SCOTUS gaslighting

[Cameron]

A "majority" of Justices--almost all appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate--is poised to eradicate an individual constitutional right that has existed for 50 years (20% of the nation's history) and is supported by upwards of 60% of the country, and even more by those under 40. And they've done it knowing that the country is already closer than ever to irreconcilable division, and public faith in our democratic institutions is at its lowest in memory. SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances. There is a process for correcting a SCOTUS decision in lesser circumstances, which is for the people to amend the Constitution. These justices, representing at most a third of the country, have no legal or moral justification to circumvent that process, and their attempt to portray doing so as some sort of protection of political process is gaslighting.

I thought conservatives would limit abortion rights, and that would have been frustrating, but not disastrous. A holding in effect that women have no constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy at all is terribly extreme and politically irresponsible of these Justices. I've always been against packing SCOTUS, but if conservatives are going to use the appointment process to just get rid of decisions they don't like because they know they don't have the power to get a constitutional amendment, maybe the majority should do the same.

 

[Mycroft]

SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances.

This is simply not true.

Here is a good article that talks about the issue: https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/scotus-for-law-students-supreme-court-precedent/

 

[Cameron]

This is simply not true.

Here is a good article that talks about the issue: https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/scotus-for-law-students-supreme-court-precedent/

All that article says is that in recent years conservatives have taken to departing from precedent whenever they feel like it.

 

[Mycroft]

All that article says is that in recent years conservatives have taken to departing from precedent whenever they feel like it.

sigh...

You should read it again, without your biased blinders. But hey...I don't care if you do or not.

You are dismissed.

 

[Noodlegawd]

A "majority" of Justices--almost all appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate--is poised to eradicate an individual constitutional right that has existed for 50 years (20% of the nation's history) and is supported by upwards of 60% of the country, and even more by those under 40. And they've done it knowing that the country is already closer than ever to irreconcilable division, and public faith in our democratic institutions is at its lowest in memory. SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances. There is a process for correcting a SCOTUS decision in lesser circumstances, which is for the people to amend the Constitution. These justices, representing at most a third of the country, have no legal or moral justification to circumvent that process, and their attempt to portray doing so as some sort of protection of political process is gaslighting.

I thought conservatives would limit abortion rights, and that would have been frustrating, but not disastrous. A holding in effect that women have no constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy at all is terribly extreme and politically irresponsible of these Justices. I've always been against packing SCOTUS, but if conservatives are going to use the appointment process to just get rid of decisions they don't like because they know they don't have the power to get a constitutional amendment, maybe the majority should do the same.

Just to be clear, your outrage at the Supreme Court overturning precedent certainly would have been equally shrill if the shoe was on the other foot, and a Supreme Court packed with Democrat appointees had overturned Citizens' United or Heller?

 

[HikerGuy83]

All that article says is that in recent years conservatives have taken to departing from precedent whenever they feel like it.

There are litteraly hundreds of reversals by the SCOTUS.

List of overruled United States Supreme Court decisions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Cameron]

Just to be clear, your outrage at the Supreme Court overturning precedent certainly would have been equally shrill if the shoe was on the other foot, and a Supreme Court packed with Democrat appointees had overturned Citizens' United or Heller?

Those decisions are barely a decade old. Morever, 3/4s of Americans, include 66% of Republicans, disagree with Citizens United, and it has done demonstrable harm to our political system. So that easily distinguishes that case from the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade, which was responsible for nearly 50% of the reduction in crime in the 1990s-today and which is supported by at least 2/3rds of Americans; in addition, the underlying science and balancing of interests have never changed. Public opinion on Heller is more divided, and I have less of a problem with its reasoning. But the rising death toll of mass shootings and gun violence could provide a basis for reversal. Public opinion is also in favor of more gun control than conservatives believe Heller allows. So to answer you question, no, I likely would not be as "shrill," although I'm sure you and others would be equally if not more so were the shoe on the other foot.

Study: Most Americans want to kill ‘Citizens United’ with constitutional amendment

Three-fourths of survey respondents — including 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats — back a constitutional amendment outlawing Citizens United. The study also indicates that most Americans — 88 percent overall — want to reduce the influence large campaign donors wield over...

publicintegrity.org

10 years later, Americans stand opposed to Citizens United

Americans of all backgrounds and political persuasions have the opportunity to affect real change and take political power back from an unaccountable elite by joining the growing movement for a con…

thehill.com

Death toll from mass shootings in United States is rising, study finds

A government-funded research project released on Friday sheds new light on the upward trend of mass shootings in the United States, finding that the number of Americans dying from mass shooters is on the rise, and most people who commit such acts of violence have a history of trauma or were in a...

www.reuters.com

Public opinion on gun control in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Cameron]

There are litteraly hundreds of reversals by the SCOTUS.

List of overruled United States Supreme Court decisions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Almost all of which expanded individual rights. The worst SCOTUS decisions in history are those that constricted individual rights.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Almost all of which expanded individual rights. The worst SCOTUS decisions in history are those that constricted individual rights.

And that is why we have a political process.

And a court system.

