Judicial Tyranny

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by extrasense, Mar 13, 2005.

  1. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Except that the Supreme court would be able to step in and say that such powers can not be granted as per the constitutional definition of executive powers.

    Asguard is exactly right. If the Congress and the current Executive both agree on a radical abuse of their own power (quite likely, being that many presidents are part of the legislative branch at some time, and of course come from one of really only two parties) who's to stop radical abuses from going through? What if the congress and the President want to vote in the power to nullify the electorate's voting rights? What if the legislature simply bypasses executive approval and does away with the executive branch all together? Who could stop such a thing if there were no agency with the power of oversight?

    I really can’t see how any American government flunkey could possibly be taking extrasense seriously, his proposal does nothing but clear the way for the sort of tyranny that he seems to irrationally fear from the judiciary.
     
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  3. Arquibus Master of Useless Information Registered Senior Member

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    As long as the Supreme Court has the power to overturn any law regardless of people's opinions and they have life terms, they are dangerous. It may be a danger that never strikes, but a danger all the same. If the court was elected, things would be different. However, as it stands, they are like appointed monarchs with no need to answer to the people, and nothing to fear from our dislike.
     
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  5. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Danger of a justice system which rights itself when it's made a contradiction? I see no danger there. And they can't simply overturn any law they like. Only if the majority of them can justify it rationally should the issue of the law itself come before them, in other words someone else having a problem with it in the first place, and bringing it as an issue.

    Also, things would indeed be very different if they were elected, and I shudder to think of a world like that. They'd be nothing more than the same vote-whoring politicians we get in congress and the white-house, their opinions would be bought by enormous corporations, and what little tidbits were left over would go to the most vocal voting blocks. Is that justice? I certainly think not. You'd turn the seat of Justice of the Supreme Court from a noble position which comes with a heavy responsibility (a life long oath, actually) to uphold and protect the constitution, and an obligation only to see that Justice is done into a shameless popularity contest where nothing is sacred, and any moronic idea or policy can get tossed around if it's been bought and paid for, or if the masses of those unqualified to be the most lowly county traffic judge wish it to be so. Many things work well when democratically determined, justice is not one of those things. Leave judging to those educated in law and trusted at least to some degree by their peers.

    Our courts should be immune to a mob-rule mentality. Sure your scheme would have had Al Gore winning the 2000 election, and I'd very much have liked that, but then again we'd never have had desegregation either, and creationism would be given "equal time" in our public school's science classes.
     
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  7. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Listen, you are willing to subject yourself to the permanent state of tyranny, in order to avoid thinking about occasional need for revolution.

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  8. Arquibus Master of Useless Information Registered Senior Member

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    All the court has to do to change a law is to get someone to bring a law into question (by breaking it) and have the case brought to them. It is not that hard for a person that makes plans for coup d'etats of multiple governments to see how easy the court could take power. To keep them from becoming politicians, you do not have the people directly elect them. The people vote for electors, similar to the electoral court that we use for the president, with members selected by the backing parties. You do not allow them to campaign, merely to run. You talk about the "noble" position like it is some group of zealots that are only interested in what is best for the country, but I don't care who you are, you're subject to the same temptations as everyone else. Justices of the Supreme Court could easily be corrupted. Meanwhile, the people who are supposed to be the government and are supposed to be the main purpose of the government-"Of the people, for the people, by the people"-have absolutely no say in what they are doing. This is a perversion of democracy, and the court is currently unstoppable legally in anything that they do. We merely need a foolproof way to keep them from doing anything that the majority doesn't want. I won't take away the power of judicial review, merely their ability to use it for the rest of their lives. And as for the creationism comment, it has just as much definite truth as Darwin's THEORY of Evolution, but if you want to argue that, I suggest creating another thread.
     
  9. SpyMoose Secret double agent deer Registered Senior Member

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    Were you aware of the distinction between the common use of theory and the scientific use of it? Were you aware that we are governed by the <i>theory</i> of gravity, and the spherical shape of the earth is a <i>theory</i> and the existence of the atoms that we spilt to make energy and weapons is a <i>theory</i>.

