lots of people in 1927 kinda had a problem with sterilizing people against their will. In fact, as a general rule, cases where prevailing public opinion leans overwhelmingly to one side don't make it to the Supreme Court at all - those issues get settled by lower courts and the 9 decline to take the case. The Supreme Court is where the really thorny issues get threshed out, and there's almost always lots of people who are unhappy with whatever it is they end up saying.
I like how you speak in sweeping historical terms about cases that weren't (here at least) threatening to national governance and cohesion. In the last two decades the SC has curtailed powers and checks and balances in government and law that were bought and paid for in blood, it's stupid to think that things won't return to that unless something fundamentally changes.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Drazzil wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:27 amIn the last two decades the SC has curtailed powers and checks and balances in government and law that were bought and paid for in blood, it's stupid to think that things won't return to that unless something fundamentally changes.
Drazzil, what exactly do you think inspired the Keating-Owen Act of 1916?

Image

Girls as young as 10 working on mill floors around heavy machinery with no safeties. They lost fingers, toes, limbs, lives. Boys stoking fires in glass factories where the heat could literally suffocate them, or picking rocks out of a coal bin where a stumble could kill you. Thousands of children's lives ruined by hard labor or ended completely by falling onto a conveyor belt. That act was bought and paid for with the blood of countless children, and the Supreme Court wiped it away with a stroke of a pen. And if you think labor issues weren't "threatening to national governance and cohesion" in 1916, then your history teacher did you wrong. It was kind of a big deal - dynamite was frequently involved.

Image
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

Little Raven wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:02 amWhat we got, ain't nothing new. This country's hard on people.
Sure and it is about to become a whole lot harder. The idea that court legitimacy is mock worthy is strange when several justices, Kagan, Roberts, and Sotomayor at least have now talked or hinted at this problem in the last year. It is also less than convincing to return to bad point of time decisions from a hundred years ago. I'll echo Geezer's point that it isn't about one or two bad decisions. The current court is threatening to participate in the wholesale upending of our social order under way right now.

Some of this kvetching is natural because we are worrying about are things we can see happen to real people right now versus reading about in a book. Still we also can easily plug all this into a model of rapid decline in national unity. Trust (aka the legitimacy) in each other and nearly every institution in this country is flat lining right now simultaneously. And it was happening pre-pandemic and pre-Trump. It's obviously gotten much worse due to both factors and more.

And returning to the core here, the Supreme Court has now started to pour real fuel on the instability fires. This situation is more dire than many could have thought. We thought we'd get some retrograde decisions on abortion. That was baked in to expectations. It was a source of dread and worries about the court. Instead they've darkly hinted that they had a entirely different view of our social order. Friday they handed down a decision that instantly led to threat of regionalized law on constitutional issues. Something we thought was settled long ago. We're in a new era. Wrapping oneself in a history blanket and saying it's been bad before won't inform you about what's coming next because this is all new.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:49 pm
geezer wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:00 pmIt’s a combination of multiple terrible rulings in service of a retrograde philosophy that together have the cumulative effect of disregarding 50 years of progress.
Sure, but like I've been trying to stress, this isn't the first time the Court has done that. Hell, it has done much, MUCH worse in the past.

I'm not saying that you should or should not "consider the Court legitimate"...whatever that means to you. I assure you, a great many people have in the past considered the Court wholly illegitimate, and for excellent cause. If you choose to join them, you'll be in very good company - some of the most vocal critics have been Presidents. :D
I might also add that in the cases you cited, the court was affirming things that at the time would not have run grossly counter to the prevailing public opinion.
It might surprise you to learn that lots of people in 1918 thought children UNDER 14 laboring in factories was an abomination that no sane court could ever sanction. Lots of people in 1927 kinda had a problem with sterilizing people against their will. In fact, as a general rule, cases where prevailing public opinion leans overwhelmingly to one side don't make it to the Supreme Court at all - those issues get settled by lower courts and the 9 decline to take the case. The Supreme Court is where the really thorny issues get threshed out, and there's almost always lots of people who are unhappy with whatever it is they end up saying.
You continue to look at this in a strangely linear, sharply defined individualistic manner for some reason. Whether I think the court is legitimate or not is entirely irrelevant. Whether the court makes "some" bad decisions, as the have in the past, is irrelevant. The problem is exactly as malchoir suggests - the final arbiter of our fundamental rights has signalled that they may defer to restrictions on those rights if a regional authority makes an aggressive move. It's compounded by the fact that these restrictions are being placed by gerrymandered legislatures that don't reflect the will of the people, but instead reflect the goals of a radical minority that have gamed the system to take power. (Remember, again, that the USSC basically washed their hands of THIS problem as well).

