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And if I have a large amount of evidence showing Blue states and federal regimes have in fact made a habit of ignoring court orders and otherwise flouting rule of law, then would you agree that the country does in fact appear to be dead from your perspective as well?
What would be the point of such an approach?
I used to argue that the Constitution was whatever five Justices said it was, but now it is not even that. We won multiple Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment over the past few decades. Blue states and their circuit courts ignored the rulings, and then we got to observe how unified defiance from "subordinate" legislatures and courts shapes Supreme Court jurisprudence, as the Justices refuse to take cases or deliver decisions that would spark further defiance. And it's not as though Federal law worked any better. We decided that Tribal interests should be protected by law. We won elections, drafted laws, and passed them by the legitimate process. Then Blue Tribe simply ignored them, and the courts have let them do it.
Blue Tribe could have done this with immigration. Red Tribe offered them a compromise, an amnesty for existing illegals, paired with actual border enforcement. They took the amnesty and then not only failed to deliver any border enforcement, but spent decades actively undermining what enforcement existed and thumbing their noses at the law. They did the same with narcotics laws. They did the same with laws aimed at protecting freedom of religion.
The funniest part, though, is that you don't recognize that we are in fact following your advice. We have not rioted nation-wide. We are not actively fomenting assassins. We are not burning down the homes and offices of people we don't like. We organized and won an election, and now we are playing the game according to the existing rules.
That doesn't make any sense given the rest of your argument is "it's ok to ignore the rules".
It's also an interesting question in general, if one is so willing to abandon a principle simply because they believe others don't follow it, then was it really a principle of theirs to begin with? Perhaps those people are simply against the classic American values to begin with and they are seeking an excuse to abandon it.
I'm simply trying to communicate on your level. I'm willing to agree that we're "ignoring the rules", if you'll account for the evidence that we are, in fact, ignoring the rules significantly less than Blue Tribe has for decades, and then explain why their violations of the rules were acceptable but ours are not. Likewise, if you believe that Blue Tribe has not been "ignoring the rules", fine, neither are we.
If your argument is that their violations of the rules were also unacceptable, I ask that you define what "unacceptable" means. If it means negative consequences for the rulebreakers, I ask that you show where these negative consequences were in fact implemented. If they weren't, then in what sense were they "unacceptable" if they were, in fact, accepted?
If on the other hand "unacceptable" means that you frowned real hard about it, well by all means, frown away.
And look, I get it. I and others pointing out your isolated demands for rigor makes it much more difficult to employ those isolated demands for rigor, and that's probably pretty frustrating. But maybe the solution is to not base an argument on isolated demands for rigor? Maybe, if you're arguing for "rule of law", you should actually put some effort into demonstrating how law has in fact been ruling in some meaningful sense previously, and why people should regard the present situation as discontinuous with what has gone before.
No, it isn't. I do not hold "rule following" as a terminal goal. Neither do most other people, and I'm highly skeptical that "principled" people such as yourself are the exception. I am not going to accept "rules for thee but not for me". Neither are most other people. If your model of the world is based on the idea that people will generally accept being cheated without recourse indefinitely, well, it seems to me that you're going to be routinely surprised by real-world outcomes.
"I've been cheated" is a pretty good excuse to stop playing with a cheater, especially if one has proof of the cheating. We tried to keep the game going for decades, but at some point one must face the realities of the situation. In any case, shaming is quite a bit more effective when employed against people who seek your esteem. If you want to conclude that I'm a mean person who just hates good things, while repeatedly ignoring every gesture toward evidence that I offer and supplying no evidence of your own, I'm comfortable allowing third parties to draw their own conclusions.
Interesting how you and "others" know me well enough to know that I've apparently never pushed back on left wing activists or government officials ignoring the courts.
I wonder what other things you must totally know about me, have I been doxxed by this site??? But serious note, I see no need to engage in a conversation with someone who ignores my stated words in favor of their imagined beliefs about who I am.
I am very specifically critiquing the arguments you are presenting here, nothing less and nothing more; I make no claims about your previous behavior or positions; they are entirely irrelevant to me.
I am not claiming that you've never pushed back on left-wing activists or government officials ignoring the courts. I am observing that the material outcome of that pushback was zero accountability in any significant form for the left-wing activists or government officials in question, across a very large number of issues and specific cases. I am entirely willing to accept as much pushback as you and others wish to provide against my side, provided that this pushback is similarly ineffectual. As I said above, frown away.
But your position seems to be that this time is different, and that this time, something must be done. And I and others are asking "why now? What changed"? Why does frowning no longer suffice, such that you expect actual accountability all of a sudden? Why can we not agree that this is "totally unacceptable" in a way where absolutely nothing will be done about it, as is the long-established norm stretching back decades?
I can not control the actions of others, especially not in regards to vague and nonspecific events.
If there is any particular case where a court ruling was flagrantly ignored by a left leaning administration in modern history, then I shall condemn it to.
To clarify though, an admin changing a process or plan in response to the court to no longer fall under what was ruled against would not count as it would be a different plan and this is standard course of politics. For example when Biden's main student loan forgiveness policies were struck down, he used different existing laws that were not yet ruled on. This worked because the SC did not rule on loan forgiveness in general but on the specific method the Biden admin had tried to use.
