4 ms·

Since you bring up abortion, drugs, and gun laws, I think a lot of the blame goes to the erosion of federalism in the U.S. It used to be more possible to roll y

Since you bring up abortion, drugs, and gun laws, I think a lot of the blame goes to the erosion of federalism in the U.S. It used to be more possible to roll your eyes and walk away when people from California or Texas (or wherever) passed ludicrous or outrageous laws. Making everything a single national issue actually ratchets up the conflict, especially in a country as diverse as the United States. There is some hope, though, in that at least the drug laws seem to be moving back to a state-level issues (depending on what the Attorney General can get away with).

macspoofing 9y ago
And that corresponds to using the supreme Court to legislate. Much easier to convince 9 lawyers than thousands of fellow citizens and representatives.
- Y_Y 9y ago
  You only have to convince five! And you're right, that doesn't seem too difficult. Getting the supreme court to unanimously agree on something would be a miracle.
  - SllX 9y ago
    Before you can convince even Five though, you have to have a case strong enough to bring to court in a court system that by design is reactive (contrast: proactive) to changes in the law. You then need to make it through any number of courts (local, State appeals, State Supreme, Federal district, Federal appeals, and finally SCOTUS), and then, if you make it that far, you have to hope SCOTUS decides to actually take your case on rather than kick the can back down to a lower court. At any part of the process, litigation can come to an end if the parties involved decide to settle or if one of the parties chooses to stop fighting it. This is actually one of the ways the more controversial parts of US law have been in force for so long, either nobody has standing to bring a lawsuit, or if they do, the US Department of Justice will sometimes rather choose to stop litigating than potentially lose one of their more powerful legal instruments or reveal too much information about how they gathered evidence for a case in the first place.

macspoofing 9y ago

And that corresponds to using the supreme Court to legislate. Much easier to convince 9 lawyers than thousands of fellow citizens and representatives.

Y_Y 9y ago
You only have to convince five! And you're right, that doesn't seem too difficult. Getting the supreme court to unanimously agree on something would be a miracle.
- SllX 9y ago
  Before you can convince even Five though, you have to have a case strong enough to bring to court in a court system that by design is reactive (contrast: proactive) to changes in the law. You then need to make it through any number of courts (local, State appeals, State Supreme, Federal district, Federal appeals, and finally SCOTUS), and then, if you make it that far, you have to hope SCOTUS decides to actually take your case on rather than kick the can back down to a lower court. At any part of the process, litigation can come to an end if the parties involved decide to settle or if one of the parties chooses to stop fighting it. This is actually one of the ways the more controversial parts of US law have been in force for so long, either nobody has standing to bring a lawsuit, or if they do, the US Department of Justice will sometimes rather choose to stop litigating than potentially lose one of their more powerful legal instruments or reveal too much information about how they gathered evidence for a case in the first place.