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My gut feeling is 'wrong'. Justice is concerned with concepts of right and wrong. Politics is concerned with concepts of power and, possibly, public opinion. La

My gut feeling is 'wrong'. Justice is concerned with concepts of right and wrong. Politics is concerned with concepts of power and, possibly, public opinion. Lawmaking is concerned with whoever can pay off the politicians most effectively :D If judges are not at least equally capable of throwing their weight around as politicians and kings and the like, why even have them? They are meant to not ANSWER to kings, Presidents, and legislative authorization. Are they supposed to rule, instead? No, which is why legislation is sometimes a countervailing force. But they sure are not there to act as puppets to the powerful and the politicians.

hcurtiss 5y ago
Please trust you are fundamentally wrong. If Congress plainly acts within the authority granted it by the constitution, then the judiciary is strictly bound. Similarly, the judiciary is strictly bound by the constitution. If there is no statutory or constitutional authority, then there is no law to apply, meaning the petitioner has not carried its burden before the court.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Would that this was true. That would be an originalist reading. The modern activist SCOTUS is able to find "emanations and penumbras" in the Constitution of which the founders never dreamed. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    It is, perhaps, worth noting that the "penumbra" you're describing is the right to privacy, which was never enumerated anywhere in the Constitution.
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    Yes, that decision is so controversial precisely because it's one of the rare instances of the court divining constitutional entitlements that did not previously exist. It is in many ways the exception that proves the rule.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
We don't need judges to be politicians, because we have politicians. We don't need them to be kings - we got rid of kings for very good reasons. We need judges to be the referees, not just another set of players in the game.
- thisiswater 5y ago
  To compare judges to kings in this case is so absurd as to barely be worth refuting. The court is working within within a legal framework, not wielding supreme executive power granted by divine right and inherited through a dynasty.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    But in the post I replied to, Applejinx made exactly that comparison. So don't blame me...
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    They wield supreme judicial power. The legislative body can then try pass laws to more precisely define the activities involved. The judiciary can then declare those new laws to be unconstitutional. That is an active judiciary. It is be deplored. The judiciary in the US is supposed to be the weakest branch of three. The EU is an example of what happens when it's the strongest.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      The ultimate backstop to this is constitutional amendments (in the cases where the issue is actually Constitutional... In the case of, for example, Oracle v Google, the courts declared APIs were copyrightable as a matter of law, which could be altered by legislation).
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Many Judges in the USA are elected... 39 out of 50 states elect some of their judges.
- 5y ago

hcurtiss 5y ago

Please trust you are fundamentally wrong. If Congress plainly acts within the authority granted it by the constitution, then the judiciary is strictly bound. Similarly, the judiciary is strictly bound by the constitution. If there is no statutory or constitutional authority, then there is no law to apply, meaning the petitioner has not carried its burden before the court.

wrycoder 5y ago
Would that this was true. That would be an originalist reading. The modern activist SCOTUS is able to find "emanations and penumbras" in the Constitution of which the founders never dreamed. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  It is, perhaps, worth noting that the "penumbra" you're describing is the right to privacy, which was never enumerated anywhere in the Constitution.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  Yes, that decision is so controversial precisely because it's one of the rare instances of the court divining constitutional entitlements that did not previously exist. It is in many ways the exception that proves the rule.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

We don't need judges to be politicians, because we have politicians. We don't need them to be kings - we got rid of kings for very good reasons. We need judges to be the referees, not just another set of players in the game.

thisiswater 5y ago
To compare judges to kings in this case is so absurd as to barely be worth refuting. The court is working within within a legal framework, not wielding supreme executive power granted by divine right and inherited through a dynasty.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  But in the post I replied to, Applejinx made exactly that comparison. So don't blame me...
- wrycoder 5y ago
  They wield supreme judicial power. The legislative body can then try pass laws to more precisely define the activities involved. The judiciary can then declare those new laws to be unconstitutional. That is an active judiciary. It is be deplored. The judiciary in the US is supposed to be the weakest branch of three. The EU is an example of what happens when it's the strongest.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    The ultimate backstop to this is constitutional amendments (in the cases where the issue is actually Constitutional... In the case of, for example, Oracle v Google, the courts declared APIs were copyrightable as a matter of law, which could be altered by legislation).
shkkmo 5y ago
Many Judges in the USA are elected... 39 out of 50 states elect some of their judges.
5y ago