I can't imagine SCOTUS upholding this. Not only are there clear First Amendment implications, it seems like a clear-cut encroachment by a state government into Federal commerce-clause jurisdiction.
It is widely thought that SCOTUS decides based on ideology and politics, and only justifies it with the text of the Constitution after the fact. Although they like to present it as some kind of rigorous reasoning, there are always sufficient vaguenesses and internal contradictions to justify any interpretation they prefer.
Supreme Court members (the formal title "Justice" seems laughable) have increasingly been chosen for their compliance with the ideology of the party in power. Since that coincides with the party who wrote this law, I think they'll have no trouble upholding it if they wish.
I have no idea what grounds they'll use for that, but I don't believe it's relevant. Only the actual decision matters.
> It is widely thought that SCOTUS decides based on ideology and politics
Citation needed. Judges have differing judicial philosophies and those philosophies may run contrary to a political parties aims but it does not mean they are servants of political parties.
It is likely that the people who think their decisions are purely politically biased are the ones whose politics are not aligned with whatever the court decided. Rarely do they dig into the justifications and expert analysis for a given decision.
Both liberal and conservative leaning justices have ruled against things that the parties which helped appoint them wanted.
They don't vote with their ideology with 100% reliability, but they do so far more often than not. They don't need to dig into the justifications to know that there are (frequently) four Supreme Court members who disagree with it. Those court members produce equally reasoned, scholarly arguments -- and are nearly always precisely the people nominated by the other party.
Differing judicial philosophies will end up with different decisions.
Not reading there justifications for why they made a decision just because the judge does not align with ones political view is ignorance, plain and simple.
Only reading the critical analysis of any viewpoint or decision without reviewing their legal justifications will lead to massive derangement in ones perspective.
Law and high level court decisions will have some form of logic to them which is worth examining before dismissing them as partisan.
I don't believe they're on a payroll. They don't need to be. They were carefully courted as true believers in their ideological cause. They believe in the votes they cast.
And that's actually much more reliable than paying them. People who can be bought can be out-bid. True believers will do it for nothing except the right to make their ideology the law of the land.
> It is widely thought that SCOTUS decides based on ideology and politics, and only justifies it with the text of the Constitution after the fact.
In addition to this being widely thought, do you happen to have any evidence that indicates whether or not it is true? My initial inclination is to suspect that it is not.
My personal experience with arguments deriding the constitutional coherence of SCOTUS jurisprudence usually involves people who are bringing their own political/ideological bias into their evaluation of court rulings -- often without even reading the rulings themselves -- and/or applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution. See, for example, discussions surrounding the Citizens United ruling, where almost all of the controversy involves incorrect assumptions of both what was at issue in the case and what the ruling concluded.
While there have been breaks with stare decisis in some important cases over the years, by and large, these seem to be exceptions rather than the rule. The idea of the court abandoning the increasingly expansive interpretation of the commerce clause that's been at the basis of a huge amount of federal law for the past century, just to enable Texas to regulate the internet for the entire globe, seems incredibly far-fetched.
My evidence is that the vast majority of Supreme Court decisions are either unanimous (when they don't represent an ideological issue) or along party lines (when they do).
If they were really "applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution", we would see a wider variety of votes. Instead, we see the same lines come up over and over. Even if you don't read the counter-arguments, you know where to find them -- in the dissents from the Court members nominated by the opposite party.
I do not doubt that the vast majority of Citizens United discussions are of no merit -- that applies to practically every discussion. But you can find a scholarly disagreement in the decision of four Supreme Court members -- all of whom were nominated by the opposite political party.
Even if this case fails to "enable Texas to regulate the internet for the entire globe", I suspect that it will only do so via a 5-4 ruling with only 1 or 2 members failing to align ideologically. They are not absolutely unified in their partisan leanings. But when partisanship is the issue, they will vote along their partisan lines much more often than not.
So it does not strike me as at all unlikely that they will choose to allow Texas' law. I am not certain of it, but I believe that "incredibly far-fetched" is not a correct characterization.
> My evidence is that the vast majority of Supreme Court decisions are either unanimous (when they don't represent an ideological issue) or along party lines (when they do).
