Naturally: The Supreme Court Is Political
Or: "Why D'ya Think They Call 'Em 'Opinions,' Dummy?"
This was one of many who took note of Justice Sotomayor’s remarks during oral arguments in “National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration” —
Throughout its ages since ancient Greece, democracy has been sold as "the rule of the people" in various practical forms such as the direct democracies of small polities in which there are no legislative representatives, and the specialized democracy erected on the United States Constitution. It's a plaintive atavism that offers the "constitutional republic" objection against the facts of how the offices of all three branches of the U.S. government are filled (two by election voting, and the other by appointment of the elected). The Constitution does not essentially denature democracy; it re-orders it according to the outlook of the 18th-century men who assumed to design a government for a loose number of local polities that had assembled in battle against the world’s most powerful monarchy.
The United States Constitution predates the French Revolution by mere months on the calendar, years in concept, and at least a generation in philosophy. In their varied strikes against the millennia-long rule of kings, however, both resorted to basic a theme of “the people”. The unprecedented demonstrations of individual productive ability that began with the Industrial Revolution were exploits of such freedom as could be conceived amid the vast natural resources of the continent, before the basic design of the government was wrought-out to full integral conclusion two centuries later.
Now, in the Age of Envy, all aspirants to elective office understand as well as their constituents that government itself is the principal value of all political activity. Their assertion of “our democracy” is also a politically legitimate claim to what U.S. government is, in both current practice and logical integrity of constitutional theory.
The United States Supreme Court is the conceptual arena in which a principle most notably at work in democratic theory is essential: the rule of the majority. It comes to bear with nearly legendary acuity in the court because of the socially momentous nature of the rulings, together with the micro-focus of the principle in nine human beings.
It’s a virtually unspoken premise that those nine people elevated to a “supreme court” are learned and wise beyond the hope of anyone who hasn’t made the requisite devotions of study and experience; almost as if what it takes to achieve a SCOTUS seat is comparable to similar achievement in any other field, and that pinnacle of profession is the proof. That premise is morally defunct because of how the court uniquely presumes to direct the use of government force for or against people’s lives. In an age when generally perverse ethics makes government – not freedom -- the principal value for which all politics acts, it is idle to hope for intellectual ability and integrity throughout the full range of matters that can be brought before the court.
The premise of Elevated Wisdom relies on attributes of enormous intellectual capacity brought honestly to bear on increasingly absurd demands from pressure groups spawned and trained by mad proliferation of law & regulation, as well as democracy in the specific traditions of the constitution. It’s a questionable-enough premise when merely taking advice among friends. When it comes to dictating how anyone must live, it becomes downright oppressive because of how it disposes of our own judgment and the reason why that exists: in order to conduct our own lives.
Even before a decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a spectacular example of how the principles of democracy can go wrong: when decisions of such importance are submitted to anyone so badly informed.
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The political action that becomes micro-focused on the Supreme Court swells from the premise of “the people”. It is always put as the concern of power-players who can sell that premise mainly because no one steps up to them to refute it. In general, most people are too busy producing the values necessary to living their lives to notice when all of it is being claimed by others who don’t know or care about them, and have never even asked their view of the matter.
Nonetheless, the demand for expanding the number of seats on the court rests on the implicit claim of popular representation (“our movement” and “Equal Justice”) in order to modify its constitutional structure. The suggestion is temporal, of course, cued to the current facts of a Democratic presidency and congressional majorities (no matter how thin) on the idea that this would be the opportunity to effect such a thing, with lasting consequence for the prospects of socialism.
Why shouldn’t the composition of the court be the object of democratic gang-warfare?
It is well understood that the court must be taken under ideological campaign because of its importance as the last stop of majority rule in the line of political authority in America. Dating at least as far back as the school playgrounds of old, the Supreme Court is also its highest expression, in the most concentrated form, with all the well-known defects but also incomparable power to rule with their very own opinions.
this is a fair representation of how democracy applies to the structure of the US government as established by the US Constitution. Those in government who are devoted to extending the application of democratic rule intend, always, to expand the role of "the will of the people", knowing full well that the "will of the people" is completely under the control of the officials who benefit from the corruption of the electoral process.
This is evident given the fact that these officials never go so far as to establish any direct application of the people's will by means of voting on items of policy as some states do. The idea that the will of the people is to be expressed only by the act of voting for representatives is inconsistent with the ennobled ideal of government "by the people".