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The term “conservative” means nothing if you apply it to a court which has overturned years of legal norm across various areas of law.
by bluejekyll 4y ago
The term “conservative” means nothing if you apply it to a court which has overturned years of legal norm across various areas of law.
- mustache_kimono 4y agoYeah, certainly not what we once thought of as conservative judicial restraint. One comment I remember reading on Twitter which makes sense: "Funny how what the 1st Amendment means seems to align perfectly with currently fashionable conservative (MAGA) social views."
- epistasis 4y agoI think it makes perfect sense if you view the courts as largely a political operation, with a thin veneer of legal language on top. Given the past decades of highly coordinated--and completely politically motivated--court-stacking, it's probably most accurate to put the political definitions ahead of the legal definitions of conservative.
- Kamq 4y agoI think it still fits if they return the legal situation to what it had previously been. But any instance that creates a brand new legal situation does not qualify.
- sofixa 4y agoYes, the correct term is reactionary, which many modern "conservatives" are - they don't want things to remain the same, they want a return to "the good old days".
- encryptluks2 4y agoThey want the US to be like Saudi Arabia.
- jacobolus 4y agoThe appropriate description for the 5th circuit is “corrupt, incoherent activism”.
- xyzzyz 4y agoThis applies to every court in this country, and even more so to some. If 5th circuit is “corrupt, incoherent activism”, I’m lacking words to even describe the 9th.
- jacobolus 4y agoNo, the great majority of judges and courts – even the majority of e.g. Trump-appointed district-court judges – have internally consistent legal philosophies and prejudices which happen to differ from one to another. Sometimes judges talk past each-other or fundamentally disagree, but that is not the same as corruption. For the most part judges take their job seriously and do it carefully and in more or less good faith. What we are talking about here is judges ignoring the constitution, the law, past precedent, the will of the people, and the facts of the case, in order to make up a logically incoherent "argument" that happens to promote the judges’ pre-decided zany partisan outcome. Such rulings are profoundly corrosive to the rule of law and the legitimacy of the court system.
- xyzzyz 4y ago> What we are talking about here is judges ignoring the constitution, the law, past precedent, the will of the people, and the facts of the case, in order to make up a logically incoherent "argument" that happens to promote the judges’ pre-decided zany partisan outcome. Such rulings are profoundly corrosive to the rule of law and the legitimacy of the court system. Yes, and this in fact happens in every court, that's my entire point. I can provide endless examples of outcome-oriented rulings from every single appeals circuit, and from SCOTUS too.
- KerrAvon 4y agoI assume you mean SCOTUS prior to 2022? Everyone knows about the right-wing corruption at play in the abortion and the forced school prayer decisions.
- 4y ago
- fsckboy 4y ago>The term “conservative” means nothing if you apply it to a court which has overturned years of legal norm across various areas of law. your definition of conservative seems to be "obeys Newton's second law", or going further, "synonymous with hysteresis": "resists change, but thereupon resists changing back"? that's just not how people use the term.