That's really, really bad.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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This summarizes a portion of the problem quite nicely.
So far, some 59 Supreme Court cases expressly overruled prior decisions on constitutional grounds by votes of 5-4 or 6-3, the kind of narrow split that is most likely in the Dobbs case. Of those 59, only a handful arguably fall in the category of restricting—versus expanding—individual rights. None involved the kind of wholesale gutting of a recognized right of the kind that’s at stake in Dobbs. So any suggestion that overturning Roe would amount to a relatively commonplace move by the court is simply not borne out by the facts and is an evasive misreading of court history...

To be sure, conservative critics would argue that the right to abortion was built on a fiction in the first place, as nothing in the Constitution explicitly protects the right to privacy, let alone the right to terminate a pregnancy. But that argument falls apart when one considers that justices have identified so-called unenumerated rights within the 14th Amendment’s due process clause on a number of occasions, using them to block the government’s ability to dictate individual choices about marriage partners, intimate sexual contact, contraception and the rearing and education of one’s children.
I'm genuinely curious as to why you (LR) don't think these other "unenumerated," socially progressive rights are in danger, or if you do, why you think that's not a problem of grave consequence.


There's more in there as well - it touches on the core issues of a strictly constructionist approach:
Over the years, conservative legal scholars have derided Lochner because, like Roe many years later, it recognized a right that is not expressly listed in the Constitution’s text.


It's another discussion (kind of), but this aspect of textualism is particularly galling, because it's just so irredeemably stupid.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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I kinda knew even as a young eighteen year old that the supreme court deciding who the next president would be via fiat, and then the executive LAYING DOWN AND ACCEPTING IT like a whipped dog would have long term and lasting consequences. What has happened since has not changed my opinion that Clinton shoulda had tanks on the street in response to that.

If this country weren't so polarized and stupid, I think if it were just the SC that were rotten, some bold president could defy the SC, lop off the diseased limb and then rebuild it in eight years and things might be okay. Now without a Supreme Court to fairly decide genuine cases of national dispute, things are gonna get turbulent here for sure.

If we're lucky our own military would at some point seize power and call a constitutional convention, hammer something out and step down. Unfortunately no patriotic group of generals is gonna bite the hand that feeds them. Even as everything else goes to shit the US govt is gonna fund their military in a North Korea lite situation. Also I think that the US armed forces are gonna enforce whatever the corrupted, twisted tortured reading the SC shits out.

Dunno. Forecasting is a shitty thing to attempt. No one calls it right.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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geezer wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:19 pmI'm genuinely curious as to why you (LR) don't think these other "unenumerated," socially progressive rights are in danger, or if you do, why you think that's not a problem of grave consequence.
They very might be. And if they do get stripped away by our new Court, that will most definitely be a problem we have to deal with.

But it's a problem that we, as a nation, have a lot of practice dealing with, because the Supreme Court has done just that MANY times in the past. I'm not saying that this Court doesn't pose a danger to, say, Roe vs Wade. I'm not saying it will be a good thing if Roe vs Wade goes down. What I'm saying is that this Court is not some kind of historical anomaly that poses a unique danger to our Republic. Past Courts have done everything you fear this Court will do - heck, past Courts have gone much farther than I suspect this Court is ever likely to go...and yet we muddle on.

That doesn't mean we can get complacent, of course. But nor must we surrender to hopelessness. The battle never ends, it just changes form.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:06 pm But it's a problem that we, as a nation, have a lot of practice dealing with, because the Supreme Court has done just that MANY times in the past. I'm not saying that this Court doesn't pose a danger to, say, Roe vs Wade. I'm not saying it will be a good thing if Roe vs Wade goes down. What I'm saying is that this Court is not some kind of historical anomaly that poses a unique danger to our Republic. Past Courts have done everything you fear this Court will do - heck, past Courts have gone much farther than I suspect this Court is ever likely to go...and yet we muddle on.
Is there a time when the Supreme Court looked at a right that had belonged to American citizens for 50 years and just took it away?

