People are crazy but not that crazy
Time to just leave it all on the field
Did you know no where in the constitution does it say that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life? It doesn’t. You will not find the words “appointed for life” anywhere in that little document we are told we live by and many die by.
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
What if we actually did something about it? What if we challenged the idea that SCOTUS justices are God? Because that is what we have made them. And that is never what was intended.
Much like the Almighty Second Amendment that is inflexible to the point of absurdity, why don’t we decide that that crusty old founding document’s allocation of power to the courts lived in the words those crusty old white male landed gentry intended.
We have been held hostage by the Supreme Court but that’s because we have clutched onto some ideals written down in a rule book [anyone not white male] never ever written for us.
So let’s just use it as we see fit shall we?
We are staring down the barrel of the end of the American Empire. I am not mourning this; the arch of history bending toward justice for many in the world could be this very end. I know that is hard for Americans - raised on exceptionalism, unearned pride and draping and groping Old Glory - but we are that imperialist colonial power. Remember Great Britain? The sun never set on that empire until it did.
I was talking to my daughter (grown, independent, childless by choice thank you very much) about this moment in her life. For me? I’m Gen X. I grew up going to bed at night believing we (the US) could be blown off the face of the earth by the USSR upon the morrow. Growing up under the real possibility of nuclear war was a helluva thing; the constant ratcheting up of rhetoric, old-timey news reels on the evening news as filler to show just how catastrophic a nuclear blast would be. The Day After.
Anyway. My kid. Talking. On the phone. I told her listen lady, it’s hard to live through the downfall of society - but this was coming for a long time. I cheered her: dear-heart at least the hoods are off. She agreed. She lives in Minnesota and was glad she told me to have “papa Walz” back.
When she asks me questions (as a grown ass woman) about wtf do we do now? I tell her the same thing I’ve told her since she could walk: we fight the patriarchy like every other day, child.
This isn’t to make light of what is happening. It’s bad.
But - let’s get creative shall we? Let’s get together and file a writ or something or another to the Supreme Court challenging the validity of Marbury v. Madison (that turned them into the Untouchables they are today). It was decided in a purely partisan act expanding its own powers that have only grown more tyrannical.
Follow Dobbs: Stare Decisis is Dead.
I know. That is the predicate of common law nations! We are built (in part) by case law and the rule of precedent.
Sure. But we were also under the assumption that rapist felons who incite an insurrection against the United States shouldn’t be allowed to run for office, right?
Jason Robards said to his TV wife in a scene from The Day After (comforting her that nah - there’s no way they will use nukes) as they watched the news dispatch about the USSR ramping up their arsenal:
Wife: “It’s not going to happen, is it?”
Jason: “Nah, people are crazy but not that crazy”
Right.
