Kavanaugh's concurrence in Dobbs smacks of Rehnquist's majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, another "good one time only" ruling -- and also the beginning of the long descent in the Court's reputation and Americans' belief in its legitimacy.
I would add a few thoughts...the erosion of trust in the legitimacy of the Court continues to plummet, with no end in sight. The Court has not substituted a new legal standard (the originalist theory is absurd on its face, and would require ignoring every societal and technological change over the past 200+ years), but rather, they have substituted their donors' ideological preferences. There are no restraints on the Court...stare decisis has been discarded, SCOTUS has no judicial ethics to comply with, there are no term limits, there are no penalties for lying to Congress to secure confirmation, there are no consequences for refusing to recuse in the face of blatant conflicts.
My question is what happens when trust in the Court drops to 30% or 20%, which I think we're quickly approaching? Barring a dramatic reform of the Court, including jurisdiction of the cases it can hear, how does the already rickety rule of law fail to collapse in its entirety?
Another thing that has eroded the Court's legitimacy is how ridiculous the confirmation process has become. The prospective justices solemnly intone that whichever hallowed precedent they're being asked about is "settled law". That turns out to be some kind of sick inside joke. The wink-wink, nudge-nudge on it is that it's settled law until it's overturned. I believe at least Gorsuch, and probably also Kavanaugh, intentionally misled moderate Republican Senators on abortion to be confirmed.
Funny how people have a problem with the court when it swings right, but had no problem with it when it affirmed the unconstitutional Affordable Care Act. I don't want a court that is legally neutral; I want a court that is bigoted in favor of Liberty (freedom from government coercion). In any case, we have the court that we deserve, given that few want to be free of authoritarian interference in their life. Left or right is bad, but neutral is just evil.
Though I am pro-choice, the lack of consideration for stare decisis by itself does not alarm me. After all, if we experienced a sustained decline in fertility, at some point banning most or all abortion may seem necessary.
What I have a problem with is 1) apparent conflict of interest of a Justice having a political activist spouse. Ginny Thomas accused the government of the United States of operating a "deep state" and manipulating elections to circumvent democracy & further advocated cheating to thwart the other side's supposed cheating. And 2) part of Thomas' opinion was that abortion was not "deeply rooted in our nation's history." I would argue that the desire of women to end certain pregnancies has been strong since well before the creation of the United States. I would also argue that slavery is deeply rooted in our nation's history, but that does not make a good case to bring it back.
And of course the most obvious logic that anti-abortion judges miss is the fact that giving a fetus any rights at all means putting the woman's rights on a tier below the rights of the fetus.
If the Constitution is interpreted in such a way that the rights at the founding are the end-all be-all, and the founders certainly didn’t have the rights/problems/lives of women in any part of their minds, I’m wondering what this document even does for me? Isn’t it increasingly irrelevant at best, problematic at worst to half the population?
Kavanaugh's concurrence in Dobbs smacks of Rehnquist's majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, another "good one time only" ruling -- and also the beginning of the long descent in the Court's reputation and Americans' belief in its legitimacy.
I would add a few thoughts...the erosion of trust in the legitimacy of the Court continues to plummet, with no end in sight. The Court has not substituted a new legal standard (the originalist theory is absurd on its face, and would require ignoring every societal and technological change over the past 200+ years), but rather, they have substituted their donors' ideological preferences. There are no restraints on the Court...stare decisis has been discarded, SCOTUS has no judicial ethics to comply with, there are no term limits, there are no penalties for lying to Congress to secure confirmation, there are no consequences for refusing to recuse in the face of blatant conflicts.
My question is what happens when trust in the Court drops to 30% or 20%, which I think we're quickly approaching? Barring a dramatic reform of the Court, including jurisdiction of the cases it can hear, how does the already rickety rule of law fail to collapse in its entirety?
Another thing that has eroded the Court's legitimacy is how ridiculous the confirmation process has become. The prospective justices solemnly intone that whichever hallowed precedent they're being asked about is "settled law". That turns out to be some kind of sick inside joke. The wink-wink, nudge-nudge on it is that it's settled law until it's overturned. I believe at least Gorsuch, and probably also Kavanaugh, intentionally misled moderate Republican Senators on abortion to be confirmed.
Funny how people have a problem with the court when it swings right, but had no problem with it when it affirmed the unconstitutional Affordable Care Act. I don't want a court that is legally neutral; I want a court that is bigoted in favor of Liberty (freedom from government coercion). In any case, we have the court that we deserve, given that few want to be free of authoritarian interference in their life. Left or right is bad, but neutral is just evil.
Though I am pro-choice, the lack of consideration for stare decisis by itself does not alarm me. After all, if we experienced a sustained decline in fertility, at some point banning most or all abortion may seem necessary.
What I have a problem with is 1) apparent conflict of interest of a Justice having a political activist spouse. Ginny Thomas accused the government of the United States of operating a "deep state" and manipulating elections to circumvent democracy & further advocated cheating to thwart the other side's supposed cheating. And 2) part of Thomas' opinion was that abortion was not "deeply rooted in our nation's history." I would argue that the desire of women to end certain pregnancies has been strong since well before the creation of the United States. I would also argue that slavery is deeply rooted in our nation's history, but that does not make a good case to bring it back.
And of course the most obvious logic that anti-abortion judges miss is the fact that giving a fetus any rights at all means putting the woman's rights on a tier below the rights of the fetus.
If the Constitution is interpreted in such a way that the rights at the founding are the end-all be-all, and the founders certainly didn’t have the rights/problems/lives of women in any part of their minds, I’m wondering what this document even does for me? Isn’t it increasingly irrelevant at best, problematic at worst to half the population?