February 2, 2023
I will never, and I mean never, have faith in the United States Supreme Court. There should not be any disagreements among the justices. They all studied the same constitution in college, and have the same documents when deciding cases. People say the justices disagree because of the strict constitutionalist versus the living document concepts. |
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Generally speaking:
A strict constructionist believes the text of the Constitution is inflexible, that the Constitution says what it means and means what it says.
A judicial activist thinks of the Constitution as a living document subject to different interpretations as society evolves.
My position is that if judicial activism is legitimate, we have no meaningful court at all.
Here is why:
Precedents and Consistency
Once a court rules in the first case ever of its kind, that ruling becomes the ruling for subsequent cases of the same kind.
So, an activist judge comes along and says, "That's old school. Things are different today. Here's my decision, like or not."
Seems to me such thinking and decisions give rise to muddledom.
For example, what happens to the Miranda rights? Does reading Miranda rights to an accused become relegated to the bone pile?
Justifying a ruling contrary to a precedent makes it very easy for an activist judge for it is easy to rationalize anything.
When precedents are no more and consistency doesn't matter, then flip-flopping becomes the norm.
The people will then view the Supreme Court as just another costly government institution. But perhaps such a debate has no practical or useful significance. After all, everyone with a sound mind and street wise knowledge knows the value of...
Back-Scratching
l will always, and I mean always, believe too many Supreme Court justices rule with bias - a bias in line with the
wishes of the nominating/appointing president.
Another way of saying we have no
meaningful court at all.
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