I don't think that's a valid argument -- there are obviously differences in judicial philosophy that incline judges toward better apparent with one political faction or another, and non-unanimous rulings usually reflect different judicial philosophies.
> If they were really "applying their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution", we would see a wider variety of votes.
No, you misunderstood. I was accusing those arguing that jurisprudence is politically motivated of looking at things through the lens of their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution. We don't want the justices on the court doing this.
> I do not doubt that the vast majority of Citizens United discussions are of no merit -- that applies to practically every discussion. But you can find a scholarly disagreement in the decision of four Supreme Court members -- all of whom were nominated by the opposite political party.
No, I'm not claiming that discussions themselves have no merit, but rather that critiques of the ruling in public discourse are often based on factually incorrect assumptions about what the ruling involved.
The fact of the matter is the constitution is a vague enough document to justify anything you want with enough legal hand wringing. Roe v. Wade was based on a privacy protection. For decades the Supreme Court's opinion was that the 2nd amendment only justified very limited gun rights. The constitution has been claimed to both support, and limit literal slave rights.
There are even openly different ways that people approach "interpreting" the constitution.
Anyone who works with documents that "define" a contract or API should understand just how vague and useless the constitution is as a literal reference document. That's why the same words have been used to "justify" countless contrary opinions over just 250 years
>It is widely thought that SCOTUS decides based on ideology and politics, and only justifies it with the text of the Constitution after the fact
I don't think that is the case and in fact I think you are getting it a bit backwards.
The justices have an ideology which forms their view on how to interpret the Constitution and there are some serious questions to be had on the Constitution. Enumerated vs implied powers, incorporation of the bill of rights, etc. Their ideology forms their views on these issues. Once they formed their view on these issues they believe that is the real meaning of the Constitution.
Their interpretation of the Constitution is then used to justify their rulings. It may look like they are doing the opposite, but that is because you don't understand their interpretation of the Constitution. They do tend to be decently consistent when you understand their positions on the Constitution.
It's difficult to separate out whether their abstract Constitutional ideology exists prior to their political leanings, or vice versa, because the two are so closely correlated. There are no "originalist" left-wing justices, and it's impossible to tell whether one becomes an originalist because the same thinking also causes them to have right-wing views, or vice versa, or if there is some other underlying cause.
It is clear that they are chosen for their positions based on the expected outcomes. Regardless of what's going on behind the closed doors, the outcomes seem entirely pre-determined based on the political affiliation of the President who nominated them and the Senate who confirmed them.
I personally don't think that the legal reasoning is as consistent as you believe it is, but I think that's a matter of opinion. I also don't think it matters, since the outcomes are the only thing that matters and are so highly correlated with partisanship -- as they were designed to be. The effect on the individual is the same.
Presumably we'll find out in this instance. The OP was claiming that the Court would certainly vote not to uphold a state law from their political allies. I've explained why I disagree. Next June we'll find out.
> It is widely thought that SCOTUS decides based on ideology and politics, and only justifies it with the text of the Constitution after the fact. Although they like to present it as some kind of rigorous reasoning, there are always sufficient vaguenesses and internal contradictions to justify any interpretation they prefer.
I'd say that this is true for the three liberal justices and the four most conservative justices. Roberts has demonstrated otherwise, and Kavanaugh to a lesser degree has joined him in disagreeing with the other conservatives on some cases
I think your view of the court is grounded in a sort of cynicism that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If we convince enough people to see the court as a political institution it will normalize packing the court, which will permanently turn it into a political institution
the merit of the court lies in its ability to operate independently of partisan influence. While this doesn't happen often, normalizing the court as a political institution will prevent it from happening entirely
Oh, I can think of about four reasons SCOTUS would: Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Which leaves it up to Alito, and that's too close (for me, at least) to call.
What's your reasoning for suspecting these particular justices would be inclined to abandon application of the commerce clause in a case of actual interstate commerce?
Because these are the same people who described unwanted children as the "stock of babies".
