Sen. Harry Reid, "We have too many judges on the Supreme Court."

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
cubby: And you fail to realize that "justice" is a relative term?

M: So that would mean, for example, that equal rights for women is just relative, right, and if a society decides to take womens rights way it will make it OK? The notion that women have rights is no better a truth then that women are inferior, correct?

Moonie, this logic is lacking. If he says 'justice is relative' and you provide ONE example when (arguably) it's not, you still haven't addressed the billions of other situations in which determining what is 'just' is much, much harder. You said there's a longing for justice in every soul, but the definitions of justice in those souls are as diverse as the souls themselves.

This reminds me of an old story I heard:

Once there was a contest between the Greeks and the Persians to see who could create the perfect painting and a room with two canvas walls on opposite sides was divided with a curtain so that each side could work in anonymity, one from the other. The Greeks created a masterpiece of unsurpassed beauty, but the Persians polished the walls to mirror perfection and when the curtain was removed nobody could tell which was the greater creation.

Think about it. Has not the longing for the rights of women always been there, occluded by the dust of superstition and tradition? How does the soul advance and progress if there is no source of the longing. Because you have not uncovered the source of ones conscience does not mean others have not or will not. What was hard in the past was made easy today by the blood and sweat of millions.

You to your technocrat lawyers and me to my visionaries. All men are created equal, but equal to what? If a man moves toward that to which he strives then I advise you to go for the highest ideals. From the absolute you came and to the absolute you can return.

And from what law university did Solomon acquire the legal scholarship to determine the true Mother of a child? If you do not know love you will be able to render no real justice. And if you love your every action will be justice, no?

But then I guess you will now tell me that love is relative. I wonder why that would be. I bet it wouldn't be that the dust you keep on your walls is there to protect you from the pain you felt when love died so young. No, it couldn't have anything at all to do with self hate.

Give me a judge whose love is so great that he will die to his own self hate.

You'd be fun at the confirmation hearings, Moonie. That's for sure.

 

[Moonbeam]

Mu: You'd be fun at the confirmation hearings, Moonie. That's for sure.

Mo: Well perhaps I have an unusual sense of logic, I don't know but your statement that mine was lacking followed by the comments you made left me rather bemused:

"Moonie, this logic is lacking. If he says 'justice is relative' and you provide ONE example when (arguably) it's not, you still haven't addressed the billions of other situations in which determining what is 'just' is much, much harder."

My logic tells me that if somebody says that justice is relative and I provide one example where it is not, that sort of the end of the discussion. Something can't be relative if there is examples that it is not, no, or am I just crazy. Hehe. I mean, how long do you debate somebody that justice isn't relative before you shoot them in the head and say, OK, justice is relative and you are dead and I can in good conscience walk away, having lost the battle, as it were, but certainly won the war. I just wonder how people can make the statements they do with no thought at all, it seems to me, of the implications.

Mu: You said there's a longing for justice in every soul, but the definitions of justice in those souls are as diverse as the souls themselves.

Mo: But the longing is absolute. Justice is a balance, a weighing of one thing against the other, but weight is a standard of the absolute. The fulcrum is set at the zero weight. There is no point to a system of weighing in which anybody can define the meaning of weight. To say that justice is relative is to say that our system of checks and balances is a total joke. Right and Wrong are not relative. They are written into the soul. There is, however, truth and denial and those in denial can make up anything they like and call it right or wrong. That, however, does not change a single thing, and will not be a defense for them at trial.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: n yusef

That spirit must be called upon to debate issues outside of the scope of the Constitution's text.

No, that 'spirit' should be called upon to realize that the Constitution was designed to limit the power of the government, and if an issue is 'outside the scope of the text', the Court probably shouldn't be involved.

I always thought the Constitution was designed to limit the abuses of the government by the powers that be. You know, the whole "We the people" thing. As such, what would fall outside of it's intended scope?

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: n yusef

That spirit must be called upon to debate issues outside of the scope of the Constitution's text.