    Would you like science classes to teach creation science alongside evolution, as well as some other comical biblically founded story alongside gravity, and atomic theory, and astronomy? Science comes from a very different place than religion, and its a profanity against science to act as if it is just the same as any religion. Creation myths belong in theology classes, descriptions of the mechanisms of biology belong in science class. Its probably your own failing that you don't think the two can coexist.
     
  10. talk2farley Registered Senior Member

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    "This is a perversion of democracy, and the court is currently unstoppable legally in anything that they do."

    What bolonga! All one need do to is change the legislation which the court has ruled unconstitutional (or, in the case of direct constitutional reinterpretation, one can amend the constitution).

    "Justices of the Supreme Court could easily be corrupted."

    And Justices of the Supreme Court may be impeached in such a case.

    "Meanwhile, the people who are supposed to be the government and are supposed to be the main purpose of the government-"Of the people, for the people, by the people"-have absolutely no say in what they are doing."

    Don't be silly. The purpose of the courts, and of the Constitution itself, is to protect the minority from the majority (your sacrosanct "people"). The Courts have no legislative nor executive authority - they are restricted solely to enforcement of the laws, including the highest law of the land, the United States Constitution. When the government, acting on behalf of the people, comes into opposition with Constitutional tenets, the system requires a politic-proofed branch to bring things back into check.

    If the Justices were directly elected, or servient to term limits, their principle defense against politicing would be lost. Fear of political ramifications would force judges to act in a popular, as opposed to legally correct, manner. This is inherently self-defeating.
     
  11. talk2farley Registered Senior Member

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    "Listen, you are willing to subject yourself to the permanent state of tyranny, in order to avoid thinking about occasional need for revolution."

    What is tyrannical is the notion that the supreme law of the land should be stripped of its teeth! Imagine the consequences if the Constitution were made not legally binding (the inevitable consequence of eliminating the judicial review process).
     
  12. talk2farley Registered Senior Member

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    "However, as it stands, they are like appointed monarchs with no need to answer to the people, and nothing to fear from our dislike."

    This was the INTENTION. The courts are not executors nor legislators - they do not GOVERN. Government by the people does not necesitate a popular judiciary. Indeed, this is counter to everything Americans hold dear! "Equal protection under the law" demands that the state, the rich, the poor, etc. be held to the same legal standard. However, democracy, as a popular institution, cannot satisfy this. The majority would be immediately entitled to a higher standard by virtue of their supreme providence as the majority.

    In order to prevent this, the Court is made non-political (non-popular, if you will).
     
  13. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    This is simply incorrect, they are balanced by the other two branches, most notably the legislative branch! If a law is needed it's written up, simple as that, and so long as legislators haven't contradicted a higher law (county contradicting state, state contradicting federal, federal contradicting the constitution, and all that) there's no problem. And if it does so happen that a law is deemed to be at odds with the constitution, guess what, we have processes to amend the constitution! There's always a recourse, the people aren't left powerless and the Judiciary simply hasn't got a share of power that's weighted greater than those of the Legislative or Executive branches.

    With all your alarmist reactionary rambling I'm finding it hard to even comprehend where all of this lunacy is coming from. Would you people please start using examples - real world examples - of what exactly you see to be the problem here. In what capacity have courts been exerting some sort of tyrannical control over the people, because frankly I just don't see it?

    We certainly do not. You're describing mob-rule again, not a well balanced democracy. You have well reasoned and educated legal decisions, and then you have what the common person, usually uneducated in law, and just as often unconcerned and biased toward other personal moral and ethical system thinks is just, and the two are very rarely the same.

    You may feel that a lynch mob has some sort of moral imperative to carry out the executions of elements they deem undesirables in their community, but more sane individuals know better.
     
  14. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    I was only musing that if we were to take his argument, in its extremity, we could also conjure a scenario where the judicial branch sides with the president.

