I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
Here's what I think. You can amend the constitution or rewrite it totally. But before you do, you need to tell me what is wrong with it. The constitution should be written in such a way that it withstands the test of time. For example, it protects freedom of speech. It did not need modifications to include radio or internet when they were developed. It provides the right to bear arms. If you think that is too generous then a simple amendment would suffice (that might limit arms to devices that fire no more than once per second), you do not need to throw away the rest of the constitution. The recent Dobbs ruling, in my opinion, is part of the beauty of the constitution. It did not outlaw abortions. It simply followed the 10th amendment and allows the states to decide. This is no different from COVID lockdowns. There was no national lockdowns. Each state made its own rules and someday we may realize which approach was best. Most things I want decided at a state or local level and not a national level.
Garland was a centrist and more than qualified. What McConnell did was egregious and unprecedented. And then he turned around and rammed Barrett through. The ultimate in hypocritical maneuvers. He wielded power because he could. And that's just what this SC is doing now, and this is why the system is broken. Too much power to the Senate with the filibuster and to small states.
And to those saying it's just over the past 4-5 years that conservatives have had the power. No not at all. The Dems did dominate congress and had presidency more for about 45 years (FDR to end of Carter era), but not necessarily the Supreme Court (R v Wade was passe in fairly a conservative [at the time] court). But From 1980 through 2016 congress, the presidency, and the courts were by no means liberal dominated--more of a back and forth and increasingly contentious.
Things have changed in the past 5 years.
Lies are truth and truth are lies. Republicans have turned toward and openly admire authoritarianism (Trump, Orban, and even Putin). This is just the first full term of the current Supreme Court and it's just the beginning. It is an activist regressionist court and packed to the right by circumstance and a fair amount conniving. The far right has been relentless and now they have the ducks in a row for minority control for a long time, and it's only going to become more staunch and repressive. Limit free speech (Trump really wanted to shut down the press and protest and did all that he could), freedom of choice/bodily autonomy, no separation of church and state basically we are heading toward an authoritarian quasi-religious state where it's cool to spy on and report your neighbors (Texas and abortion, now with another 20 states to follow soon).
Garland was nominated by Obama. Do you really think a Republican controlled senate was going to confirm him? Would a Democratic controlled senate confirm a Republican nominee? Presidents get to nominate justices, that’s it. People act like McConnell took Obama’s right to nominate someone away. He didn’t. He just advised Obama there was no point in moving forward as he wouldn’t get the votes. Why have a hearing if the outcome is already known?
Garland/Obama was the same exact situation as ACB/Trump. Only difference is one president was dem and the other gop. “Elections have consequences”. Dems lost the senate and it cost them a SCJ appointment. Then dems lost the 2016 election and it cost them even more. Then RBG died and it cost them again. Spectacularly good timing for gop, spectacularly poor timing for dems.
And can you blame republicans for blocking garland after Obama got Sotomayor through? She’s the worst.
The way the system was set up is as follows: if enough people want change, they will vote for politicians who will enact change.
For example, take abortion. If enough women are really upset about this, they have enough votes to elect pro-abortion politicians who will pass laws making abortion legal. And potentially make an amendment. This is why it is silly everyone is angry at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not make laws. Your vote politicians do. The same applies to gun control. If enough people are angry about gun violence, they will vote in anti-gun politicians who will pass gun control laws.
This stuff is simple.
It’s really not simple…..
I’m also not talking about the Supreme Court, gun control, or abortion. These issues are just incidental to the bigger problem at hand, IMO. My concerns are more structural in nature
The way the system was set up is as follows: if enough people want change, they will vote for politicians who will enact change.
For example, take abortion. If enough women are really upset about this, they have enough votes to elect pro-abortion politicians who will pass laws making abortion legal. And potentially make an amendment. This is why it is silly everyone is angry at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not make laws. Your vote politicians do. The same applies to gun control. If enough people are angry about gun violence, they will vote in anti-gun politicians who will pass gun control laws.
This stuff is simple.
It’s really not simple…..
I’m also not talking about the Supreme Court, gun control, or abortion. These issues are just incidental to the bigger problem at hand, IMO. My concerns are more structural in nature
Maybe suggest some specifics instead of being vague.
The validity and sustainability of the constitution has taken a big step back with originalism, this SC is regressive.
The Supreme Court is not really legitimate (Thomas should not have passed confirmation 30 years ago, Garland should have been confirmed, Kavanaugh was not fit for the job, and Barrett was crammed in demonstrating total hypocrisy of McConnell and the Senate). Not to mention that they lied about Roe v. Wade during confirmation. We are facing minority rule by religious regressionists, and now one of the parties is rolling headling with an authoritarian bent, believing in lies. Meanwhile, voter repression is just getting its wheels.
