3 ms·

Yes, indubitably. It's easy to lose sight of (if one doesn't read the rulings regularly) the fact that SCOTUS's job is to come to rational and deliberate ruling

Yes, indubitably. It's easy to lose sight of (if one doesn't read the rulings regularly) the fact that SCOTUS's job is to come to rational and deliberate rulings grounded firmly in textual and common law dating back over a thousand years. Even when one doesn't agree with the conclusion, one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable (though sometimes seeing the reason involves entertaining a fact pattern other than the one you believe to be true!).

voidfunc 2y ago
Lol, they're also quite ideological. Don't fall for the trap that these people are enlightened philosophers. They have a lot of flaws in their own right. Ask good lawyers about their thoughts on SCOTUS Justices, it's not always peachy.
- legitster 2y ago
  Even if they are ideological, they are not usually political hacks (cough Thomas cough). Honestly though, for as much flak as this current court gets, there is at least a certain consistency where they at least mostly stick to arguments about the letter of the law. In previous courts you would see some truly wild written arguments about how, like, a specific word in the Commerce Clause or whatever could mean whatever you wanted it to.
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Haha. Sure. Like when they make up Qualified Immunity which is a completely made up special status/protection given by the Courts, not by law or common law but abusing the concept of Judicial immunity and expanding it to all governmental officials. See Pierson v. Ray (1967)
- dang 2y ago
  Please make your substantive points without swipes (like "haha sure"). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    My bad. I can no longer edit/delete my comment to fix it. I haven't responded that way in the past but was responded to that way a couple of days ago and guess it took hold. I can see why you have to clamp down on it, it easily spreads.
Supermancho 2y ago
> one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable Not so true of this incarnation of SCOTUS. It's amazing when they dont delay or rule (by majority) via ridiculous interpretation.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  The interpretations break with precedent but they are rarely ridiculous. As detestable as I find the outcome, Roe v. Wade built a right to privacy out of whole cloth where none existed before, and whether that was good law has been hotly debated ever since it was decided (https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=3681&context=mlr https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ref...). It's within the purview of SCOTUS to go "This was bad lawcraft done by our predecessors, and we reverse it based on this reasoning..." We can disagree with their reasoning, but my main point is you rarely see a ruling from SCOTUS that is nakedly "Because I said so," even though that's de facto the power they have. The initial Roe decision was shaky. "That was a shaky decision, so we have reversed it" was at most equally shaky. It's hard to argue that one is well-reasoned and the other not (though I think there's room to disagree on what facts the two Courts considered).
bee_rider 2y ago
This is going too far I think. There are some partisan hacks on the bench and the institution’s legitimacy is in pretty bad shape. But in this case they got an issue that didn’t have as much partisan alignment so maybe they did some good work.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Most of the current legitimacy damage stems from a perception that the Court has members that are arbitrating law over bribery while simultaneously engaging in behavior that looks suspiciously coercive. I think that's a major issue, but it's a bit orthogonal to the question of whether they use sound judgment to arrive at rulings like, say, US v. Rahimi 22-915. (The other source, to my eyes, of questions of legitimacy is that the appointment of three judges in a narrow amount of time under one party's dominance of Congress and the Presidency has fundamentally shifted the "flavor" of the way the Court interprets law. Rather than bringing their legitimacy into question, that's rather the point of the process by which the US appoints Justices and the length of their term; the Court's "personality" is stable over long stretches of time, but it can shift and it does go through eras. People complaining about the new era don't seem to realize that for many Americans, the previous era was strange times that called to question in their minds the legitimacy of the Court).
pastor_bob 2y ago
Yet, during oral arguments they use some of the most juvenile thought experiments to prove their 'slippery slope' opinions
- lupire 2y ago
  Nonsense. Oral arguments are the lawyers making arguments. The justices ask questions and collect answers. Their proofs are in their opinions.
  - dang 2y ago
    Please make your substantive points without swipes or calling names. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your post would be fine without that first bit.

voidfunc 2y ago

Lol, they're also quite ideological. Don't fall for the trap that these people are enlightened philosophers. They have a lot of flaws in their own right. Ask good lawyers about their thoughts on SCOTUS Justices, it's not always peachy.

legitster 2y ago
Even if they are ideological, they are not usually political hacks (cough Thomas cough). Honestly though, for as much flak as this current court gets, there is at least a certain consistency where they at least mostly stick to arguments about the letter of the law. In previous courts you would see some truly wild written arguments about how, like, a specific word in the Commerce Clause or whatever could mean whatever you wanted it to.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

Haha. Sure. Like when they make up Qualified Immunity which is a completely made up special status/protection given by the Courts, not by law or common law but abusing the concept of Judicial immunity and expanding it to all governmental officials. See Pierson v. Ray (1967)

dang 2y ago
Please make your substantive points without swipes (like "haha sure"). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  My bad. I can no longer edit/delete my comment to fix it. I haven't responded that way in the past but was responded to that way a couple of days ago and guess it took hold. I can see why you have to clamp down on it, it easily spreads.

Supermancho 2y ago

> one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable Not so true of this incarnation of SCOTUS. It's amazing when they dont delay or rule (by majority) via ridiculous interpretation.

shadowgovt 2y ago
The interpretations break with precedent but they are rarely ridiculous. As detestable as I find the outcome, Roe v. Wade built a right to privacy out of whole cloth where none existed before, and whether that was good law has been hotly debated ever since it was decided (https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=3681&context=mlr https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ref...). It's within the purview of SCOTUS to go "This was bad lawcraft done by our predecessors, and we reverse it based on this reasoning..." We can disagree with their reasoning, but my main point is you rarely see a ruling from SCOTUS that is nakedly "Because I said so," even though that's de facto the power they have. The initial Roe decision was shaky. "That was a shaky decision, so we have reversed it" was at most equally shaky. It's hard to argue that one is well-reasoned and the other not (though I think there's room to disagree on what facts the two Courts considered).

bee_rider 2y ago

This is going too far I think. There are some partisan hacks on the bench and the institution’s legitimacy is in pretty bad shape. But in this case they got an issue that didn’t have as much partisan alignment so maybe they did some good work.

shadowgovt 2y ago
Most of the current legitimacy damage stems from a perception that the Court has members that are arbitrating law over bribery while simultaneously engaging in behavior that looks suspiciously coercive. I think that's a major issue, but it's a bit orthogonal to the question of whether they use sound judgment to arrive at rulings like, say, US v. Rahimi 22-915. (The other source, to my eyes, of questions of legitimacy is that the appointment of three judges in a narrow amount of time under one party's dominance of Congress and the Presidency has fundamentally shifted the "flavor" of the way the Court interprets law. Rather than bringing their legitimacy into question, that's rather the point of the process by which the US appoints Justices and the length of their term; the Court's "personality" is stable over long stretches of time, but it can shift and it does go through eras. People complaining about the new era don't seem to realize that for many Americans, the previous era was strange times that called to question in their minds the legitimacy of the Court).

pastor_bob 2y ago

Yet, during oral arguments they use some of the most juvenile thought experiments to prove their 'slippery slope' opinions

lupire 2y ago
Nonsense. Oral arguments are the lawyers making arguments. The justices ask questions and collect answers. Their proofs are in their opinions.
- dang 2y ago
  Please make your substantive points without swipes or calling names. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your post would be fine without that first bit.