uncle bernard

This is public history. You can find it yourself anywhere my friend. Let me know what you think of the quotes below No, scholars have gone to great lengths to discern the meaning of the constitution. That is not the same thing. Chief Justice John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): "This provision is made in a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs. To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide, by immutable rules, for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur." Antonin Scalia - the most famous originalist: "I'm an originalist, but I'm not a nut." and "I'm a fainthearted originalist...in its undiluted form, at least, it is medicine that seems too strong to swallow." and (in reference to public flogging and branding as an example) "Even if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that these were not cruel and unusual measures in 1791, and even though no prior Supreme Court decision has specifically disapproved them, I doubt whether any federal judge — even among the many who consider themselves originalists — would sustain them against an Eighth Amendment challenge." I could spend all day finding more for you if I cared that much.

you’re allowed to learn about our nation’s history. i promise you it isn’t as scary as you think!

Do people really watch this stuff and not realize they’re acting like brown shirts?

Does this mean you support full drug legalization? No drinking age? Drunk driving? What about dumping chemicals in water sources? Child labor? Roads? Open borders? Abolishing the police? The military? I can keep going forever. “Big Government” is a meaningless term.

“originalism” isn’t an unbiased way of reading the text. it’s its own ideological viewpoint. they are originalists of convenience. when it supports the answer they want to arrive at, they use it. when it doesn’t, they ignore it. furthermore, originalism is a modern innovation by conservatives in response to the civil rights decisions of the 1960s. nobody in the first 150 years of our nation’s history believed the constitution was meant to be a fixed document with fixed meaning (as if it’s even possible to know all of the exact fixed meanings of all the various founders who contributed to it). if we were to strictly adhere to it, things like segregation, public whippings, etc…couldn’t be outlawed. The constitution doesn’t say abortion should be legal. It also doesn’t say abortion should be illegal. It doesn’t say whether a state can ban contraception or not (the original inspiration for originalism came when Bork was mad the court struck down a ban on contraception for married couples in Connecticut). It has broad phrases that we have to interpret and apply to our modern context.

you can’t even tell when i’m making fun of you lol

are india and china in europe buddy?

nice little freudian slip there lol

the party at a 6-3 disadvantage has the larger political influence? lol conservatives have an entire political group funded by billions of dollars primarily devoted towards developing conservative judges and getting court seats. it’s called the federalist society. look it up lol it’s hilarious how little americans know about how other countries work.

appreciate the honesty! many people believe slavery is okay as long as the slaves are bad people. Most don’t have the courage admit it.

This is just an assertion. Most people in this country have the attitude of “america is the best country - this is our government - therefore it’s the best too” There are plenty of other judicial systems around the world that are less politicized than ours. Ours is one of the most famously political!

i would assume he’s for not allowing private prisons to hire out prison labor for well below minimum wages to businesses who then make profit off them (which also undermines American workers btw). their punishment is their incarceration. that’s more than enough.

“african slaves put themselves in that position by becoming prisoners of war to neighboring tribes who then sold them to atlantic slave traders. that’s not slavery, that’s consequence.”

you just described slavery lol

You’re not even answering the right question! What makes our judicial system better than others? Why should it stay as how it is? And I’m not talking about packing it.

Not in the original text which @Bigbrog is treating like an infallible document. The ability to amend it is my whole point! I've said why I think it should be. He won't say why he thinks it shouldn't be! The major problem on this thread is that I'm saying "the constitution is wrong, and here's why....." and everybody's response is "the constitution doesn't say that!" Yeah, I know! Tell me why we shouldn't change it, just like we changed it to address slavery and a bunch of other things.

Which means it can be amended again! And that just because it lays something out one way right now, doesn't mean it's right!!! So if you want to show everybody how smart you are, you should explain why it shouldn't be amended in this case. Make an actual argument!

No, what I want is a drastically different system altogether with term limits and a more rational structure like you see in most other democracies across the world. I don't really care about stacking it with liberals. Most of the liberal justices do things that I think are wrong too. I want a system that is more democratic and less able to institute minority rule on behalf of a political minority that hasn't been able to convince the majority of this country it's right in 20 years. If they reform the court and Conservatives keep winning, more power to them! It's for the people to decide.

BUT THE CONSITUTION!!!

Should slavery be legal?

I too think Iowa shutting out Penn State is very unlikely.

You're so close to getting it....lol

Huh? lol You think I was citing the Bible as a bad thing? lmao Is it a perfect, fallible document or not? If it's not perfect, that means it has mistakes (here's a hint: slavery). If it has mistakes, you can't use it as the sum total of your argument, which means.... If you think the Supreme Court is a good institution that makes sense as a part of a system of government, you should be able to say so without mentioning the constitution. Why does it make sense to have an unelected panel of judges on lifetime appointments decide the validity of our laws? What makes our Judicial system better than Germany's? Or Denmark's? Or [insert X country}? Make your argument!

Is the constitution an infallible document? Is it an extension of Holy Scripture?

I laid this out clearly in my following post. Feel free to respond to the arguments there. How my life is affected? What if I live in a red state and one of my loved ones is raped and forced to carry her rapist's baby to term? That would have a pretty big impact on our lives. There are tons of way the court affects the lives of everyday people. That's truly a bizarre argument to make. Just because you don't think it affects you, and maybe it doesn't, doesn't mean it has no affect on anybody. And the political majority I'm referring to the fact that the last time a Republican won the Presidential popular vote, this year's college freshmen wrestlers weren't even alive!