This is rather normal in politics, and if the Trump administration wishes to proceed with their goals they are free to find all sorts of clever ways to do it so long as they don't defy the judicial branch.
I don't expect you to control the actions of others. I do expect you to recognize that the actions of others exist, and account for the results of those actions in your argument. I disagree that I have referred to "vague and nonspecific events"; I have been referring to broad events, but if greater specificity is needed, say so and we can drill down into the details of specific cases.
In any case, can you at least agree in principle that selective enforcement of the law is a valid concern, and that arguments for rule of law need to account for how selective enforcement will be prevented? Can you further agree that if selective enforcement is abused, those abusing it lose the right to appeal to rule of law as a justification for their actions?
My observation is that "clever ways of accomplishing political goals" are generally the first portion of a Russel Conjugation: "I find clever ways, you bend the rules, he violates the clear standards of the law".
Any appeal to a system of rules relies on the assumption that those rules will be enforced and interpreted fairly, because there is no law that can protect from sufficiently motivated enforcement and interpretation. I don't disagree with you that Trump can try different things. I do disagree that you or the media or the democratic party get to decide which actions are "clever" and which are illegal, and further I disagree that something is required to happen even if we agree that the action is in fact illegal.
I'm just gonna address this part since you fundamentally misunderstand how the legal system works in the US. The judicial branch are not "the Democratic party" or "the media", they are judges selected through a wide variety of processes (depending on the court and jurisdiction). Often they are appointed by a president who has a respect for their work and shares a similar legal philosophy.
Wilkinson for instance, the judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was appointed by Reagan. Trump himself in the first administration appointed three of the current 9 SC judges, Alito was under Bush and Thomas was under Dubya.
The supreme court especially are the ones granted power by the constitution under article III
One of us certainly does.
You misunderstood me. There were two parts to my statement: a rejection of social consensus as binding to questions of law, and a skepticism of whether formal legal authority de facto exists.
You, the media, and the Democratic party represent the social consensus aspect. The actual courts represent the legal aspect. Your assessment of legality does not make something illegal; the courts do that. But even when the courts do that, I question whether that necessarily means anything, since I have seen numerous examples of court decisions being flouted or ignored, and can point to the specific mechanisms by which this process is conducted.
Yes. And what happens if large numbers of people coordinate their power to defying such orders? Does lightning rain from the Heavens to smite them? Does the earth open up to swallow them and their families whole?
Over and over again, you appeal to the words on paper. But the words on paper are nothing until they are interpreted by human minds and implemented by human hands. Human minds and human hands make mistakes, and sometimes are malicious. The words on paper do not and cannot account for this reality, but we must, every minute of every day. There is no substitute for good judgement, but your argument appears to hinge on judgement being unnecessary, because the system works. Well, I disagree. I note that there is an exterior to the system, that significant amounts of work are conducted in this exterior space, and that so long as you confine yourself to the interior alone you will neither understand nor be capable of utilizing the system in question.
And let's roll in the other tail as well:
I have no idea who you are referring to. Certainly this does not match any argument I have advanced at any point in this or any other discussion.
I am happy for people to criticize Trump, or push back on him. You have constructed a strawman in your mind to avoid dealing with the argument offered to you, which is quite simple: You are arguing for rule of law against Trump, and I am pointing out that the principles you claim (correctly!) that Trump is violating have already been violated to the point of uselessness previously. This does not make what Trump is doing legal or correct. It raises the question of why anyone should care about legality or correctness, when those standards have not applied in hundreds of previous cases.
We can and have directly observed this supposed power being nullified by lesser courts and subordinate institutions. The mechanisms to do so are readily identifiable.
"“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”" -Lysander Spooner.
And again, you may assert that I have abandoned "classic American values" to your hearts content. I am much more interested in highlighting the absurdity of your arguments than I am in securing your affirmation.
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This is an incredibly condescending post that misunderstands the nuanced point about social incentives that's being made by FCfromSSC. In particular, you're responding to a claim that even the Republican-appointed judges are shaped in their judicial philosophy by the social mileu and ideological influence of Democrats in positions of cultural authority, like the mainstream media, by simply restating that they're Republican-appointed. You're not even engaging with his point!
You're making an argument from authority, and FCfromSSC is saying that the authorities themselves are compromised, or driven by social and ideological incentives and beliefs he disagrees with. He's saying the Pope is the antichrist, and you're quoting him from the first council of the Vatican.
That suggests to me that you're not engaging with him in good faith. He knows what you're saying. Your argument, and the constitutional provision you're posting, are within his grasp. He doesn't need a refresher on the constitution any more than a Catholic who doesn't believe in God needs a refresher on ecumenical councils. You're quoting the Bible to an atheist.
You can disagree with his point, and you can even make strong arguments against it, many of which I might disagree with. But to actually answer it substantively, you'll have to look at the belief systems of the actors in question, their overall judicial philosophies, their social environments, their incentives. You'd have to address the point.
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