Thread: Are you "Furious".

Originally Posted by gugi

It goes beyond a single incident - in the past the supreme court's 'milestone rulings' (say brown vs. the board of education, roe vs. wade) were not along 'party lines'. Contrast that with recent rulings.
Edit: I know this is very superficial and simplistic, but for more substance you have to look at the opinons and the legal context and precedent. You don't have to be a legal scholar or anything, but you need to be interested enough to read what various legal scholars have to say. And unlike the partisans, those have not been flattering.

Thanks for the update.

In the mean time, I've read a few articles regarding the polarization of supreme court decisions in the recent years.
At least one political analyst thinks that Robert's decision to side with the progressives in the ObamaCare (at least in the ruling)
was precisely to curb the notion that, as you put it, "supreme court is being reduced to an instrument for party politics."
John Roberts broke with conservatives to preserve the Supreme Court’s legitimacy - Slate Magazine
Reportedly, this US supreme court has one of the lowest approval rating (44%) in recent history, partly due to its highly political rulings.

It appears to me, however, that land mark decisions based on political affiliation is not something that started this week with the ObamaCare.
In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) for example, District of Columbia v. Heller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the supreme court ruling on gun control laws split neatly into the political affiliations.


As a personal editorial, I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad thing (yet).
The justices interpret the constitution based on their reading of its people,
and perhaps the bipolar nature of recent decisions only reflect the state of present US.

Many a US laws were passed on nearly unanimous votes, such as Plessy vs. Ferguson upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation, Plessy v. Ferguson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
which the Brown vs. Board of Education reverses. So it's not clear to me that solidarity in supreme court necessarily translates to higher ethical standards.