471–480 of 681 posts
The most obvious read of the constitution in the world still being a 6-3 verdict shows the state of the Supreme Court today.
They are in the process of building a new country little by little. Eventually they will openly dismiss the US constitution. Things are really, really bad. We are pretty much in US‘s Weimar period. The fact all of that was predictable makes it just so frustrating to see it play out in real time
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> If a person is incapable of reasoning outside of their class/race/gender/etc position, then how is a fair law even possible? An entirely fair law might not be possible, at least as long as people with specific class/race/gender interests overwhelmingly influence it. But a somewhat fair law or a law fairer than another, is. And, at least as I understand it, the scholar doesn't say that nobody is ever "capable of rea…
> Just that those making the constitution weren't that good at it. They were exceedingly good at it. In my country’s constitution we have all sorts of things from the american constitution, like due process, because we literally have no indigenous words for these concepts.
So? Doesn't change the fact that they weren't very good with not letting class/race/gender/etc position influence their policy making.
And that's the claim we're discussing whether they've been good at, not whether they came up with some good new concepts like "due process" and "the right to free speech".
They had "due process" but they also had slavery.
They had "equal rights" and voting but not for poor not land-owning plebes or women.
They had "free speech" but also McCarthyism.
Their constitution didn't prevent laws describing how e.g. blacks can't sleep in the same hotels or go to the same schools as whites to be applied and be considered compatible with it.
And didn't prevent a globally huge per capita prison system, primarily targeting blacks, even today.
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Kavanaugh's dissent is kinda hilarious in this context. > The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers. This,…
Machine guns are illegal in the US. SCOTUS has never ruled there is an individual right to own machine guns.
The textualists turn out not to be so textualist when they feel like it.
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Why should I give a shit what 95% of other countries do? 99% of other countries are worse in every way that matters
There's about 193 countries in the world, your number would mean there's less than two countries that are better in every way that matters. I can name ten countries off the top of my head that are better in every way that matters to me. The USA ranks near the bottom of developed countries in every metric but the metrics related to money.
So your claim is wrong.
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>The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century. Bug or feature? Given that this isn't an issue in any other modern democracy, I'd say "bug."
The slow pace of change is a feature , not a bug. It's fine to wait decades or centuries until we have broad consensus before making amendments. While this might seem maddeningly frustrating or unjust in the short term, in the long term it makes our republic more stable. The USA has had an uninterrupted system of government since 1789. How many other major countries can say the same?
To a point. It seems to have ground to a halt.
> The USA has had an uninterrupted system of government since 1789. How many other major countries can say the same?
Quite a few of them can say "we took those good ideas and built on them".
This "broad conception" is pretty well documented as what Congress wanted at the time of passage of 14th Amendment. It's been considered "settled law" for ages. The only real reason it's come to SCOTUS is that a particular political faction wants it to, and the media gives that particular faction more credence, and more coverage. So there's two things here: 1. An artificially whipped-up "question". 2. Conservative bi…
Sorry but I wanted to see a 9-0... There are 3, 4, that are just ignoring the constitution from what I read/saw. It is only a matter of time. A win for now but that is for now.
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Were you so sure yesterday that the Court would decide the way it did? I'm sure that with a different set of justices, the result could've been different. A "clear" law would likely not result in a 6:3 vote. There are enough cases in the Supreme Court that get 9:0, those can probably be called "clear".
Every court before the Supreme Court completely dismissed the attempt to kill the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court is more and more packed with dishonest, racist Republican political hacks who try to twist words to overturn centuries of precedent.
I'm not sure I see where the "more and more" is coming from.
Out of the three justices nominated by Trump, two (Barrett and Kavanaugh) voted in favor of birth citizenship rights; does it qualify them as dishonest racist Republican political hacks? The other two who dissented, Thomas and Alito, have been serving for 35 and 20 years respectively, so it's hardly about packing.
Also, while 3 of the 4 newest justices were indeed appointed by a Republican president and 1 by a Democrat, before that, we got 2 new justices appointed by Obama (Sotomayor and Kagan). Unless the Congress actually increases the number of justices, I would say the current system works just as designed.
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Radio, TV, cameras That said, breech loaders were used by the British during the Revolutionary War (the Ferguson Rifle) and multiple shots from a single barrel using multiple "touch holes" was well known. And then there's Puckle's gun.
The Gatling gun also predates any widespread gun control. Notably, the Gatling gun is still legal almost everywhere, including California (lulz!). If that is legal, what is the actual point of 99% if the rest of the bans, etc?
This particular Supreme Court is out of control. The Roberts court will (IMHO) go down in history in the same cateogry as the Taney court that gave us such decisions as Dred Scott. Supreme Court justices have always been political actors, not some high-minded academics that come down from their ivory tower to hand down missives every now and again (as some imagine). But this is a step beyond anything we've seen in a…