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This is a little tangential but it’s kind of funny that both you and the person you’re disagreeing with, and the camps you represent, agree that SCOTUS judges a

This is a little tangential but it’s kind of funny that both you and the person you’re disagreeing with, and the camps you represent, agree that SCOTUS judges are political. In fact, almost everyone seems to agree with that (myself included) except notably for the judges themselves, who consistently insist their jobs are apolitical. Roberts in particular has embarked on the fool’s errand of convincing the public of that. It kind of reminds me of this nonsense that universities offering liberal arts degrees still pay lip service to: that everyone is there for education for its own sake, oh no, it’s not a giant machine that gates public employment, it’s there for knowledge! Uh huh.

rayiner 5y ago
SCOTUS is ideological, not political. The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes. Likewise, viewing the Constitution as an evolving document that gives great discretion to judges to fashion rules for a changing world naturally favors liberal outcomes, because lawyers and judges are overwhelmingly liberal, even the republicans. (It was, after all, a majority Republican Court that wrote Roe in the first place.) Indeed, overruling Roe is a good example of the distinction between ideology and partisanship. 1/3 of republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-ten-or-more-democrats-and-republicans-dont-agree-with-their-party-on-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-te.... (And about 29% of Democrats don’t.) Republicans are heavily favored in the upcoming 2022 elections. Biden’s approval rating among republicans is 7%. Why would a savvy partisan blow up an issue that fractures the GOP and draws attention away from how unified they are in hating Biden? The GOP has the rural, churchgoing mom vote locked up. Inflation is what they want to be talking about right now to win back suburban moms, not abortion.
- lostdog 5y ago
  Not political? They are following the dictionary definition of political: "relating to the ideas or strategies of a particular party or group in politics." Nearly every decision of Bush/Trump appointed judges is directly in line with the Republican platform: anti-abortion, pro Christian supremacy, and pro-corporate. As to why are they trying to ram this decision through? The point of politics is to gain power and then assert your political leanings as law. Tearing down Roe is the final goal of a long-term Republican power surge: first whinging about activist judges in the 90s, then pushing identity politics in their base, then gerrymandering many states to death to control state legislatures, stonewalling the Supreme Court to push it into it's current radically partisan state, and finally asserting the Republican platform into law.
- philipkglass 5y ago
  The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes. I think that interpreting the Constitution by its literal text yields interpretations different from interpreting according to original intent. And that the literal text reading does not align all that closely with mainstream Republican or Democratic positions. Consider the text of the First Amendment, for example. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." No abridgment of freedom of speech or of the press. Pretty clear as text. Yet the Sedition Act of 1798 was never overturned as unconstitutional. Nor is there an exception in the plain text for "unless it's obscene" or "unless it's a lie" yet there are Federal laws limiting obscenity and fraud and other kinds of speech that were never struck down on First Amendment grounds. Some such laws were passed in the lifetime of the original framers of the constitution and others are in force today. Some state level blasphemy laws remained in place until the 20th century [1]. As I see it, either the literal text reading of the Second Amendment protects private ownership of machine guns just like it does bolt action rifles and revolvers, or handguns are no more protected than machine guns, whose private ownership was limited by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and then outlawed for all but affluent collectors by the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. A maximal-individual-liberty interpretation of the literal text of the First and Second Amendments produces a United States in which there are no Federal laws against publishing pornographic videos of minors, nor against private ownership of anti-aircraft missiles. (Among other startling developments.) That's closer to a fantasy of a certain strain of libertarian than anything aligned with mainstream political factions in the United States, either contemporaneously or at any time since independence. The original framers were (at least mostly) not libertarian libertines, devoid of communitarian feeling, while the literal text gestures toward an uncompromising individual liberty that would be equally outside the Overton window in 1792 or in 2022. [1] Though it's fair to consider that, pre-Civil War, states had more latitude to pass laws that the Federal government was Constitutionally forbidden to pass.

rayiner 5y ago

SCOTUS is ideological, not political. The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes. Likewise, viewing the Constitution as an evolving document that gives great discretion to judges to fashion rules for a changing world naturally favors liberal outcomes, because lawyers and judges are overwhelmingly liberal, even the republicans. (It was, after all, a majority Republican Court that wrote Roe in the first place.) Indeed, overruling Roe is a good example of the distinction between ideology and partisanship. 1/3 of republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-ten-or-more-democrats-and-republicans-dont-agree-with-their-party-on-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-te.... (And about 29% of Democrats don’t.) Republicans are heavily favored in the upcoming 2022 elections. Biden’s approval rating among republicans is 7%. Why would a savvy partisan blow up an issue that fractures the GOP and draws attention away from how unified they are in hating Biden? The GOP has the rural, churchgoing mom vote locked up. Inflation is what they want to be talking about right now to win back suburban moms, not abortion.

lostdog 5y ago
Not political? They are following the dictionary definition of political: "relating to the ideas or strategies of a particular party or group in politics." Nearly every decision of Bush/Trump appointed judges is directly in line with the Republican platform: anti-abortion, pro Christian supremacy, and pro-corporate. As to why are they trying to ram this decision through? The point of politics is to gain power and then assert your political leanings as law. Tearing down Roe is the final goal of a long-term Republican power surge: first whinging about activist judges in the 90s, then pushing identity politics in their base, then gerrymandering many states to death to control state legislatures, stonewalling the Supreme Court to push it into it's current radically partisan state, and finally asserting the Republican platform into law.
philipkglass 5y ago
The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes. I think that interpreting the Constitution by its literal text yields interpretations different from interpreting according to original intent. And that the literal text reading does not align all that closely with mainstream Republican or Democratic positions. Consider the text of the First Amendment, for example. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." No abridgment of freedom of speech or of the press. Pretty clear as text. Yet the Sedition Act of 1798 was never overturned as unconstitutional. Nor is there an exception in the plain text for "unless it's obscene" or "unless it's a lie" yet there are Federal laws limiting obscenity and fraud and other kinds of speech that were never struck down on First Amendment grounds. Some such laws were passed in the lifetime of the original framers of the constitution and others are in force today. Some state level blasphemy laws remained in place until the 20th century [1]. As I see it, either the literal text reading of the Second Amendment protects private ownership of machine guns just like it does bolt action rifles and revolvers, or handguns are no more protected than machine guns, whose private ownership was limited by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and then outlawed for all but affluent collectors by the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. A maximal-individual-liberty interpretation of the literal text of the First and Second Amendments produces a United States in which there are no Federal laws against publishing pornographic videos of minors, nor against private ownership of anti-aircraft missiles. (Among other startling developments.) That's closer to a fantasy of a certain strain of libertarian than anything aligned with mainstream political factions in the United States, either contemporaneously or at any time since independence. The original framers were (at least mostly) not libertarian libertines, devoid of communitarian feeling, while the literal text gestures toward an uncompromising individual liberty that would be equally outside the Overton window in 1792 or in 2022. [1] Though it's fair to consider that, pre-Civil War, states had more latitude to pass laws that the Federal government was Constitutionally forbidden to pass.