41–50 of 121 posts
Even to the Supreme court I thought the President could nominate anyone irrespective of their qualifications, no prior experience as a lawyer or a judge is mandated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is pharmacists have 0 legal training. No matter their expertise I wouldn’t want the construction worker working as my pharmacist without any training. Yet we’re ok with giving essentially the entire power of the state to people with no training or experience in law.
> we’re ok with giving essentially the entire power of the state to people with no training or experience in law Yes, that's what democracy is, for better or worse: the power of the state is ultimately vested in the people, regardless of training, background, gender, skin color, etc. etc. Restricting power to those who are trained in law, or any other narrowly defined group, is called oligarchy. It generally has good…
As a Canadian, even after living in the US for over a decade, I find your comment baffling. For better or worse, the law is a complex subject both in jurisprudence and process. If judges can be significantly less knowledgeable than the attorneys that appear before them then how can the law be applied equally?
The US Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law yet how can that be realized if there are no minimum standards that apply to judges?
Two things that I cannot understand about the US: the election of judges and outright politicization of the mechanics of voting.
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> Yes, that's what democracy is No, it's not. It's perfectly reasonable in our democracy to expect judges to be trained in law in order to effectively do their jobs. Might as well let any random of the street be a doctor without training if that wasn't the case. Non-legally trained people still participate through the jury system, and more importantly in the House where laws are created in the first place.
> It's perfectly reasonable in our democracy to expect judges to be trained in law in order to effectively do their jobs. Manifestly not. If it were reasonable to expect this, then the founders would have written it into the Constitution, or the People would have changed the law in order to require it. The former didn't happen, and the latter hasn't happened. It may seem reasonable to you , but the whole point of dem…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that there are no alternatives to something doesn't make it good.
Also makes it a pointless exercise to question it.
Democracy is only supported until it gives the "wrong" results, then deafening outcry for bureaucrats and oligarchs and dictators. As if they give better results than democracy on average, LOL.
Democracy is a scheme to keep masses in check by giving them illusion of power. If a politician starts promising people to give them what they actually want it is called "populism" and said politician will become a pariah, painted as irresponsible, crazy, etc.
Why not require law degrees? It’s not like “elected” must mean “can’t require qualifications”?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, that's what democracy is No, it's not. It's perfectly reasonable in our democracy to expect judges to be trained in law in order to effectively do their jobs. Might as well let any random of the street be a doctor without training if that wasn't the case. Non-legally trained people still participate through the jury system, and more importantly in the House where laws are created in the first place.
> It's perfectly reasonable in our democracy to expect judges to be trained in law in order to effectively do their jobs. Manifestly not. If it were reasonable to expect this, then the founders would have written it into the Constitution, or the People would have changed the law in order to require it. The former didn't happen, and the latter hasn't happened. It may seem reasonable to you , but the whole point of dem…
This assumes that the current state of the law is tacitly approved by the majority of people, which isn't true. For example, polls strongly suggest that a strong majority (>60%) of Americans support marijuana legalization [1], but federal legalization is nowhere to be seen. Polls suggest that an even stronger majority (>80%) of Americans support background checks on all firearm purchases [2], but federal legislation again seems far away.
[1] https://apnews.com/8eb58810be2642b3a2c81e9da247ff80
[2] https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/oct/03/...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we’re ok with giving essentially the entire power of the state to people with no training or experience in law Yes, that's what democracy is, for better or worse: the power of the state is ultimately vested in the people, regardless of training, background, gender, skin color, etc. etc. Restricting power to those who are trained in law, or any other narrowly defined group, is called oligarchy. It generally has good…
This conversation is a perfect illustration of the difference between a significant part of US culture and that of many other western nations. As a Canadian, even after living in the US for over a decade, I find your comment baffling. For better or worse, the law is a complex subject both in jurisprudence and process. If judges can be significantly less knowledgeable than the attorneys that appear before them then ho…
Note that you could apply the exact same principle to argue that legislators should be lawyers. After all, if you're not trained in the law, how can you possibly write a law? Or understand the many subtle ramifications of the law that someone else wrote that you're voting on? And why stop at legislators? Why not accept, say, literacy tests? How can a citizen possibly make an informed choice at the ballot box if they can't read a newspaper?
The point I'm trying to make is not that electing judges is good, only that it is, at least in the U.S., a direct consequence of democracy. You may decide that democracy is more trouble than it's worth, and cite this stupidity as evidence. But what you cannot do is say that electing judges is stupid and also that you believe in democracy, because in the U.S. the one has followed directly from the other.