The constitution did work, sometimes better than others, for over 200 years. It is not working now, and we are heading for some time of crises.
Well we disagree about your post. I agree McConnell should have brought Garland up for a vote and he should have been voted NO. But the rules require the advice and consent of the Senate and Obama never got the Senate's consent. That doesn't make the constitution wrong or the supreme court illegitimate. Maybe McConnell was a hypocrite but he was no worse than the Democrats were in the past. And we must remember there was a difference. With Obama there was a 100% chance there would be a new president. With Trump, there was a good chance there would not be a new president after the election.
One advantage we have if the constitution is followed based upon originalism, is that the rules you disagree with are only applied state by state and not the whole country.
The problem now is not the constitution. The problem is the politicians. At least the constitution does limit some of the damage they can do.
I would guess the average IQ of politicians today is at least 30 points lower than the "founding fathers" (whatever that means). Not that they were geniuses, but narcissism and extraversion are probably the main predictors of political involvement today.
So who exactly would be making this constitution? That's the question.
This ^ is right on the mark.
The Constitution is not perfect. But there is no reason to believe that we would successfully draft a better one. Moreover, no constitution can save a people from themselves.
A constitution is only a framework for governance. Filling in the details must inevitably be left to the people of the time. If you have a complaint about our times, looking to the Constitution for solutions is a fool's errand. The problems lie with today's public body. Any solutions must also arise from it.
Republicans have turned toward and openly admire authoritarianism (Trump, Orban, and even Putin).
I love the liberals who think they get to decide which business are essential and which are not; which speech can be censored and which speech can not; and who can have guns and who can not, think that the republicans are the authoritarians.
The validity and sustainability of the constitution has taken a big step back with originalism, this SC is regressive.
The Supreme Court is not really legitimate (Thomas should not have passed confirmation 30 years ago, Garland should have been confirmed, Kavanaugh was not fit for the job, and Barrett was crammed in demonstrating total hypocrisy of McConnell and the Senate). Not to mention that they lied about Roe v. Wade during confirmation. We are facing minority rule by religious regressionists, and now one of the parties is rolling headling with an authoritarian bent, believing in lies. Meanwhile, voter repression is just getting its wheels.
The constitution did work, sometimes better than others, for over 200 years. It is not working now, and we are heading for some time of crises.
Well we disagree about your post. I agree McConnell should have brought Garland up for a vote and he should have been voted NO. But the rules require the advice and consent of the Senate and Obama never got the Senate's consent. That doesn't make the constitution wrong or the supreme court illegitimate. Maybe McConnell was a hypocrite but he was no worse than the Democrats were in the past. And we must remember there was a difference. With Obama there was a 100% chance there would be a new president. With Trump, there was a good chance there would not be a new president after the election.
One advantage we have if the constitution is followed based upon originalism, is that the rules you disagree with are only applied state by state and not the whole country.
The problem now is not the constitution. The problem is the politicians. At least the constitution does limit some of the damage they can do.
Not having a hearing is the same as not giving consent. Having a hearing would have been a dog and pony show for nothing more than to satisfy some unnecessary expectation.
It is easy for you to say you want a new Constitution. I don't believe you realize how difficult it is to make a law. I don't believe you realize how difficult it is to add an amendment to Constitution.
The way the system was set up is as follows: if enough people want change, they will vote for politicians who will enact change.
For example, take abortion. If enough women are really upset about this, they have enough votes to elect pro-abortion politicians who will pass laws making abortion legal. And potentially make an amendment. This is why it is silly everyone is angry at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not make laws. Your vote politicians do. The same applies to gun control. If enough people are angry about gun violence, they will vote in anti-gun politicians who will pass gun control laws.
This stuff is simple.
Except that it is not simple because what happens is that when states try to pass things like gun control, those laws are challenged as being unconstitutional and the SCrt, being the total suck that it currently is, strikes those laws down. This happened in the New York state Buren decision last week and, more famously, in the Heller decision which was Chicago's attempt at banning handguns to address their gun violence problem. The voters in those places agreed that they wanted change, they voted for change, and that change was denied to them by 9 Supreme Court justices.
Similarly, there is the same problem with the Constitution at large. It can serve the ever-changing American populace if the document itself is interpreted through a lense of evolution and growth, something that the conservative movement and judicial philosophy of originalism prohibits. As America develops, so to must our interpretation of our founding document. Progressives and change-makers run into a brick wall, however, when legislation is ultimately evaluated by 9 elderly unelected unrepresentative justices, half of whom are hell-bent on holding seances to determine what Thomas Jefferson would think.
Republicans have turned toward and openly admire authoritarianism (Trump, Orban, and even Putin).