No, that 'spirit' should be called upon to realize that the Constitution was designed to limit the power of the government, and if an issue is 'outside the scope of the text', the Court probably shouldn't be involved.

I always thought the Constitution was designed to limit the abuses of the government by the powers that be. You know, the whole "We the people" thing. As such, what would fall outside of it's intended scope?

What the heck are you talking about?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
cubby: And you fail to realize that "justice" is a relative term?

M: So that would mean, for example, that equal rights for women is just relative, right, and if a society decides to take womens rights way it will make it OK? The notion that women have rights is no better a truth then that women are inferior, correct?

cubby: You want to keep the law making abilities in the hands of legislatures.

M: So you want legislatures to be able to take away say, women's rights, but the court not be able to decide that such a law would be unconstitutional, right?

My friend you must forgive cubby for not understanding english.
Also I don`t really think cubby has a clue as to what he is saying. For example--
You want "justice" you do it with your vote in the legislative branch. You do not do it with a small body of people who's _only_ accountability is to themselves.

The way it seems is as if cubby does not think we need a Supreme court...lol

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: n yusef

That spirit must be called upon to debate issues outside of the scope of the Constitution's text.

No, that 'spirit' should be called upon to realize that the Constitution was designed to limit the power of the government, and if an issue is 'outside the scope of the text', the Court probably shouldn't be involved.

I always thought the Constitution was designed to limit the abuses of the government by the powers that be. You know, the whole "We the people" thing. As such, what would fall outside of it's intended scope?

What the heck are you talking about?

Same thing you're talking about only with justice for ALL.

 

[Moonbeam]

.

 

[jonks]

What has 18 legs and 2 tits, I mean 4 tits, I mean 2 tits. Argggg, goddamnit they can't keep changing shit up, how's a guy supposed to remember a joke these days?

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Actually, eskimospy is the one who needs to read up on the history of the USSC.

While, indeed, some of the very earliest justices had no prior judicial experience, it was also probably difficult for someone who eventually supported the Revolution to be appointed as a justice under the Queen. Of the first 10 justices, 6 of them were members of the Continental Congress.

After a complete scrub of the justices of the USSC, it appears that 65 out of 110 have had judicial experience. Now, it appears there were times when it was customery to NOT appoint prior judges. Two stood out to me -- between 1851 and 1870 (the Civil War and Reconstruction years), there was only ONE prior judge appointed to the court out of eight. Lincoln nominated that one (Field), but he also nominated 4 non-judges. Also, between 1930-1943, only 3 out of 11 appointments had prior judicial experience.

Look at those two periods -- Civil War and the New Deal. Could one make a correlation between the appointment of non-judges to the USSC and political upheaval? Possibly. Now, Harry Reid is advocating non-judges to the court? Hmm...

Lastly (and I bolded this for a reason), EVERY single USSC justice who has ever served has been a lawyer. Let's lay that falsehood to rest.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: AndrewR

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Actually, eskimospy is the one who needs to read up on the history of the USSC.

While, indeed, some of the very earliest justices had no prior judicial experience, it was also probably difficult for someone who eventually supported the Revolution to be appointed as a justice under the Queen. Of the first 10 justices, 6 of them were members of the Continental Congress.

After a complete scrub of the justices of the USSC, it appears that 65 out of 110 have had judicial experience. Now, it appears there were times when it was customery to NOT appoint prior judges. Two stood out to me -- between 1851 and 1870 (the Civil War and Reconstruction years), there was only ONE prior judge appointed to the court out of eight. Lincoln nominated that one (Field), but he also nominated 4 non-judges. Also, between 1930-1943, only 3 out of 11 appointments had prior judicial experience.

Look at those two periods -- Civil War and the New Deal. Could one make a correlation between the appointment of non-judges to the USSC and political upheaval? Possibly. Now, Harry Reid is advocating non-judges to the court? Hmm...