Nothing required them to say anything of the sort when overthrowing Roe v. Wade. All they had to do was say "Come on, it was poorly justified back then and should be thrown out for just that reason." but they spent pages and pages trying to talk about there being a moral reason for denying women the right to abort something growing inside them. But they could not keep their personal biases out of the ruling. There's no reason to think any supreme court justice has ever kept personal bias out of their rulings. Each justice has a history of cases and outcomes they've overseen in their time, and usually they are chosen precisely because of that.
For instance, are you aware many of the justices appointed by Trump were the justices who oversaw the stopping of counting votes in florida for the 2000 election? It doesn't matter whether their personal opinion comes from a bible verse or a supposed interpretation of the constitution. They are still obvious, previously known biases towards or away from certain opinions, and these justices are appointed by politicized bodies. These justices are part of politics no matter what they may personally believe.
yeah, extremely conservative people don't see their talking points as being hateful, and instead see them as factual.
(source: many, many former extreme conservative acquaintances and friends, also a lot of time in my youth spent in the armed services listening to the most vocally angry people.)
they feel their opinions are being unfairly targeted because "snowflakes and princesses" (implying weak-minded people) view those talking points as hate speech, and hate speech is not covered by the first amendment of the US constitution.
they view the "hate speech" label as a loophole around free speech guarantees, and they feel it is wielded solely by liberals, and solely to silence their perfectly valid conservative views.
so, instead of understanding that reality might differ from their collective view of reality, two things which they view as being exactly equal, they instead attack what they view as the problem: unfair censorship. this ruling seems very likely to be based on this perspective, and if so, is intended to make the first amendment unenforceable in situations where moderation does not outright favor conservative viewpoints.
conservatives of this extremity can't compete for mindshare based on their viewpoint, so they compete by changing the rules.
this ruling goes against both the letter of the first amendment and the spirit of the first amendment.
You are clearly bias. Calling any of them a rapist shows that. None of the justices have any court cases even against them for rape. At least 2 were accused of rape, but that is far from being a rapist. If all that it takes is an accusation then fine. You raped me. That means you are a rapist now. Please make sure you are added to the sex offenders list.
They were credibly accused, and only by virtue of being a reliable conservative judge, even if excessively emotional, was he confirmed.
The FBI got 4500 tips in the 80s, as well as multiple corroborating witnesses and chose not to investigate - presumably because of Kavanaugh's family and the 80s being even worse at investigating or prosecuting rape than they are today.
There are then more recent, similarly corroborated cases of sexual harassment by Kavanaugh which confirm the kind of person he is.
So yeah I'm biased, in the sense that I consider a bunch of judges that are clearly uninterested in the law if it ever runs counter to their personal beliefs to be fundamentally unfit to serve, and I consider a judge that supports an insurrection to be similarly unfit to serve.
Your piss poor attempt at an argument is more reflective of your own bias and unwillingness to consider anything other than your own - based on your comments in other threads - fairly sexist world view. I'm going to assume that you would be one of those jurors that would happily accept and defend the "she was clearly asking for it"/"she's a slut"/"why would she be drinking" rape defense.
I really hope that you're never put in an employment position giving you any power over women, and I sure as shit hope I never have to work with you - I already have enough shithead "conservative" coworkers w/o adding someone who is at the very least sexist.
>They were credibly accused, and only by virtue of being a reliable conservative judge, even if excessively emotional, was he confirmed
This is just not the case. Ford had many issues
- She couldn't remember which party it happened at
- She couldn't remember what year it even happened
- She told nobody until 2012 and even then she didn't mention Kavanaugh
- Multiple people she described as her friends denied they knew anything of this event including one who was allegedly at the party
- She lied to the Washington Post when she said she was frustrated that in 2016 she heard that Trump would potentially nominate Kavanaugh. She couldn't have been frustrated in 2016 since Kavanaugh didn't have his name put out until 2017.
- Her parents and siblings would not sign a document in support of her statement. Her family in law did though.
>The FBI got 4500 tips in the 80s, as well as multiple corroborating witnesses and chose not to investigate - presumably because of Kavanaugh's family and the 80s being even worse at investigating or prosecuting rape than they are today.
Prove to me that the police were even informed.
>There are then more recent, similarly corroborated cases of sexual harassment by Kavanaugh which confirm the kind of person he is.
Provide examples.