Because that's what we're looking at.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Drazzil »

Its just a shame we don't have an organized left in this country.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Holman wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:09 pmIs there a time when the Supreme Court looked at a right that had belonged to American citizens for 50 years and just took it away?
Uh, Dred Scott comes to mind. Remember, since the founding of the Republic, it had been understood that slavery only held sway SOUTH of the Mason-Dixon line. Black men and women may have only counted as 3/5 of a person in Georgia, but in the North, they were free and complete citizens.

Until 1857, when the Supreme Court said "Nope! Doesn't matter where you were born, where you live, how you got there....if you're black, you're not a citizen! Hugs!"

Needless to say....that did not go well. 10 years later, almost a million American were dead as a result of...clarifying...that decision.
Because that's what we're looking at.
No, we're not. Even if Roe goes down, abortion doesn't become illegal. It just reverts to the states. Most of the people in this country will honestly never know the difference, because if you live in a blue state, absolutely nothing will change, and if you live in a red state, odds are your legislature has already made abortion practically impossible.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

Little Raven wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 10:09 pm
Holman wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:09 pmIs there a time when the Supreme Court looked at a right that had belonged to American citizens for 50 years and just took it away?
Uh, Dred Scott comes to mind. Remember, since the founding of the Republic, it had been understood that slavery only held sway SOUTH of the Mason-Dixon line. Black men and women may have only counted as 3/5 of a person in Georgia, but in the North, they were free and complete citizens.

Until 1857, when the Supreme Court said "Nope! Doesn't matter where you were born, where you live, how you got there....if you're black, you're not a citizen! Hugs!"
Great. Now explain how the Supreme Court making a terrible decision 160 years ago has any bearing on what is happening in our country right now? If the thesis is truly bad things happened in the past and we made it through, that's a thoroughly non-serious analysis.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Carpet_pissr »

I believe LR's position is pretty much that (pls correct if wrong LR) - we've been through bad shit before (including a very bloody Civil War, which disturbingly seems not to be mentioned or considered by LR), and this stuff we (the vocal liberals on this board and maybe The Left writ large) are kvetching about is MOTS.

i.e. Calm the fuck down people, nothing really to see here. Sure, even big, popular laws may be struck down, or stripped via indirect means, but so what? The country will keep on keeping on, and sure we may turn into Gilead, and yeah, authoritarianism seems to be in our near future, and.....and....and.... BUT...the country will survive. :P

I know, LR, VERY unfair, but at least the broad strokes maybe? :P
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 10:09 pm
Holman wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:09 pmIs there a time when the Supreme Court looked at a right that had belonged to American citizens for 50 years and just took it away?
Uh, Dred Scott comes to mind. Remember, since the founding of the Republic, it had been understood that slavery only held sway SOUTH of the Mason-Dixon line. Black men and women may have only counted as 3/5 of a person in Georgia, but in the North, they were free and complete citizens.

Until 1857, when the Supreme Court said "Nope! Doesn't matter where you were born, where you live, how you got there....if you're black, you're not a citizen! Hugs!"


Needless to say....that did not go well. 10 years later, almost a million American were dead as a result of...clarifying...that decision.
Because that's what we're looking at.
No, we're not. Even if Roe goes down, abortion doesn't become illegal. It just reverts to the states. Most of the people in this country will honestly never know the difference, because if you live in a blue state, absolutely nothing will change, and if you live in a red state, odds are your legislature has already made abortion practically impossible.
Uh.. this doesn’t really support your position that we’ve been here before and it was no big deal :/
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Carpet_pissr »

I should add my own position since I felt I could lay out LR’s, that’s only fair I think.

But before that, I want to say that I’m sincerely glad to hear a vocal, reasoned dissenting voice in R&P (there are others, but picking on LR for now). I disagree with Malchior’s assessment that your argument is unserious FWIW. I don’t agree with it, but it seems to come from a sincere belief with thought behind it as opposed to…what, Malchior, trolling? I could be wrong on that, but don’t think so.

I think what’s causing some friction is your seeming nonchalance in the face of what many on the board perceive to be a three alarm emergency.

Personally, I’m obviously closer to Malchior’s ‘the leopards are eating our faces RIGHT NOW’ than your “psshhht…this is TOTALLY fine, we’ve seen and survived worse”.

I think we’re past the point of any one entity or person (including voters) being able to reverse or counter the decades-long strategy of the Republicans which we are seeing come to fruition on multiple fronts right now.

