5 ms·

>That makes the court feel like a political body. Is it not? From the method that I've seen legal logic applied, it feels heavily political. What counts as a

>That makes the court feel like a political body. Is it not? From the method that I've seen legal logic applied, it feels heavily political. What counts as a loophole that will be struck down and what counts as a loophole that will be allowed often doesn't have any core logical justification that isn't political. There are a bunch of rules, but even more exceptions. There is a bunch of consistency, but not on the level that you find in actual logic, math, or computational science (like with Turing machines). This has long led me to view it like a bunch of political entities playing pretend at being logical. Pretty decent pretend, better than most other systems, but when compared to truly logical systems, still clearly pretend. You can also see this at macro scale application of the law. For example look at how the law is applied when you break it down by class, race, and sex. It clearly is done so unfairly, which leads on to conclude that either the unfairness is logical, or that the system isn't logical at the core. Jury nullification is another example where it breaks down, as to say it doesn't exist when the things that logically give rise to it must exist is a contradiction.

TimTheTinker 6y ago
> Is it not? From the method that I've seen legal logic applied, it feels heavily political. Courts are not supposed to be political. To the extent that they are, they are dysfunctional. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dysfunctional courtrooms today, including the Supreme Court—or rather, more accurately, there are a lot of dysfunctional justices who bring politics into their jurisprudence. So I agree with OP—anything that adds political overtones to courtrooms probably isn’t a good idea. Let’s not encourage further jurisprudential dysfunction.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> it feels heavily political SCOTUS is not apolitical. (No human institution is.) That doesn't make it a political body. I've found helpful to read the official opinion of decisions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court. When I disagree, it's because the law--as you say--had holes. The court fills these in, by necessity. On this, it's fair to find disagreement. But the degree to which these holes are filled is usually impressively restrained. There are very few modern case where, given the facts and circumstances of the case or controversy, and within the context of the surrounding law, I found the interpolation obscene. > not on the level that you find in actual logic, math, or computational science Courts aren't deterministic. That doesn't make them a political body. It's an open debate as to whether we want the law to parse like code. I don't. As long as lawmaking is under human control, the law is comprehensible to humans and humans remain free agents, the law--and thus courts--will have a degree of unpredictability to them.
- SolaceQuantum 6y ago
  > I've found helpful to read the official opinion of opinions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court. My impressions from the podcasts of actual law professors and lawyers is that there are various interpretations of the law that trend towards liberal or conservative values, and the strategic dressing of how the law is read is itself a political strategy to legitimize a political reasoning as an apolitical law analysis. For example, the choice of a judge to read only the text and law as it is written (textualism) without caring about the general context as to why it exists or the effects of the law in modern day can often be used to ignore the actual injustice occurring as a result of a law that doesn't actually produce just outcomes even when the supposed intention is such. It's arguably pedantry. But when the same purely text-based reading is applied for progressive arguments, as in the hearings for sex-based discrimination, the conservative justices have abruptly shifted their questions to be concerned about the societal effects (bathrooms) or the original intention of the law (originalism). This sort of flip-flopping of evaluation strategies is often used as a basis of argument that while there are multiple reading frameworks of law, the actual frameworks used are often for political/personal purposes and judges are proposed based off their conservative or liberal bent in analysis.
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    As a scientist, this is how scientists also behave when there is disagreement. Humans will be human. As long as courts remain within reasonable bounds of "filling in the holes", that is good enough. And we can think about improving the process.
    - SkyBelow 6y ago
      That is perhaps my largest issue with science. On controversial topics, the level of criticism is not equally applied. It is even worse when we talk about what science filters down to the average voter, as even in cases where the scientists may be fair in their criticism, the public eye is still selective and given unequal weight to certain criticisms.

TimTheTinker 6y ago

> Is it not? From the method that I've seen legal logic applied, it feels heavily political. Courts are not supposed to be political. To the extent that they are, they are dysfunctional. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dysfunctional courtrooms today, including the Supreme Court—or rather, more accurately, there are a lot of dysfunctional justices who bring politics into their jurisprudence. So I agree with OP—anything that adds political overtones to courtrooms probably isn’t a good idea. Let’s not encourage further jurisprudential dysfunction.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> it feels heavily political SCOTUS is not apolitical. (No human institution is.) That doesn't make it a political body. I've found helpful to read the official opinion of decisions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court. When I disagree, it's because the law--as you say--had holes. The court fills these in, by necessity. On this, it's fair to find disagreement. But the degree to which these holes are filled is usually impressively restrained. There are very few modern case where, given the facts and circumstances of the case or controversy, and within the context of the surrounding law, I found the interpolation obscene. > not on the level that you find in actual logic, math, or computational science Courts aren't deterministic. That doesn't make them a political body. It's an open debate as to whether we want the law to parse like code. I don't. As long as lawmaking is under human control, the law is comprehensible to humans and humans remain free agents, the law--and thus courts--will have a degree of unpredictability to them.

SolaceQuantum 6y ago
> I've found helpful to read the official opinion of opinions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court. My impressions from the podcasts of actual law professors and lawyers is that there are various interpretations of the law that trend towards liberal or conservative values, and the strategic dressing of how the law is read is itself a political strategy to legitimize a political reasoning as an apolitical law analysis. For example, the choice of a judge to read only the text and law as it is written (textualism) without caring about the general context as to why it exists or the effects of the law in modern day can often be used to ignore the actual injustice occurring as a result of a law that doesn't actually produce just outcomes even when the supposed intention is such. It's arguably pedantry. But when the same purely text-based reading is applied for progressive arguments, as in the hearings for sex-based discrimination, the conservative justices have abruptly shifted their questions to be concerned about the societal effects (bathrooms) or the original intention of the law (originalism). This sort of flip-flopping of evaluation strategies is often used as a basis of argument that while there are multiple reading frameworks of law, the actual frameworks used are often for political/personal purposes and judges are proposed based off their conservative or liberal bent in analysis.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  As a scientist, this is how scientists also behave when there is disagreement. Humans will be human. As long as courts remain within reasonable bounds of "filling in the holes", that is good enough. And we can think about improving the process.
  - SkyBelow 6y ago
    That is perhaps my largest issue with science. On controversial topics, the level of criticism is not equally applied. It is even worse when we talk about what science filters down to the average voter, as even in cases where the scientists may be fair in their criticism, the public eye is still selective and given unequal weight to certain criticisms.