Lastly (and I bolded this for a reason), EVERY single USSC justice who has ever served has been a lawyer. Let's lay that falsehood to rest.

Many great Justices have had no judging experience. That's a simple fact. Personally, I would like an academic; if only to balance with Thomas' stupidity.

 

[PokerGuy]

Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

 

[Baltazar325]

All it should take is a test to see if they can truly understand the Rule Against Perpetuties.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

Damn those activists judges mandating desegregation and Miranda rights. :roll:

 

[PokerGuy]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

Damn those activists judges mandating desegregation and Miranda rights. :roll:

My point exactly: you like it when they do something you agree with, no matter if it's actually in the constitution or law or not.

 

[PokerGuy]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

Damn those activists judges mandating desegregation and Miranda rights. :roll:

My point exactly: you like it when they do something you agree with, no matter if it's actually in the constitution or law or not. You don't want the court to interpret the law, you want them to create it.

 

[n yusef]

The Court has the power to do things that are not popular or politically expedient. For the benefit of this country, it must act if the Executive and Legislature will not.

Are you a segregationist?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

'Judicial activism' is just a code word for 'judicial ruling I don't like'. In your other reply you implied that desegregation or Miranda rights were some sort of negative example of a judiciary run amok. It was decried as such at the time, but I think we can all see now that the USSC was enforcing the Constitution when the legislature and executive were not.

The Constitution is so vague that in order to have effective governance it needs to be interpreted as to how it applies to current law. There's simply no other way to do it. (what does 'the general welfare' mean? What constitutes 'equal protection'? Is this punishment 'cruel and unusual'?)

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: AndrewR

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: eskimospy
He was probably referring to the USSC throughout history. It was quite frequent in the past to have non-lawyers/judges on there, but it isn't today.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Looks like it's time for me to read up on the history of the Supreme Court.

Actually, eskimospy is the one who needs to read up on the history of the USSC.

While, indeed, some of the very earliest justices had no prior judicial experience, it was also probably difficult for someone who eventually supported the Revolution to be appointed as a justice under the Queen. Of the first 10 justices, 6 of them were members of the Continental Congress.

After a complete scrub of the justices of the USSC, it appears that 65 out of 110 have had judicial experience. Now, it appears there were times when it was customery to NOT appoint prior judges. Two stood out to me -- between 1851 and 1870 (the Civil War and Reconstruction years), there was only ONE prior judge appointed to the court out of eight. Lincoln nominated that one (Field), but he also nominated 4 non-judges. Also, between 1930-1943, only 3 out of 11 appointments had prior judicial experience.

Look at those two periods -- Civil War and the New Deal. Could one make a correlation between the appointment of non-judges to the USSC and political upheaval? Possibly. Now, Harry Reid is advocating non-judges to the court? Hmm...

Lastly (and I bolded this for a reason), EVERY single USSC justice who has ever served has been a lawyer. Let's lay that falsehood to rest.

Many great Justices have had no judging experience. That's a simple fact. Personally, I would like an academic; if only to balance with Thomas' stupidity.

True statement, obviously. However, I also noticed that a great number (I didn't keep track) of the justices who had no judicial experience were involved with the government as lawyers -- AGs or involved with policy making bodies as attorneys, etc (Warren was a state AG, for instance). A GREAT many of the justices overall were politically active, and a fair amount rose to the USSC through personal association with the sitting President.

By my count, there have been at least ten prior law professors on the court, though I think that I didn't note one or two. Of course, there were none earlier in the history of the Court because there were very few law schools until the latter half of the 19th century. Most lawyers apprenticed to an attorney prior to the taking the bar instead of graduating from a law school. Of note, THREE of the sitting justices are former law professors -- Scalia, Kennedy, and Breyer.