I think the next several (baby) steps we take towards authoritarianism will lose us the Republic as we know it, which sounds corny and hard to qualify now that I see it in writing.

i.e we are IMO, on the verge of losing many of the qualities that actually made us great, as opposed to what many on the right PERCEIVE to have made us great (for one, the nebulous ‘freedom’ that according to some, seemingly only exists here, and nowhere else on earth :roll: ).
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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My position isn't that this is no big deal - we're most powerful country on the planet. EVERYTHING our government does or does not do is a big deal. Joe Biden kills thousands or tens of thousands of people every day, either through action or inaction - and most of the time he can't even be sure which people he's hanging out to dry, but someone somewhere is getting the rope. The decisions of the Court are deeply impactful, and there's always the possibility that another ringer is coming down the pipe.

But even if that's true, it's not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. Right now, many of the deeply serious people on this forum appear to sincerely believe that if American democracy isn't ALREADY dead then it only has a few years left. At best, this betrays a deep ignorance as to our nation's history. At worst, it is a call to despair, and a betrayal of the millions of Americans who gave their lives to secure the prosperity we now enjoy. Either way, it must be resisted.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by malchior »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:53 am I should add my own position since I felt I could lay out LR’s, that’s only fair I think.

But before that, I want to say that I’m sincerely glad to hear a vocal, reasoned dissenting voice in R&P (there are others, but picking on LR for now). I disagree with Malchior’s assessment that your argument is unserious FWIW. I don’t agree with it, but it seems to come from a sincere belief with thought behind it as opposed to…what, Malchior, trolling? I could be wrong on that, but don’t think so.
It isn't trolling. The idea that because bad things happened in the past we'll weather it in the future is inherently illogical. In the end, I'd expect some structural argument that grounds the thesis but there simply isn't one here. It's all opinion without any meat. Also I feel as I poked some holes in the logic of some of his arguments earlier in the thread but he just blows by them and returns to his original opinion without addressing them or adding new support. IMO that is what makes it is an extremely weak argument. That's why it appears to not be serious analysis to me.
I think what’s causing some friction is your seeming nonchalance in the face of what many on the board perceive to be a three alarm emergency.
It isn't just the board. We have experts hanging off fire alarms everywhere. I don't have an inherent problem with contrarian positions. I've taken them myself but this one flies in the face of a lot of mounting evidence. It goes beyond disagreeing. It is essentially dismissing the evidence and trying to fit a past model on present events. It just doesn't work.
Personally, I’m obviously closer to Malchior’s ‘the leopards are eating our faces RIGHT NOW’ than your “psshhht…this is TOTALLY fine, we’ve seen and survived worse”.

I think we’re past the point of any one entity or person (including voters) being able to reverse or counter the decades-long strategy of the Republicans which we are seeing come to fruition on multiple fronts right now.

I think the next several (baby) steps we take towards authoritarianism will lose us the Republic as we know it, which sounds corny and hard to qualify now that I see it in writing.
The thing that I think gets under considered is we've been living with minority rule in all but name for years now. And we keep running into mounting crises without any way to address them. Any ideas about how to fix some of our big problems are simply out of reach. That's why I started that thread about how our system can't solve problems.

And to bring some context that was with a sharply divided Supreme Court. Up until recently it had a Conservative lean but led by a Conservative who understood that maintaining some balance was important. Roberts was hardly a friend to liberals in any way but he certainly wasn't a revolutionary. Now we face a Supreme Court that is joining in support of a particular political movement. It has led to a drastic decline in trust in the courts. I linked it above but David Brooks was right. Failing levels of trust in institutions is how nations fail. All of this is just too much for a failing system to handle.

