We The People Act or Why Ron Paul is a Crazy Person

[nuckles87]

Historically, the Supreme Court's ability to overturn federal law has always been a double edged sword.

Has the Supreme Court upheld minority rights and beliefs in the past? Yes, yes they have. In Brown vs. Board of Education they demanded that states integrate their schools. In Gaines v Canada and other cases, they struck down segeragated universities, law and grad schools.

But lets think for a minute, how these institutions became segregated in the first place: in 1896, the Supreme Court completely gutted the Civil Rights act of 1866 as well as the 14th Ammendment with Plessy v. Ferguson, which created the concept of "seperate but equal", allowing public and private institutions the legal right to discriminate in the first place, under the notion that "seperate, equal" services would be provided. I can tell you they knew damn well that that was bullshit and they knew it, and it wouldn't begin to be successfully challenged in ANY way until Gaines v. Canada. It took them over 60 years to completely reverse the damage caused by that one Supreme Court decision, which was UNCONSTITUTIONAL in and of itself and effectively turned African Americans into legally second class citizens for decades.

And before Plessy v. Ferguson, we also had the Dredd Scott decision, which stated that slaves had no protection under the constitution. So no, the Supreme Court has not always protected minorities, and in many cases has ruled against their interest.

And of course, in this day and age we have the most politicized Supreme Court since the 1830s. We have justices making judgements BLATANTLY contradicting their own precedent, taking "donations" from companies being affected by their decisions, and then not recusing themselves from these decisions. Remember Citizens United, which has allowed our political system to be completely corrupted by private donations, because of this silly notion the Supreme has held for over a century that corporations are people (they aren't) and money is speech (it isn't. It's property. You don't own speech)? A 5-4 Supreme Court decision. I garuntee you that the upcoming Health Care law ruling will be 5-4, and that decision will probably involve one long time member of the Supreme Court going against their own precedent for political or monetary reasons.

The Supreme Court has nothing to check it, It's members do not need to follow any rules, the other branches cannot regulate or check it in any immediate way because this branch of the government was not supposed to be political, or HAVE this much power to begin with. The Supreme Court gave itself this power in 1805, and people have just accepted it. As a result, these people are practically monarchs, unchecked and untouchable, because centuries ago they deemed it so.

This is one of numerous instances where liberals and libertarians can agree: unchecked Supreme Court power needs to go. It does at least as much harm as it does good, and it has no place in a democracy.