4 ms·
It's important to understand that the Supreme Court has never been some impartial body that operates above politics. Even the "originalist" or "textualist" move
by jmyeet 3y ago
It's important to understand that the Supreme Court has never been some impartial body that operates above politics. Even the "originalist" or "textualist" movement embodied by the Federalist Society was simply invented in the 1980s. Some examples:
1. (1A) The Supreme Court has refused to strike down anti-BDS laws that exist in ~37 states. For example, to be a teacher in Texas public schools, you have to sign a contract saying you won't support or engage in anti-BDS activities [1];
2. (2A) An individual "right" to own firearms was only created in 2008 [2], over 200 years after it was enacted, ignoring all history and interpretation of 2A;
3. (4A) Civil asset forfeiture should be unconstitutional under 4A. It is not;
4. (1A) In the Redeemer era, the Supreme Court vacated hate crimes convictions for the Califax massacre that involved a very restrictive reading of 1A [3];
5. In the Filburn decision in 1942, The Supreme Court ruled that growing wheat for personal use counted as interstate commerce because growing such wheat meant you didn't participate in interstate wheat markets when you otherwise would [4]; and
6. Citizens United decided that money was protected political speech [5].
I could go on. The point is though that all of this is completely made up and it's done so to protect government and capital owner interests almost all of the time.
Some of the more controversial decisions of the last few years have relied upon the "major questions doctrine" [6]. What is that? It's a principle of statutory interpretation that simply says that if an issue is big enough, the court gets to overrule the executive and legislative decisions if the court decides the language wasn't sufficiently clear (for the court). Where did this principle come from? They just made it up.
So, the decision regarding officials blocking critics will be a political one. Personally I don't think a government employee blocking someone on Twitter is a 1S issue. I guess we'll see.
[1]: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181218-texas-teacher-fired-for-refusing-to-sign-anti-bds-oath/ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181218-texas-teacher-fir...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
[3]: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/united-states-v-cruikshank-1876/ https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/united-states-v-crui...
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine
- hitpointdrew 3y ago>An individual "right" to own firearms was only created in 2008 You are conflating a SCOTUS ruling with a "right". The right was always there since the constitution was adopted. It just wasn't a right that was challenged all the way up to the SCOTUS until 2008. That doesn't mean the right didn't exist before hand. It only means the SCOTUS confirmed a right that has existed all along.
- pixl97 3y agoAnd if they did not confirm it, then the right would not have had existed the entire time...