And getting back to my problem with the 'past results, imply future results' argument absolutely nothing about what happened before the civil war, after the civil war, in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or any other time period is anything like this. I'll keep hammering on this point until I hear anything approaching an answer but I'd love to hear any structural or logical explanation about how past performance has any bearing on what is happening, right here, right now in the United States.
Little Raven wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 1:36 amBut even if that's true, it's not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. Right now, many of the deeply serious people on this forum appear to sincerely believe that if American democracy isn't ALREADY dead then it only has a few years left. At best, this betrays a deep ignorance as to our nation's history. At worst, it is a call to despair, and a betrayal of the millions of Americans who gave their lives to secure the prosperity we now enjoy. Either way, it must be resisted.
If only it was only people on this forum. Many, many experts on authoritarianism were sounding the alarms years ago. They were ignored. Trump was elected. We saw him committing crimes in the open without accountability. A classic sign of authoritarianism and civic breakdown. And now many experts on democratic backsliding from multiple nations are expressing *deep concerns* about what is happening here but we're somehow ignorant?
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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geezer wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:20 pmUh.. this doesn’t really support your position that we’ve been here before and it was no big deal :/
I certainly hope you're not equating "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" with "black people are inherently unqualified for citizenship." :shock:
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:11 am
geezer wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:20 pmUh.. this doesn’t really support your position that we’ve been here before and it was no big deal :/
I certainly hope you're not equating "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" with "black people are inherently unqualified for citizenship." :shock:
He's saying we needed a civil war to resolve the issue.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Sure, but not every irresolvable issue rises to the significance of Dred Scot. Americans will probably never agree on whether New York or Chicago has the right to claim the title of "Best Pizza in America," but we probably don't need to slaughter 3% of the population in order to hash it out.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:11 am
geezer wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:20 pmUh.. this doesn’t really support your position that we’ve been here before and it was no big deal :/
I certainly hope you're not equating "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" with "black people are inherently unqualified for citizenship." :shock:
You frame it as "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" when it should be properly framed as "bodily autonomy and the ability to make medical decisions" which is not something that should vary state to state - just like whether any humans are unqualified for citizenship.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

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Little Raven wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 10:22 am Sure, but not every irresolvable issue rises to the significance of Dred Scot. Americans will probably never agree on whether New York or Chicago has the right to claim the title of "Best Pizza in America," but we probably don't need to slaughter 3% of the population in order to hash it out.
That and secession would be more likely for conservatives than liberals. At the same time, how do you measure the harm of increased incarceration, disenfranchisement, and medical harm? Hell, we have 800,000 dead Americans already exacerbated from COVID mismanagement.

My feelings are that corporate America will shut this down before it comes to civil war. Riots and secret police aren't good for business. We saw that start during the BLM protests last summer. There was a ton of lip service (and then it went away once the protests died down) and campaign contribution elimination (until it was over).

Koch, et al, care about their profits first, the economy second, and clearly not so much about anything else. But if their profits are affected, they'll take steps necessary to ensure it continues.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Zarathud »

Past results are a lot more reliable than wild apocalyptic predictions of the end of the Republic. We’ve had bad court decisions before. We’ve had terrible court decisions that have led to injustice and even civil war.

Perhaps the Supreme Court eventually overturning Roe is what shocks voters into voting for Democrats in gerrymandered Republican districts.

The problem is that we’ve repeatedly relied on the Supreme Court to mitigate bad, poorly thought out Republican policy popular with their base. Now the majority of the Supreme Court holds those views.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by Little Raven »

stessier wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 10:37 amYou frame it as "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" when it should be properly framed as "bodily autonomy and the ability to make medical decisions" which is not something that should vary state to state - just like whether any humans are unqualified for citizenship.
You may believe that and I may believe that, but a whole lot of women in Alabama clearly don't believe that. It's not like state legislatures are being at all subtle about what they plan do if Roe vs Wade goes down. They constantly scream it from every rooftop, and people vote for them over and over and over again.

And yes, some people really do find this cause compelling enough to kill and die for, but I don't know that I'm one of them.
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Re: SCOTUS Watch

Post by stessier »

Little Raven wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 10:44 am
stessier wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 10:37 amYou frame it as "the legality of abortion shall be returned to the states" when it should be properly framed as "bodily autonomy and the ability to make medical decisions" which is not something that should vary state to state - just like whether any humans are unqualified for citizenship.
You may believe that and I may believe that, but a whole lot of women in Alabama clearly don't believe that. It's not like state legislatures are being at all subtle about what they plan do if Roe vs Wade goes down. They constantly scream it from every rooftop, and people vote for them over and over and over again.
Yeah - that's why this is BAD and should not just be viewed as more of the same.
And yes, some people really do find this cause compelling enough to kill and die for, but I don't know that I'm one of them.
My study of history suggests the people who end up doing the killing and dying usually don't have a choice at the point where there are a lot of them killing and dying. All the more reason to speak up now while there are still choices to be made.
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