Supreme Court OKs prayer before town board meetings

[cranberry]

Yes, it does happen, to clarify.

But not with regularity.

And it couldn't happen, most likely, because, although they are appointed for life, the public is still a watchdog over this. The legitimacy of the Court is a concern they harbor, and it acts as a check on them.

John Roberts walked in the door with a big agenda and a long-term strategy to accomplish it. He's been largely successful so far. He's only 59. Best I can tell, the only concern about public perception he's shown is that which leads him to portray himself as a level-headed moderate. (The Obamacare decision probably best reflects that.) Meanwhile, Alito demonstrates little, if any, concern about the public's opinion of the court's legitimacy. Thomas none at all.

Out of curiousity. ... Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor, in your estimation (feel free to add Scalia, too). ... did any of them come in with big agendas? Do they demonstrate any concern about preserving public opinion and the court's legitimacy?

No. I respect the remaining six, including Scalia and Kennedy.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

So I think you're correct - to a point.

I think that members of the Court have an agenda, which they seek to impose, when possible. They reverse-engineer. They are all former lawyers. Old habits are hard to break, I guess.

That said: I think that the importance of precedent, combined with a watchdog press and academic community, serves to prevent the kind of willy-nilly course reversals you claim occur with regularity.

They aren't the NLRB.

I didn't claim it happens with regularity. But the only reason it doesn't happen more willy nilly than it already does is that the court has largely stayed the same in terms of its agendas since the shift I was talking about.

That doesn't mean what I am suggesting hasn't occurred. One example was Bowers v. Hardwick being overturned by Lawrence v. Texas. In 1986, anti sodomy laws were somehow hunky dory according to Constitution. We didn't amend the constitution afterward, but somehow in 2003, the document said the exact opposite thing it had said less than 20 years before.

Obviously what changed were the actual judges -- not the Constitution.

My problem is that isn't what the court is there for, though. We should be evolving our social ideas (and how it manifests itself on society) on our own, not allowing 9 people to play that role arbitrarily.

Also, my point wasn't JUST that it makes the Constitution into something that can say something today and something different tomorrow (even though that is what it does, in effect). It's that this isn't the role of a court. In a democracy, we elect people to make our laws. Even if the 9 judges always gets it right (and they often do -- at least pushing us to a society I personally want to see), this isn't the right mechanism for getting there. In a democracy you want to elect people to legislate. The court is there to make certain they legislate consistent with an overriding set of rules. You don't want random things the court wants to take on to be subject to the arbitrary rule of 9 appointed people.

Do you disagree with Brown vs. Board of Education, which reversed Plessy vs. Ferguson, even though social ideas in the South hadn't evolved in 60 years?

 

[DeskMonkey1]

I'm not talking about invoking religion. I'm talking about stating that prayer has no spiritual value and is merely ceremonial, as Kennedy did. There's not enough bandwidth on the entire Internet to deal with the rage explosion that would occur if President Obama made a similar statement.

Well, then maybe my response wasn't on topic.

Eh, it was a digression anyway. Get in here and let's hug it out.

That might offend the religious right