 

[Scrabaholic]

A "majority" of Justices--almost all appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate--is poised to eradicate an individual constitutional right that has existed for 50 years (20% of the nation's history) and is supported by upwards of 60% of the country, and even more by those under 40. And they've done it knowing that the country is already closer than ever to irreconcilable division, and public faith in our democratic institutions is at its lowest in memory. SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances. There is a process for correcting a SCOTUS decision in lesser circumstances, which is for the people to amend the Constitution. These justices, representing at most a third of the country, have no legal or moral justification to circumvent that process, and their attempt to portray doing so as some sort of protection of political process is gaslighting.

I thought conservatives would limit abortion rights, and that would have been frustrating, but not disastrous. A holding in effect that women have no constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy at all is terribly extreme and politically irresponsible of these Justices. I've always been against packing SCOTUS, but if conservatives are going to use the appointment process to just get rid of decisions they don't like because they know they don't have the power to get a constitutional amendment, maybe the majority should do the same.

Biden said he would work to codify RvW into law before the mid term elections if the SC reversed it.

 

[Cameron]

Biden said he would work to codify RvW into law before the mid term elections if the SC reversed it.

It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS upholds such a law. In theory, the question (1) does the Constitution prevent a State from banning abortion, is separate and distinct from the question (2) does the Constitution prevent the federal government from requiring that States permit abortion, but I have a feeling this SCOTUS will give the "state's rights" answer to both.

 

[Atreus21]

A "majority" of Justices

5 of 9 is a majority.

--almost all appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote

Irrelevant.

and were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate

Just like democrat appointees.

--is poised to eradicate an individual constitutional right

Curiously absent of any mention in the constitution

that has existed for 50 years (20% of the nation's history)

Just like Plessy v Ferguson...

and is supported by upwards of 60% of the country, and even more by those under 40

Then what's do you fear from subjecting it to democratic processes?

. And they've done it knowing that the country is already closer than ever to irreconcilable division

Likely over precisely this issue, because it has been removed from democratic deliberation.

, and public faith in our democratic institutions is at its lowest in memory. SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances. There is a process for correcting a SCOTUS decision in lesser circumstances, which is for the people to amend the Constitution.

Or just overturning bad previous decisions.

These justices, representing at most a third of the country, have no legal or moral justification to circumvent that process, and their attempt to portray doing so as some sort of protection of political process is gaslighting.

They are supreme court justices. No one has more legal justification to overrule their own decisions than they.

I thought conservatives would limit abortion rights, and that would have been frustrating, but not disastrous. A holding in effect that women have no constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy at all is terribly extreme and politically irresponsible of these Justices. I've always been against packing SCOTUS, but if conservatives are going to use the appointment process to just get rid of decisions they don't like because they know they don't have the power to get a constitutional amendment, maybe the majority should do the same.

A constitutional amendment. To reverse a supreme court decision? Conservatives have to cross the hardest possible threshold to reverse what progressives established by crossing the easiest? I don't think so. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[Patriotic Voter]

And that is why we have a political process.

And a court system.

The court system needs to be fixed with a constitutional amendment that gives federal court judgeships to the people, not the Senate. That would have kept a misohynistic rapist off the bench.

 

[HikerGuy83]

The court system needs to be fixed with a constitutional amendment that gives federal court judgeships to the people, not the Senate. That would have kept a misohynistic rapist off the bench.

I don't think Kagen was ever convicted, was he ?

 

[American]

A "majority" of Justices--almost all appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate--is poised to eradicate an individual constitutional right that has existed for 50 years (20% of the nation's history) and is supported by upwards of 60% of the country, and even more by those under 40. And they've done it knowing that the country is already closer than ever to irreconcilable division, and public faith in our democratic institutions is at its lowest in memory. SCOTUS is bound by precedent except in exceptional circumstances. There is a process for correcting a SCOTUS decision in lesser circumstances, which is for the people to amend the Constitution. These justices, representing at most a third of the country, have no legal or moral justification to circumvent that process, and their attempt to portray doing so as some sort of protection of political process is gaslighting.

I thought conservatives would limit abortion rights, and that would have been frustrating, but not disastrous. A holding in effect that women have no constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy at all is terribly extreme and politically irresponsible of these Justices. I've always been against packing SCOTUS, but if conservatives are going to use the appointment process to just get rid of decisions they don't like because they know they don't have the power to get a constitutional amendment, maybe the majority should do the same.

You're bloviation is wrong about everything. It's embarrassing. Presidents aren't elected by popular vote, for good reason. Your characterization of the Senate is wrong and irrelevant. Abortion has never been a right recognized by anyone with a clue. Roe was fanagled into existence by squinting at the Constitutional and then twisting its very fabric to squeeze out a turd.

Remember this...

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449

Link
Moreover, for Madison, the text’s meaning consisted of the original meaning of the words of the document—the meaning the Constitution’s words and phrases would have had to those using them at the time the document was adopted (accounting for any well-understood specialized meanings or term-of-art understandings). The meaning of the Constitution’s terms did not change with time. That would be anachronistic, Madison thought. “What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense!” Madison wrote in 1824, mocking the notion that “the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it.”[10] The Constitution’s meaning, where sufficiently clear, was fixed by the sense of its language as it would have been understood at the time.

More support for original meaning
During the Webster-Haynes debates, Madison took issue with "the innovation of time on the meanings of words and phrasing".


You can't add meaning or invent something that isn't there to begin with. You'll have to amend the Constitution.

 

[poweRob]