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You can always interpret any SCOTUS decision in terms of the specific and immediate outcomes, but it takes you to somewhat odd conclusions. Like that a group o

You can always interpret any SCOTUS decision in terms of the specific and immediate outcomes, but it takes you to somewhat odd conclusions. Like that a group of people who spent their entire academic and professional careers studying how subtle shifts in texts adjust balance of power, and how ambiguous rulemaking leads to unintended consequences have a deep and overwhelming interest in how people entertain themselves online. If your business is making rules about rules, then you're going to see everything else as parochial, you're playing a game with slightly higher stakes. It's like someone proposing a change in an instruction set and everyone's focused on possible impacts on UX for a handful of websites.

sandworm101 8y ago
This isn't such a case. The court is not basing its opinion on immediate outcomes. This isn't like them declaring something constitutionally protected so that people can begin doing it the next day. This is them saying that governments are able to regulate, but only via means dictated by the court. This isn't about returning power to the people. This is about shifting power between various branches of government. Some of those branches are more hamstrung than others. By moving power to a branch that is unable to use it (ie a legislature chronically unable to pass laws) the court asserts its own power as kingmaker.
- brownbat 8y ago
  > with the legislature so weakened it can exercise control over national policies > You can always interpret any SCOTUS decision in terms of ... immediate outcomes [but generally shouldn't] > This isn't such a case. The court is not basing its opinion on immediate outcomes. I think we agree? I must have completely misread your original post, where I thought you said that SCOTUS was making a policy decision.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Like that a group of people who spent their entire academic and professional careers studying how subtle shifts in texts adjust balance of power Uh, that's mostly not what judges spend their professional careers doing or what lawyers spend their academic careers doing. It's what academic political scientists focussing on judicial and regulatory politics do, but that's not a background that tends to get you nominated for the Supreme Court.
- brownbat 8y ago
  > Uh, that's mostly not what judges spend their professional careers doing or what lawyers spend their academic careers doing. I disagree, based on my academic experience preparing to be a lawyer and my nerdy conversations with my friends who are judges. You could just learn the rote practice and skip jurisprudence entirely, but everyone on the supreme court understands the phrase "canon of construction" by this point in their career, along with various other meta-rulemaking principles.

sandworm101 8y ago

This isn't such a case. The court is not basing its opinion on immediate outcomes. This isn't like them declaring something constitutionally protected so that people can begin doing it the next day. This is them saying that governments are able to regulate, but only via means dictated by the court. This isn't about returning power to the people. This is about shifting power between various branches of government. Some of those branches are more hamstrung than others. By moving power to a branch that is unable to use it (ie a legislature chronically unable to pass laws) the court asserts its own power as kingmaker.

brownbat 8y ago
> with the legislature so weakened it can exercise control over national policies > You can always interpret any SCOTUS decision in terms of ... immediate outcomes [but generally shouldn't] > This isn't such a case. The court is not basing its opinion on immediate outcomes. I think we agree? I must have completely misread your original post, where I thought you said that SCOTUS was making a policy decision.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Like that a group of people who spent their entire academic and professional careers studying how subtle shifts in texts adjust balance of power Uh, that's mostly not what judges spend their professional careers doing or what lawyers spend their academic careers doing. It's what academic political scientists focussing on judicial and regulatory politics do, but that's not a background that tends to get you nominated for the Supreme Court.

brownbat 8y ago
> Uh, that's mostly not what judges spend their professional careers doing or what lawyers spend their academic careers doing. I disagree, based on my academic experience preparing to be a lawyer and my nerdy conversations with my friends who are judges. You could just learn the rote practice and skip jurisprudence entirely, but everyone on the supreme court understands the phrase "canon of construction" by this point in their career, along with various other meta-rulemaking principles.