One thing I noticed is that 10 out of the 17 Chief Justices have not had prior judicial experience. From what I gathered in my research, the nomination of a Chief Justice is often very political so it makes sense that some of the appointments probably did not take into account legal competence.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Scary... people like Craig (and, it seems, Harry Reid) want the judges to create policy or law instead of interpreting the law as it is written. In other words, judicial activism. They clearly don't understand that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch is there strictly to interpret the existing law. Not create new law, not create some sort of justice by reading more things into or out of the consitution. It's funny that such people love "wiggle room" for the justices, until they run into a justice that has a different ideology that uses that "wiggle room", then they get mad.

Was Brown v Bd of Ed judicial activism or merely the Court interpreting "equal protection" as written? Both? Do you think government separation of the races is not a violation of equal protection?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: AndrewR

True statement, obviously. However, I also noticed that a great number (I didn't keep track) of the justices who had no judicial experience were involved with the government as lawyers -- AGs or involved with policy making bodies as attorneys, etc (Warren was a state AG, for instance). A GREAT many of the justices overall were politically active, and a fair amount rose to the USSC through personal association with the sitting President.

By my count, there have been at least ten prior law professors on the court, though I think that I didn't note one or two. Of course, there were none earlier in the history of the Court because there were very few law schools until the latter half of the 19th century. Most lawyers apprenticed to an attorney prior to the taking the bar instead of graduating from a law school. Of note, THREE of the sitting justices are former law professors -- Scalia, Kennedy, and Breyer.

One thing I noticed is that 10 out of the 17 Chief Justices have not had prior judicial experience. From what I gathered in my research, the nomination of a Chief Justice is often very political so it makes sense that some of the appointments probably did not take into account legal competence.

You're right, I should have said judges, not lawyers. My mistake! My basic point was that what Reid was saying isn't quite as crazy as it sounds in historical terms.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
'Judicial activism' is just a code word for 'judicial ruling I don't like'. In your other reply you implied that desegregation or Miranda rights were some sort of negative example of a judiciary run amok. It was decried as such at the time, but I think we can all see now that the USSC was enforcing the Constitution when the legislature and executive were not.

The Constitution is so vague that in order to have effective governance it needs to be interpreted as to how it applies to current law. There's simply no other way to do it. (what does 'the general welfare' mean? What constitutes 'equal protection'? Is this punishment 'cruel and unusual'?)

No, judicial activism is a court failing to apply or uphold the law in favor of some social trend or idea of 'social justice'. That's the problem many strict constructionists have with things like affirmative action - while we can debate AA as social policy all day, how is it legal if the Constitution is supposed to provide equal protection? Another example is Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, wherein the Supreme Court "interpreted" the Contracts Clause right out of existence, more or less.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: eskimospy
'Judicial activism' is just a code word for 'judicial ruling I don't like'. In your other reply you implied that desegregation or Miranda rights were some sort of negative example of a judiciary run amok. It was decried as such at the time, but I think we can all see now that the USSC was enforcing the Constitution when the legislature and executive were not.

The Constitution is so vague that in order to have effective governance it needs to be interpreted as to how it applies to current law. There's simply no other way to do it. (what does 'the general welfare' mean? What constitutes 'equal protection'? Is this punishment 'cruel and unusual'?)

No, judicial activism is a court failing to apply or uphold the law in favor of some social trend or idea of 'social justice'. That's the problem many strict constructionists have with things like affirmative action - while we can debate AA as social policy all day, how is it legal if the Constitution is supposed to provide equal protection? Another example is Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, wherein the Supreme Court "interpreted" the Contracts Clause right out of existence, more or less.

To me, one aspect of the Affirmative Action debate is consequentialism (the theory that moral judgements should be based on the outcome of an action) versus deontology (the theory that moral judgements should be based on the morality of the action itself). If a group of people, let's use women as an example, are discriminated against in the workplace, would it be just to mandate their preference over similarly qualified men, to correct this discrimination? Personal philosophy determines one's answer to this question; it is in no way cut-and-dried.

