I just got bored and tried to work out who would be king if the founding fathers had decided on elective monarchy.
How do you feel about King Jimmy the First?
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Everybody hates lawyers…until they need one.
That’s especially true now since they just dropped the logic puzzles from the LSAT. In the past, though, the logic section was the differentiator of the LSAT. The rest of the test isn’t that hard. The logic puzzles weren’t really hard, either, they were just complex, and solving them in the time given required learning and practicing a methodology, rather than merely possessing the ability to think logically. In other words, like most standardized tests, the LSAT tested your ability to take that test more than anything.
Anywho, lawyers aren’t the problem here. The problem is fascists who have infiltrated the Supreme Court. While some lawyers are fascists, not all of them are. Some doctors and engineers are also fascists. Even school teachers and plumbers, though I can’t imagine why.
This has been a bad couple of weeks for those of us who value democracy. Condemning an entire profession is not helpful. What is more clear than ever is that we have to vote for Biden and Democrats in offices high and low in November. It’s our only way through this. The Trump insurrection cases may not survive this decision. But if Trump wins in November, it will be moot because he will pardon himself and this Court will clearly decide that he can do that. So we can’t let that happen. Biden is old. He’s not quite as sharp as he was even four years ago. It doesn’t matter right now. We still have to vote for him. It’s the only way out of this.
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Exactly. When people collapse into thinking “ah it’s only bad people who go into law” and give up then that becomes more true and accepted. In this way we make our anxieties real and the whole world suffers for them. Police. Teaching. It is happening all around us at an accelerated rate. We should, in retrospect, have been using our resources to encourage many more kids to become lawyers even in cases where it was unprofitable to do so. It’s not too late for this, but it will be if people write off the entire profession.
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MAGAs, despite the attempts of the oligarch controlled press to convince people otherwise, are a minority not a plurality. Only ~25% of elible voters cast their ballots for Trump in the last election and roughly the same in the election before where he actually won. Some non-zero portion of those voters also did so for their own reasons that were not necessarily because of ideological alignment with Trump. The narrative that Trumpists represents some sort of majority of the people of the US is a blatant misrepresentation of reality, presumably intented to manufacture consent.
Hard agree that addressing this is the most immediate and pressing issue before us all, both in the US and in many other places throughout the world. As for avoiding civil conflict the historical track record of appeasement towards fascism isn’t encouraging. Sadly we may have already crossed the Rubicon in regards to completely avoiding that possibility, as much as I hope I’m wrong about that.
Violent resistance to the abrogation of political rights and “burning shit down” in a misguided attempt at overnight utopia aren’t meaningfully equivalent. There’s a whole lot of room between “peaceful protest” and “overthrow the government” in which we can express our resistance and achieve meaningful results, albeit not without personal and collective risk.
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Preach. The profession is still overwhelmingly dominated by straight white men of privilege, even though women have outnumbered men in law schools for years now. I’ve mentioned this before, but becoming a lawyer is all about jumping over a bunch of hurdles, and the easiest way over all those hurdles is to have money and/or connections. First, there’s undergrad (in many other countries, like Australia, a law degree is at the undergrad level, not the graduate level…in other words, it’s just a major, just like majoring in engineering), then there’s the LSAT and the admissions process, then there’s law school itself, then the bar exam, and then getting hired.
If you want to be a federal judge, it’s even more restrictive. There’s a reason most of the Supreme Court went to Harvard or Yale. Throughout the entire federal judiciary, Harvard and Yale dominate judgeships and clerkships. So, if you’re a rich kid whose parents are both Harvard educated lawyers, Harvard Law and a future judicial appointment are realistic goals. If you’re a poor immigrant’s kid and a person of color, and went to public school in the inner city of Miami…good luck. Or, if you’re like me and you didn’t start law school until the age of 50…well let’s just say I’ll be happy to be employed.
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Everyone remembers “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” but nobody remembers who said it.
It was Dick the Butcher (TV Tropes link), one of Jack Cade’s followers from Henry VI, Part 2.
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I was steeling myself for this but that didn’t make this ruling any less shocking. But not at all surprising. Given how SCOTUS waited until the very last day to release this giving Trump as much time as possible to run out the clock, and the Court’s overall fealty to Trump this ruling is exactly the kind of bullshit I figured it’d be.
Whether or not he wants to doesn’t really matter because Congress will never allow it.
If I’m reading this correctly, this is saying literally the only remedy for abuses of power are impeachment and removal – which is not a criminal process. Say the president were removed from office, they would face no further consequences for their actions.
Congress cannot act on , and courts cannot examine , the President’s actions
Is this basically saying a president can’t be impeached since Congress “cannot act on” any abuses of power?
I’m no legal scholar, but all of this seems like a pretty fucked up precedent.
While these points can be debated, this is not the time or place for this. Maybe take it to another Topic?
They may not be a majority of the citizenry, but thanks to decades of effort they certainly have the majority of the power right now.
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I don’t know that I’d call myself a legal scholar, but I am actively studying for the bar right now. It absolutely is a really fucked up precedent.
I know he won’t do it, but part of me wants Biden to summon Dark Brandon for real and put this decision to the test. I really kind of want to see how this Court would twist themselves around to find that Biden isn’t immune. Because that is absolutely what they would do, I am 100% convinced.
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Rather than imagine an anarchist revolt that will give us a utopian paradise…
Which is WHY they are destroying Democracy, so they don’t have to worry about elections anymore. Have you not been paying attention to what’s happening?
Who gives a shit. They are still voting for a fascist. I don’t CARE how they justify themselves.
Good thing I have never made that point. EVER.
Doesn’t mean we should actively encourage it, but from the left.
That’s giving up. There isn’t a civil war now, despite right wing violence.
Which is not the same as carrying out or advocating for political violence in order to accelerate the collapse of the state. Which lots of armchair anarchists (especially white, cisgendered, straight dudes) love to advocate for. Because they know that they’ll not be the first people targeted by the state/fascists. They’re happy to see the rest of us suffer so they can play glorious revolutionary.
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The current SCOTUS has been very clear in their rulings. Precedent is dead.
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Oh I knew what it was from and who said it. I almost brought that up, but since no one had dropped that quote yet, I decided not to.
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Well…no. That’s not really the right take. The Supreme Court has never been obligated to follow precedent. That’s because they are the body that sets precedent. If they weren’t free to break current precedent and set a new one, segregation would still be legal.
The problem is not that the Supreme Court isn’t respecting precedent. The problem is that they aren’t respecting democracy, the Constitution, and humanity.
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[ETA]
The ruling gives Judge Chutkan guidelines for deciding what is and isn’t “official” looks like…
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Absolute immunity sounds like some monarchy shit. No kings, thanks.
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As long as it’s part of his official duties, he would be free to ignore them, though, based on their own ruling. They included judicial review in the absolute immunity. It’s an ouroboros of a clusterfuck, but that’s the corner they painted themselves into.
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I really don’t think that that is how it would work, though. I see no reason to give SCOTUS the benefit of the doubt here…
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Yeah, I do think they will come to regret this decision, but it will take awhile.
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It’s really handy that when there’s a legal thread, we have lots of legal experts, and when it’s war we have war experts, and when it’s politics we have lots of analysts, and…
Wait, it’s just dudes.
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It’s not really giving them any benefit of doubt, though. SCOTUS has no independent enforcement arm. They depend upon the Executive Branch for that. They just cut themselves out of judicial review of a president’s official actions. It horrifying, but also self-limiting.
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