Reducing the politicization of the Supreme Court

[_EAllusion]

Robert Bork believed the judicial branch's job was to interpret the law rather than legislate from the bench. We saw what happened to him so I guess the supreme court being less political really is out of the question. This has been going on for a long time.

Robert Bork believed the 1st amendment only applied to explicit political speech and the government retained the right to censor most forms of speech including, but not limited to scientific publications, art, expressions of private moral opinions, and personal criticisms.

This is both bananas wrong and way, way outside of an acceptable view for a Supreme Court judge to have.

[_EAllusion]

Bork was fine. He got ____ over and you know it. That was as bad as Garland getting tanked.

- Doc

Robert Bork was nuts and we're very lucky he never got on the court. Blocking someone because they were nominated by a Democrat is not the same as blocking someone because they have dangerously radical views.

Per Ajax's cliché' he also adopted several wildly different theories of jurisprudence in his life with the only consistent thing between them being his belief they underwrote a reactionary social conservatism. Funny that such a non-activist would always conclude his personal political beliefs were the fundamental law of the land while adopting distinct interpretive frameworks.

[_EAllusion]

Robert Bork thought the 14th amendment only addressed racial equality, which in addition to being wrong, would nullify over a century of jurisprudence. He thought the civil rights act and voting rights act were unconstitutional. He thought the 9th amendment could effectively be ignored, thus ending the concept of unenumerated rights. His view of liberty was meaningless because he thought his freedom to be free from knowledge people are doing things he morally disapproved of was equivalent to the freedom to do things he morally disapproved of.

[_EAllusion]

While we can't do more than speculate on the past, I find the idea that the solution is to embrace partisanship and infuse it into the courts rather than modify the system to rebalance pitted interests in ways that force compromise little more than a white flag embracing the failure of our republic into little more than anarchy.

You can not abandon the republic to anarchy while also opposing a solution that likely would make the problem worse. It's like our house is on fire and someone is suggesting to put it out by throwing kerosene on it. The problem is partisan polarization, a new understanding of the importance of ideology in Supreme Court appointments along with a system to figure it out, and an abandonment of civic forbearance among Republicans leading to a Constitutional arms race. You can't solve this by making it even easier to block judicial appointments. That'll just enable the same problem even more.

There was no political will to confirm Garland in the Senate. That's why his blocking was met with silence by all but two Republicans. Not even giving him a hearing was about keeping coverage of what was going on to a low hum rather that opening up a battle that might draw in more press. This worked because our media sucks.

[_honorentheos]

Bork had a Nixonian stink on him that doesn't favor comparison to other nominations.

Bork was fine. He got ____ over and you know it. That was as bad as Garland getting tanked.

- Doc

Had Bork been confirmed rather than Justice Kennedy it's no exaggeration to say the world would look substantially different. Resistance to Bork resulted in a much more moderate court, ironically being unbalanced with Kennedy's retirement and Kavanaugh's confirmation.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

That BS in 1987 was political savagery and set the precedent for all the shitshows we've seen since. Somehow EA is ok with that, but what else is to be expected? He was a former federal appeals court judge. He was a Yale law professor. He was a Justice Department official during the Nixon Administration. And what he get from EA is "HURR DURR HE WUZ A NAZI. HURR DURR RACIST."

damned this guy never stops...

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

It's easy to lose sight of this, but it's only very recently that American politics figured out the importance of and developed an ability to ideologically stack the courts. Radical Republicans destroyed their entire civil rights legacy for generations because they appointed Supreme Court members who kneecapped their legislative achievements.

Our system for court appointments isn't great and doesn't work like it does in most democracies. It's especially vulnerable to the problem we have now.

[_EAllusion]

That ____ in 1987 was political savagery and set the precedent for all the ____ we've seen since. Somehow EAllusion is ok with that, but what else is to be expected? He was a former federal appeals court judge. He was a Yale law professor. He was a Justice Department official during the Nixon Administration. And what he get from EAllusion is "HURR DURR HE WUZ A NAZI. HURR DURR RACIST."

____ this guy never stops...

- Doc

Heh, somehow I don't think Robert Bork's time in the Nixon admin should be viewed as something to his credit. He helped Nixon purge the justice department to thwart justice EA, what more could you possible want? Hey, I don't think people should be appointed to the Supreme Court who get fundamental issues of Constitutional interpretation egregiously wrong in a way that has noxious political implications that make the lives of many people worse. Whatever nod we give to tolerance of opposing views to make the system of appointments work, Bork was way out of bounds.

If you think Bork should've been confirmed, then who shouldn't be? Like, what would an unqualified candidate look like?

Apparently "taught at Yale" is what makes a person a qualified jurist in your mind. It does not matter if, for example, they interpret the first amendment in a way that is at odds with almost all Constitutional theory and renders America's tradition of freedom of speech mostly dead.

[_honorentheos]

While we can't do more than speculate on the past, I find the idea that the solution is to embrace partisanship and infuse it into the courts rather than modify the system to rebalance pitted interests in ways that force compromise little more than a white flag embracing the failure of our republic into little more than anarchy.

You can not abandon the republic to anarchy while also opposing a solution that likely would make the problem worse. It's like our house is on fire and someone is suggesting to put it out by throwing kerosene on it. The problem is partisan polarization, a new understanding of the importance of ideology in Supreme Court appointments along with a system to figure it out, and an abandonment of civic forbearance among Republicans leading to a Constitutional arms race. You can't solve this by making it even easier to block judicial appointments. That'll just enable the same problem even more.

There was no political will to confirm Garland in the Senate. That's why his blocking was met with silence by all but two Republicans. Not even giving him a hearing was about keeping coverage of what was going on to a low hum rather that opening up a battle that might draw in more press. This worked because our media sucks.

It worked because the media sucks? Isn't that an acknowledgment that by avoiding hard press coverage that would have came with a hearing Senators were avoiding exposing themselves to accountability to their constituents?

Yeah, it is.

[_EAllusion]

It worked because the media sucks? Isn't that an acknowledgment that by avoiding hard press coverage that would have came with a hearing Senators were avoiding exposing themselves to accountability to their constituents?

Yeah, it is.

Kavanaugh just got confirmed while his confirmation was opposed by the majority of voters. His approvals sunk from mildly positive to Trumpish. It may have politically damaged Senators a bit in an election year to not confirm Garland, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have not confirmed him. They just smartly stayed out of a battle that they had more to lose with than gain. If the path of least resistance is there, they're gonna take it.