321–330 of 369 posts
Decisions like this illustrate what a hollow farce the modern federal courts’ approach is to Constitutional governance. To be clear, courts are not supposed to change policy or make new policy, they are just supposed to interpret the law as written. So supposedly this ruling is “not a change in the law” but rather a discovery that actually the law has always been this way but oops, someone read it wrong 158 years ago…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. Banning VOCs and carcinogens would also make barbecues illegal, or really the Maillard reaction in general though.
There’s a difference between something inherent to a process, and something added for basically for marketing reasons that has minimal/no positive effect in actual functionality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“They can pass a law that says that all left-handed people are subject to a 50% income tax even though such a thing would clearly violate the constitution” I think that would be constitutional, but in conflict with other laws.
It would violate equal protection.
Seriously though, I don't think it technically violates anything given that we do have a set of humans (criminals) that we treat unequally. Culturally we believe theft and murder gives us the right to treat such people who do such things unequally and we've encoded that into law. It is simply another culture shift to interpret left handedness as the same thing.
I mean the example is absurd but it's a valid example. Maybe a more realistic example is pronoun usage and the forced recognition of multiple genders other than two. Taken to the extreme we would have to accept that anyones made up gender is real and we will be forced to recognize their beliefs that these things exist.
In CA you can already get this classified as harassment and get fired from your workplace.
And just to be clear I agree with the whole made up gender and pronoun thing. If you want me to refer to you with they instead of she or he that's fine, but the point is that all of this is clearly culture/opinion based and none of it is a universal right because what is "universal" is ALSO an opinion.
Decisions like this illustrate what a hollow farce the modern federal courts’ approach is to Constitutional governance. To be clear, courts are not supposed to change policy or make new policy, they are just supposed to interpret the law as written. So supposedly this ruling is “not a change in the law” but rather a discovery that actually the law has always been this way but oops, someone read it wrong 158 years ago…
Decisions like this illustrate what a hollow farce the modern federal courts’ approach is to Constitutional governance. To be clear, courts are not supposed to change policy or make new policy, they are just supposed to interpret the law as written. So supposedly this ruling is “not a change in the law” but rather a discovery that actually the law has always been this way but oops, someone read it wrong 158 years ago…
With my respect for you as a person, I think your idea here is demonstrating both ignorance and cynicism to the way the law works. This type of interpretation of law is by design. When lawmakers write a law, it’s specifically the judicial branch’s job to interpret it, which is exactly what is happening here. It’s also exactly how you describe by design: legislators can pass laws that say whatever they want. They can…
I agree with a lot of the advantages of common law that can sort of legislate through precedent. But it does make it basically impossible to be on notice of what is illegal and what isn't, particularly in the modern world where not only are there hundreds of thousands of law and thousands of pages of federal "regulations" bound as law but you also have to know all the precedent and asterisks to the interpretations to know what is actually illegal.
Decisions like this illustrate what a hollow farce the modern federal courts’ approach is to Constitutional governance. To be clear, courts are not supposed to change policy or make new policy, they are just supposed to interpret the law as written. So supposedly this ruling is “not a change in the law” but rather a discovery that actually the law has always been this way but oops, someone read it wrong 158 years ago…
The power of the judiciary to "interpret" the constitution was a huge chink in the armor of the Constitutional order. A handful of unelected judges can effectively amend the constitution via simple majority, but can only be "overruled" by the people if there is extremely broad opposition (as a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both houses)--which is, of course, a total inversion of the democratic-republican pr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re almost certainly correct. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would argue this consequentualist line. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch could be persuaded by textualist or originalist arguments and are the most likely overturn votes. Kavanaugh was a key man on standing up and defending the so-called PATRIOT Act during the George W. Bush administration, so no way he knocks out this pillar. ACB talked a strong originalist ga…
Please suggest one, but ideally three, things that you think that overturning Wickard would lead to that would cause K, S & J to vote against doing so?