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>> It takes a lifetime of respect to earn a seat on the Supreme Court bench. > No, it just takes the support of the President and a sufficient number of Senato

>> It takes a lifetime of respect to earn a seat on the Supreme Court bench. > No, it just takes the support of the President and a sufficient number of Senators. You're kinda both right. The legal mechanism says that "a lifetime of respect" isn't necessary, but the norms that have evolved around its use say otherwise. Recent history demonstrates (in the extreme) that norms aren't inviolable, but I think the ones around the competency of Supreme Court confirmees is stronger than most.

dragonwriter 8y ago
That's because, by and large, it also takes considerable respect in practice to become a President or Senator (sure, you can find a few exceptions, but you can for the Supreme Court, too, and there have been a lot fewer Supreme Court justices than Senators and Presidents combined.)
dclowd9901 8y ago
Convention has proven, especially recently, not to be a great thing on which to stand the propriety of a nation.
- cmurf 8y ago
  I think that's the wrong conclusion. Norms and conventions are expedients. To have to put such things into law is really inefficient and even questionable whether they too would hold up in the face of systemic corruption. The right conclusion is the importance of character assessment skill in an electorate.
int_19h 8y ago
The problem with SCOTUS is its reputation, which is dragged down by basically everything else in our politics. When politicians (on both sides of the aisle) openly talk about "liberal judges" and "conservative judges", and promise to appoint the kind that will rule the way they and their constituents want (as opposed to ruling according to what the law says) - and then those same people actually nominate or confirm appointees - it's hard to treat SCOTUS as some kind of cathedral where everybody is beyond reproach. Now it's just politics.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  It's such a tragedy how much the actions of the SC are generalized and sound-bited by politicians and the media. If you go out and read the arguments they all give they are really quite elegant, especially when compared with the sheer stupidity of some of the debates that take place a block over
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Yea... But I think this comment puts them in better light than perhaps is deserved. There are arguments SCOTUS are not defenders of the constitution. Look at Clarence Thomas's dissent on Gonzalez vs Raich, where somehow SCOTUS defended the Fed's oppressing someone for growing their own medical marijuana... In a state with legal medical marijuana. There is no constitutional basis for that. Using the Commerce Clause is laughable, at best. Like Thomas said, if the government can persecute you for growing a plant for your own consumption, inside your own home, to treat your own ailments, then they can persecute you for anything. I mean, what the fuck is that ruling even, honestly? In other words, I think you are right that they are mostly-removed from the liberal vs conservative circus... But they are not really removed from those anti-constitutional and anti-liberty politics which both those parties defend.
    - jcranberry 8y ago
      There's a quote right in the Wikipedia article which talks about the practical reasoning and historical basis for the decision: > Even respondents acknowledge the existence of an illicit market in marijuana; indeed, Raich has personally participated in that market, and Monson expresses a willingness to do so in the future. More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317 U.S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.

dragonwriter 8y ago

That's because, by and large, it also takes considerable respect in practice to become a President or Senator (sure, you can find a few exceptions, but you can for the Supreme Court, too, and there have been a lot fewer Supreme Court justices than Senators and Presidents combined.)

dclowd9901 8y ago

Convention has proven, especially recently, not to be a great thing on which to stand the propriety of a nation.

cmurf 8y ago
I think that's the wrong conclusion. Norms and conventions are expedients. To have to put such things into law is really inefficient and even questionable whether they too would hold up in the face of systemic corruption. The right conclusion is the importance of character assessment skill in an electorate.

int_19h 8y ago

The problem with SCOTUS is its reputation, which is dragged down by basically everything else in our politics. When politicians (on both sides of the aisle) openly talk about "liberal judges" and "conservative judges", and promise to appoint the kind that will rule the way they and their constituents want (as opposed to ruling according to what the law says) - and then those same people actually nominate or confirm appointees - it's hard to treat SCOTUS as some kind of cathedral where everybody is beyond reproach. Now it's just politics.

tomatotomato37 8y ago
It's such a tragedy how much the actions of the SC are generalized and sound-bited by politicians and the media. If you go out and read the arguments they all give they are really quite elegant, especially when compared with the sheer stupidity of some of the debates that take place a block over
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Yea... But I think this comment puts them in better light than perhaps is deserved. There are arguments SCOTUS are not defenders of the constitution. Look at Clarence Thomas's dissent on Gonzalez vs Raich, where somehow SCOTUS defended the Fed's oppressing someone for growing their own medical marijuana... In a state with legal medical marijuana. There is no constitutional basis for that. Using the Commerce Clause is laughable, at best. Like Thomas said, if the government can persecute you for growing a plant for your own consumption, inside your own home, to treat your own ailments, then they can persecute you for anything. I mean, what the fuck is that ruling even, honestly? In other words, I think you are right that they are mostly-removed from the liberal vs conservative circus... But they are not really removed from those anti-constitutional and anti-liberty politics which both those parties defend.
  - jcranberry 8y ago
    There's a quote right in the Wikipedia article which talks about the practical reasoning and historical basis for the decision: > Even respondents acknowledge the existence of an illicit market in marijuana; indeed, Raich has personally participated in that market, and Monson expresses a willingness to do so in the future. More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317 U.S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.