    The slippery slope can go both ways is all I'm saying.

    EDIT: I'm not siding with es. Only trying to stimulate what appears to be a one sided argument.
     
  15. Arquibus Master of Useless Information Registered Senior Member

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    The problem with showing some real world example of what the court can do is that it hasn't exerted its full power yet. Picture this scenario:
    The justices of the Supreme Court, due to several deaths over the last years, have now, in 2012 come to me made of members of one political party, and moreover all are extremists in their branch. The question of stifling religion comes up in a meeting between them, and they determine how to make their wishes law. On a subway in Cleveland, a man sits down next to another who is reading a book to his daughter. He is reading a story from the Bible, and he is expressing great emotion in his reading. The man who sat next to him, an atheist, hears him reading and decides he is offended by the chosen reading material. He asks the man to stop reading, but he refuses. The atheist files a complaint to a municipal court about the situation. A court case is set up, and both parties attend. Very quickly, the case is completed, with the defense of the ability to read religious material in public being succesful. However, the atheist refuses this result, and appeals. He continually loses and appeals under the guise of moral (or immoral) offense until reaching the Supreme Court. In this case, the ACLU (funders of the atheist's case and providers of his lawyers) pull out all the stops and in a statement that has been worked on for years makes a closing that is nationally televised. However, all of this was not needed, because the Supreme Court planned it in the beginning. Even so, it seemed the justices were very split on the matter, with it coming down to one vote in favor of the atheist's claim that his 1st Ammendment rights include the right to not have to hear something he doesn't want to. In a startlingly quick sweep, the right to publicly express religion is taken away. People can no longer read holy books in public, prayer cannot be held in public, protests cannot be held by religious leaders, churches cannot sponsor charities, etc. Religion has quite effectively been stifled. And the Constitution's entire foundation has been damaged.

    Keep in mind that this does not in any way apply to only religion, any right can be affected by this.
     
  16. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    Quite opposite!
    The rulings about (un)constitutionality are the way Constitution IS made not legally binding.
    As the nitwits declare any crap constitutional, it supersedes the Constitution. As the nitwits declare anything that Constitution plainly states, being unconstitutional, it defies the Constitution.

    You love tyranny, admit it.

    ES
     
  17. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    You should!!!

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  18. jackamo Banned Banned

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    thats what ure muma said to me last nite when i dogged her
     
  19. talk2farley Registered Senior Member

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    Argueing with you is an exercise in obvious futility. Explain to me how, minus the judicial review process, the constitution (nothing but a set of laws) would be enforced.

    The seperation of powers gives the courts a monopoly on enforceing the law. Nobody else has that authority, by design. Remove them from the process, and nobody has that authority, period.
     
  20. extrasense Registered Senior Member

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    It would be enforced on case by case basis, as a law that is invoked by a side in it.

    Quite correct. But you want Judiciary to decide which law to enforce and which to strike down.

    Do you understand that it is totally different thing, genius?

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  21. Arquibus Master of Useless Information Registered Senior Member

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    Yes I am fully aware of the scientific term of a theory. However, there are scientific LAWS as well, such as Newton's Laws of Motion. The simple fact is that a scientific theory has not been proven as fact, merely has enough evidence to include it as a major possibility. Face it, you can't prove evolution, their is not enough hard evidence. There is no recording of people studying a fish as its descendants grow legs and primitive lungs and crawl onto land, nor these amphibians growing complex internal organs and moisture retaining skin to live permanently on land, etc. Darwin's theory of evolution is still not a scientific law, and therefore the greatest scientists in the field have not been able to prove it. Are you better than them? I doubt it, but if you'd like to try, go ahead. However, as I said before, I'd suggest it on another thread as this one is about something unrelated.
     
  22. jackamo Banned Banned

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    in my opinion u are a faggot
     
  23. john smith Tongue in cheek Registered Senior Member

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    dip shit, cock eating funk fucking, rabbit masterbating wank shaft, jackamo is a bell end

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