I love the liberals who think they get to decide which business are essential and which are not; which speech can be censored and which speech can not; and who can have guns and who can not, think that the republicans are the authoritarians.
ah but it is your party which has just declared victory in its effort to force half of the population to literally grow and birth children if they become pregnant. i can think of nothing more authoritarian than that.
I love the liberals who think they get to decide which business are essential and which are not; which speech can be censored and which speech can not; and who can have guns and who can not, think that the republicans are the authoritarians.
ah but it is your party which has just declared victory in its effort to force half of the population to literally grow and birth children if they become pregnant. i can think of nothing more authoritarian than that.
Abortion is still legal though. If you want one bad enough, you can get one. Plenty of women have been having to travel many miles to get an abortion before Dobbs. In 2019 there were 6 states with only 1 abortion clinic. It’s not like there was a planned parenthood on every street corner.
Activist groups and companies are saying they’ll even pay for womens travel expenses. The people who are dead set on getting an abortion can still get one.
The way the system was set up is as follows: if enough people want change, they will vote for politicians who will enact change.
For example, take abortion. If enough women are really upset about this, they have enough votes to elect pro-abortion politicians who will pass laws making abortion legal. And potentially make an amendment. This is why it is silly everyone is angry at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not make laws. Your vote politicians do. The same applies to gun control. If enough people are angry about gun violence, they will vote in anti-gun politicians who will pass gun control laws.
This stuff is simple.
Except that it is not simple because what happens is that when states try to pass things like gun control, those laws are challenged as being unconstitutional and the SCrt, being the total suck that it currently is, strikes those laws down. This happened in the New York state Buren decision last week and, more famously, in the Heller decision which was Chicago's attempt at banning handguns to address their gun violence problem. The voters in those places agreed that they wanted change, they voted for change, and that change was denied to them by 9 Supreme Court justices.
Similarly, there is the same problem with the Constitution at large. It can serve the ever-changing American populace if the document itself is interpreted through a lense of evolution and growth, something that the conservative movement and judicial philosophy of originalism prohibits. As America develops, so to must our interpretation of our founding document. Progressives and change-makers run into a brick wall, however, when legislation is ultimately evaluated by 9 elderly unelected unrepresentative justices, half of whom are hell-bent on holding seances to determine what Thomas Jefferson would think.
The Buren decision struck down the Sullivan law, which was originally implemented to keep Irish, Italians, and African Americans from being able to carry pistols outside of their homes.
Garland was a centrist and more than qualified. What McConnell did was egregious and unprecedented. And then he turned around and rammed Barrett through. The ultimate in hypocritical maneuvers. He wielded power because he could. And that's just what this SC is doing now, and this is why the system is broken. Too much power to the Senate with the filibuster and to small states.
And to those saying it's just over the past 4-5 years that conservatives have had the power. No not at all. The Dems did dominate congress and had presidency more for about 45 years (FDR to end of Carter era), but not necessarily the Supreme Court (R v Wade was passe in fairly a conservative [at the time] court). But From 1980 through 2016 congress, the presidency, and the courts were by no means liberal dominated--more of a back and forth and increasingly contentious.
Things have changed in the past 5 years.
Lies are truth and truth are lies. Republicans have turned toward and openly admire authoritarianism (Trump, Orban, and even Putin). This is just the first full term of the current Supreme Court and it's just the beginning. It is an activist regressionist court and packed to the right by circumstance and a fair amount conniving. The far right has been relentless and now they have the ducks in a row for minority control for a long time, and it's only going to become more staunch and repressive. Limit free speech (Trump really wanted to shut down the press and protest and did all that he could), freedom of choice/bodily autonomy, no separation of church and state basically we are heading toward an authoritarian quasi-religious state where it's cool to spy on and report your neighbors (Texas and abortion, now with another 20 states to follow soon).
Garland was nominated by Obama. Do you really think a Republican controlled senate was going to confirm him? Would a Democratic controlled senate confirm a Republican nominee? Presidents get to nominate justices, that’s it. People act like McConnell took Obama’s right to nominate someone away. He didn’t. He just advised Obama there was no point in moving forward as he wouldn’t get the votes. Why have a hearing if the outcome is already known?
Garland/Obama was the same exact situation as ACB/Trump. Only difference is one president was dem and the other gop. “Elections have consequences”. Dems lost the senate and it cost them a SCJ appointment. Then dems lost the 2016 election and it cost them even more. Then RBG died and it cost them again. Spectacularly good timing for gop, spectacularly poor timing for dems.
And can you blame republicans for blocking garland after Obama got Sotomayor through? She’s the worst.
This is idiotic and really telling you are trying to get people to but this argument.
scalia died in Jan. Garland never got a vote. If you believe that are the same , your dumber than I thought
ah but it is your party which has just declared victory in its effort to force half of the population to literally grow and birth children if they become pregnant. i can think of nothing more authoritarian than that.