>So yeah I'm biased, in the sense that I consider a bunch of judges that are clearly uninterested in the law if it ever runs counter to their personal beliefs to be fundamentally unfit to serve
You haven't shown this is the case.
>and I consider a judge that supports an insurrection to be similarly unfit to serve.
Which judge did that? I assume you will say Thomas, but that was his wife. Unless you are going to say that spouses are responsible for everything they do, you can't put that blame on him. Thinking a man should have complete control over what his wife says is a remarkable sexist view.
>Your piss poor attempt at an argument is more reflective of your own bias and unwillingness to consider anything other than your own - based on your comments in other threads - fairly sexist world view.
You are the one making the claim that we should believe women because they are women. That is sexist. I am saying let's ignore their sex and only look at the facts.
>I'm going to assume that you would be one of those jurors that would happily accept and defend the "she was clearly asking for it"/"she's a slut"/"why would she be drinking" rape defense.
Please stop being an idiot. If you genuinely believe I think this then you need to get off the internet and as the kids say touch grass.
>I really hope that you're never put in an employment position giving you any power over women, and I sure as shit hope I never have to work with you - I already have enough shithead "conservative" coworkers w/o adding someone who is at the very least sexist.
I have stated multiple times in these posts (might not have been to you though) that Ford quite possibly was assaulted and Kavanaugh was possibly involved.
Instead of just asking my view on this you just assumed what I believe and had the audacity to call me a sexist. I'm not sure if you are implying I would rape a women with your statement about having power over a women or not but whatever you are trying to say is disgusting. I will never rape a women or be sexist to her. I think all rapists are terrible and the minimum punishment they should get is life in prison with no parole.
You are the bigoted person in this conversation. You assumed my entire world view and accused me of disgusting things. That is what a bigot does. You are the shithead not me.
You're missing the concept of "credible accusations". The court of public opinion does not care about "beyond a reasonable doubt" because if we actually limited anything to that nobody would be punished for anything.
If you want "convicted" to be the bar before the public treats someone poorly, you're going to have a bad time, because it's terribly difficult to actually convict someone of rape because there's almost never any actual evidence, by the very nature of the crime. Nevermind the fact that lots of people either cannot admit to themselves or don't remember or don't realize they were raped. Very few people who actually commit rape (whether they realize it or not) end up convicted. It's not a rigorous stat, because again, the reality of the situation is only truly known by the two involved, so it often comes down to who you trust.
Consider why you trust supreme court justices to not have raped people.
>You're missing the concept of "credible accusations".
I don't consider them to be credible so I am not missing anything.
>The court of public opinion does not care about "beyond a reasonable doubt" because if we actually limited anything to that nobody would be punished for anything.
Sure, but people don't need to go calling people rapists just because they got accused.
>If you want "convicted" to be the bar before the public treats someone poorly, you're going to have a bad time, because it's terribly difficult to actually convict someone of rape because there's almost never any actual evidence, by the very nature of the crime
I just want some level of evidence more than just having an accusation that something happened years ago. That just isn't enough for me to treat someone poorly. Maybe a couple accusations or weird behavior or the alleged suspect getting caught in lies about this issue or something.
Eye witness testimony is very frequently inaccurate especially when the incident occurred decades before. And that is with the assumption they aren't making it up. An accusation especially against political people is just not trustworthy in my view to begin with.
People lie for politics all the time. People slander/libel for politics all the time. Why should I trust an accusation without any corroborating evidence or additional accusations or anything of the sort?
>Nevermind the fact that lots of people either cannot admit to themselves or don't remember or don't realize they were raped.
That presumably wouldn't make a difference in this situation. If they won't admit it or don't remember then they won't be accusing justices of doing it.
>Very few people who actually commit rape (whether they realize it or not) end up convicted. It's not a rigorous stat, because again, the reality of the situation is only truly known by the two involved, so it often comes down to who you trust
I understand. I should have been more clear that I don't strictly need a guilty verdict. I want something more than a single accusation especially against political people.
>Consider why you trust supreme court justices to not have raped people.
I never said I don't think they raped anybody. They very well may have. I think people who are in positions of power probably on average have lower morals and are more likely to be a rapist. I just don't like going around calling people rapists without any real evidence other than just an accusation that came up years / decades after it allegedly occurred.