EDIT: To clarify, it is possible to believe that "discrimination" is necessary to uphold equal protection, because "discrimination" is only a reaction, a correction to the systemic discrimination that plagues the workplace.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: eskimospy
'Judicial activism' is just a code word for 'judicial ruling I don't like'. In your other reply you implied that desegregation or Miranda rights were some sort of negative example of a judiciary run amok. It was decried as such at the time, but I think we can all see now that the USSC was enforcing the Constitution when the legislature and executive were not.

The Constitution is so vague that in order to have effective governance it needs to be interpreted as to how it applies to current law. There's simply no other way to do it. (what does 'the general welfare' mean? What constitutes 'equal protection'? Is this punishment 'cruel and unusual'?)

No, judicial activism is a court failing to apply or uphold the law in favor of some social trend or idea of 'social justice'. That's the problem many strict constructionists have with things like affirmative action - while we can debate AA as social policy all day, how is it legal if the Constitution is supposed to provide equal protection? Another example is Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, wherein the Supreme Court "interpreted" the Contracts Clause right out of existence, more or less.

I know what judicial activism is defined as. My post referred to how it is commonly used today, where people complain about decisions they don't like as being judicial activism even when it isn't, not that judicial activism does not or cannot exist.

As for strict constructionalists, well that's one way to interpret the Constitution but it's certainly not the only way. AA has been upheld by the USSC because they stated that the diversity it encourages is a compelling state interest. With a compelling interest, the 14th amendment doesn't mean much and that's been repeatedly upheld.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: eskimospy
'Judicial activism' is just a code word for 'judicial ruling I don't like'. In your other reply you implied that desegregation or Miranda rights were some sort of negative example of a judiciary run amok. It was decried as such at the time, but I think we can all see now that the USSC was enforcing the Constitution when the legislature and executive were not.

The Constitution is so vague that in order to have effective governance it needs to be interpreted as to how it applies to current law. There's simply no other way to do it. (what does 'the general welfare' mean? What constitutes 'equal protection'? Is this punishment 'cruel and unusual'?)

No, judicial activism is a court failing to apply or uphold the law in favor of some social trend or idea of 'social justice'. That's the problem many strict constructionists have with things like affirmative action - while we can debate AA as social policy all day, how is it legal if the Constitution is supposed to provide equal protection? Another example is Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, wherein the Supreme Court "interpreted" the Contracts Clause right out of existence, more or less.

I know what judicial activism is defined as. My post referred to how it is commonly used today, where people complain about decisions they don't like as being judicial activism even when it isn't, not that judicial activism does not or cannot exist.

As for strict constructionalists, well that's one way to interpret the Constitution but it's certainly not the only way. AA has been upheld by the USSC because they stated that the diversity it encourages is a compelling state interest. With a compelling interest, the 14th amendment doesn't mean much and that's been repeatedly upheld.

Didn't Bush's legal team use basically the same argument for all sorts of things? And wasn't that the basis for the Korematsu decision? Think about that bolded line again - with a 'compelling interest', does the whole Constitution not mean much?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: eskimospy

I know what judicial activism is defined as. My post referred to how it is commonly used today, where people complain about decisions they don't like as being judicial activism even when it isn't, not that judicial activism does not or cannot exist.

As for strict constructionalists, well that's one way to interpret the Constitution but it's certainly not the only way. AA has been upheld by the USSC because they stated that the diversity it encourages is a compelling state interest. With a compelling interest, the 14th amendment doesn't mean much and that's been repeatedly upheld.

Didn't Bush's legal team use basically the same argument for all sorts of things? And wasn't that the basis for the Korematsu decision? Think about that bolded line again - with a 'compelling interest', does the whole Constitution not mean much?

Pretty much, yeah. I mean a compelling state interest is the basis for the restriction of any right in the Constitution. Despite that fact, the Constitution still means plenty... as compelling interests are usually fairly hard to come by.

The Bush team can TRY and use that for anything they want, I mean pretty much any time the government is defending a law on Constitutional grounds it uses the 'compelling interest' argument. I'm not talking about papers put forth by one side or the other, I'm talking about rulings by the USSC itself.