Abortion is still legal though. If you want one bad enough, you can get one. Plenty of women have been having to travel many miles to get an abortion before Dobbs. In 2019 there were 6 states with only 1 abortion clinic. It’s not like there was a planned parenthood on every street corner.
Activist groups and companies are saying they’ll even pay for womens travel expenses. The people who are dead set on getting an abortion can still get one.
Two problems here, though.
1) women with lack of knowledge, travel, money, healthcare (more likely to be low income and minority) are going to bear the burden of this law because they are the ones who will find it difficult to get to an already limited number of clinics (even if the resources to coordinate travel and expenses to get to out of state clinics are available). For instance, Jackson Women's Health, the clinic named in the Dobbs case, is (now was) the only clinic in Mississippi (a state with one of the highest (the highest) of people below the poverty line and African American residents. The closest clinic accepting patients to that state is in Illinois (which is literally like a different country if you are born and raised in rural Miss.)
2) abortion is not "still legal though;" the laws of several states (Alabama comes immediately to mind) prohibits the mailing of abortion-inducing pills, it criminalizes doctors from performing abortions with lengthy prison sentences, and seeks to prohibit its citizens from crossing state lines to access abortion services. I will note that J.Kavanaugh specifically stated that if challenged, he would find such a provision to be unconstitutional based on the constitutional right to travel. However, note that there is no explicit "right to travel" just as there is no explicit "right to privacy" (on which abortion rights are based), therefore this leaves open the possibility that the justices may decide that cases which found such a right to travel were wrongly decided and therefore not governed based on stare decisis principles. Lastly, there is support for the assertion that J.Kav's words should not be taken at face value bc regardless of what a previous poster stated, there is a record of him specifically stating that he is not a "rock the boat kind of judge" and that he viewed Roe as settled law (both Susan Collins (R) and Joe Manchin (D) have publicly stated they felt deceived by him specifically in regard to how he would vote on abortion rights.
Garland was nominated by Obama. Do you really think a Republican controlled senate was going to confirm him? Would a Democratic controlled senate confirm a Republican nominee? Presidents get to nominate justices, that’s it. People act like McConnell took Obama’s right to nominate someone away. He didn’t. He just advised Obama there was no point in moving forward as he wouldn’t get the votes. Why have a hearing if the outcome is already known?
Garland/Obama was the same exact situation as ACB/Trump. Only difference is one president was dem and the other gop. “Elections have consequences”. Dems lost the senate and it cost them a SCJ appointment. Then dems lost the 2016 election and it cost them even more. Then RBG died and it cost them again. Spectacularly good timing for gop, spectacularly poor timing for dems.
And can you blame republicans for blocking garland after Obama got Sotomayor through? She’s the worst.
This is idiotic and really telling you are trying to get people to but this argument.
scalia died in Jan. Garland never got a vote. If you believe that are the same , your dumber than I thought
It’s not dumb. The senate and Mitch McConnell did all that was required of them. They first advised Obama that garland was a no go. Obama pushed for a hearing and they chose not to consent. You can be salty about that, no one cares anymore. It was all overblown nonsense anyway.
Except that it is not simple because what happens is that when states try to pass things like gun control, those laws are challenged as being unconstitutional and the SCrt, being the total suck that it currently is, strikes those laws down. This happened in the New York state Buren decision last week and, more famously, in the Heller decision which was Chicago's attempt at banning handguns to address their gun violence problem. The voters in those places agreed that they wanted change, they voted for change, and that change was denied to them by 9 Supreme Court justices.
Similarly, there is the same problem with the Constitution at large. It can serve the ever-changing American populace if the document itself is interpreted through a lense of evolution and growth, something that the conservative movement and judicial philosophy of originalism prohibits. As America develops, so to must our interpretation of our founding document. Progressives and change-makers run into a brick wall, however, when legislation is ultimately evaluated by 9 elderly unelected unrepresentative justices, half of whom are hell-bent on holding seances to determine what Thomas Jefferson would think.
The Buren decision struck down the Sullivan law, which was originally implemented to keep Irish, Italians, and African Americans from being able to carry pistols outside of their homes.
Buren was a good ruling.
your statement is misleading, though. regardless of the reason the law was passed at in the early 1900s, the law most recently was used to prohibit concealed carry by those people who the authorities considered to be a safety risk (ie the onus is on the gun owner to show the authorities why he or she needs to carry a concealed weapon).
importantly, the law was used to prevent violence in the New York city subway system which is a real real problem (I am a law student intern at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office so I'm seeing first-hand how big of a problem this is). so, all that has happened is that a very Democratic city has trying to lower its crime rate (which conservatives love to go on and on and on about from the safety of their triple bolted homes in the middle of nowhere, a generalization I know) but the conservative Supreme Court has yet again stepped in and told them "no sorry, not today"