I think we are getting to a point where people throw around allegations and various -ists and phobias too often. Every day somebody is called a racist or homophobe or is accused of being a traitor to the country. I think we need to cool it with decisiveness and stop with this type of language unless there is a reason to use in a specific case.
- She couldn't remember which party it happened at
- She couldn't remember what year it even happened
- She told nobody until 2012 and even then she didn't mention Kavanaugh
- Multiple people she described as her friends denied they knew anything of this event including one who was allegedly at the party
- She lied to the Washington Post when she said she was frustrated that in 2016 she heard that Trump would potentially nominate Kavanaugh. She couldn't have been frustrated in 2016 since Kavanaugh didn't have his name put out until 2017.
- Her parents and siblings would not sign a document in support of her statement. Her family in law did though.
I understand you may have issues after a traumatic event, which can cause you to forget or misremember, but none of this is adding up to me.
Just to be clear, I am not denying she was assaulted or even that Kavanaugh may have been the assailant. I just don't think the testimony was credible and she didn't provide any evidence or have anybody who knew her back then back her up.
>Did you not watch the confirmation hearings?
Yes. Which thing do you think Kavanaugh did of my list? There was 1 person making an accusation, there was some stupid teenage stuff with some drinking, he didn't lie (to our knowledge) about this rape case.
> I don't consider them to be credible so I am not missing anything.
Of course you don't, it's just the word of a woman, and as noted elsewhere you're clearly sexist.
The FBI had more than 4500 tips, a multiple corroborating witnesses. They chose not to go anywhere due to it being the 80s and all rapes being the woman's fault.
But I'm going to say: it's a very clearly credible claim if there were supporting witness statements even in the 80s.
> I think we are getting to a point where people throw around allegations and various -ists and phobias too often. Every day somebody is called a racist or homophobe or is accused of being a traitor to the country. I think we need to cool it with decisiveness and stop with this type of language unless there is a reason to use in a specific case.
If a someone's position is that trans and gay people should be de facto treated as criminals or at the very least denied equal protection under law they're clearly transphobic and/or homophobic. If you vote in support of those policies you are stating very clearly that you don't consider LGBT people to be, you know, people. Because the idea that treating them equally is just a "political position" is an explicit statement that they you do not consider them to be people.
If someone supports groups that have explicitly stated white supremacist, antisemitic, sexist, homophobic and/or transphobic "talking points", then they are antisemitic, sexist, homophobic and/or transphobic.
If someone is avoiding overt statements by using dog whistles ("urban youth", "globalist", "anti-family", etc) they are racist, antisemitic, etc.
The only people driving divisiveness are conservatives. They're very clearly, and on the record, and proud of incessant statements attacking the right of large swathes of people just to exist, let alone have any kind of equal rights. They're aggressively pushing laws with the explicit intent of legalizing discrimination.
A super common refrain of bigots is that if people would just be quiet and accept the bigotry, then "eventually" they'll get the equality they want. This has repeatedly been shown to be complete BS - the _only_ thing that causes change is making noise. While the bigots on the Supreme Court have been aggressively dismantling the civil rights act, that only passed after huge protests lasting years, in which many many protestors were beaten (often by police in the white power states), and quite a few were murdered. Rosa Parks sitting in the "white only" section of a bus and refusing to leave was a "crime" according to the white supremacist states. Similarly Mildred&Richard Loving.
Demanding acquiescence is purely a tool of the people enforcing the bigotry.
She could be a guy and I still would not believe her. Sorry to tell you, but I don't automatically believe somebody because of their sex. That would actually be sexist.
You are deliberately misconstruing what I am saying and are wasting my time. I'm not going to respond to any other part of your post. If you start off calling somebody a sexist then I'm sorry but you are not arguing in good faith.
Really? What "privileges" exactly are they asking for? Because I can point to quite a few laws in quite a few conservative states that make being trans something you can be fired for, that make acknowledging the existence of LGBT people something that can get teachers fired, that make it legal to refuse to serve LGBT people.
So: List the privileges that LGBT people are requesting, that are not available to straight or cisgendered people. This should be very easy given your statement.
