The court system as a whole is more beholden to laws as written than politics.
And that's a key institution in a democracy, given the frequency with which either the executive or legislative branches try to do illegal things (defined by constitutions and/or previously passed laws).
Yes, courts ought to be apolitical. Just that recently, especially the supreme court has not been meeting that expectation.
Courts have always been political, which is why "jurisdiction shopping" has been a thing for decades. The Supreme Court, especially, has always been political, which is why one of the biggest issues in political campaigns is who is going to be able to nominate new justices. Most people of all political persuasions view courts as apolitical when those courts issue rulings in that affirm their beliefs, and political when they rule against them.
You're right though, in a perfect world courts would be apolitical.
> You're right though, in a perfect world courts would be apolitical.
Most other western democracies are a lot closer to a perfect world, it seems.
Germany, where they lock you up for criticizing politicians[1] or where they have a ban against protesting for Palestine because it's "antisemitic"?[2]
Or UK where you can get locked up for blasphemy[3] or where they lock up ~30 people a day for saying offensive things online because of their Online Safety Act?[4]
Or perhaps Romania where an election that didn't turn out the way the EU elites wanted is overturned based on nebulous (and later proven false) accusation that the election was somehow influenced by a TikTok campaign by the Russians that later turned out to have been funded by a Romanian opposition party.[5]
I could go on and on, but unfortunately most other western democracies are just as flawed, if not worse. Hopefully we can all strive for a better future and flush the authoritarians, from all the parties.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc
[2] https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/19/mass-arrests-following-p...
[3] https://news.sky.com/story/man-convicted-after-burning-koran...
[4] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
[5] https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
I understand these are court decisions you don't agree with. (And neither do I for the most part, though I imagine some of these cases to have more depth to them.)
But is there any reason to believe that judged were pressured/compelled by political powers to make these decisions? Apart from, of course, the law created by these politicians, which is how the system is intended to work.
>But is there any reason to believe that judged were pressured/compelled by political powers to make these decisions?
No, but I have every reason to believe that the judges who made these decisions were people selected by political powers so that they would make them.
>Apart from, of course, the law created by these politicians, which is how the system is intended to work.
But the system isn't working for the people, it is horribly broken. The people running the system are mostly corrupt and/or incompetent, which is why so many voters from a wide variety of countries, and across the political spectrum, are willing to vote for anyone (even people who are clearly less than ideal) that shits all over the system and promises to smash it. Because the system is currently working exactly how it's intended to work, most people hate it and nobody feels like they can do anything about it.
The American Supreme Court could have been balanced though. Sadly, one team plays to win, the other team wants to be in a democracy. The issue is not the politics of the court, but the enforced Partisanship which took hold of the Republican Party post watergate.
All systems can be bent, broken, or subverted. Still, we need to make systems which do the best within the bounds of reality.
>Sadly, one team plays to win, the other team wants to be in a democracy.
As a lifelong independent, I can tell you that this sort of thinking is incredibly prevalent and also incredibly wrong. Even a casual look at recent history proves this. How do you define "democracy"? Most of us define it as "the will of the people". Just recently, however, when "the will of the people" has not been the will of the ruling class, the "will of the people" has been decried as dangerous populism (nothing new but something that has re-emerged recently in the so-called Western World). It is our "institutions" they argue, that are actually democracy, and not the will of the foolish people who are ignorant and easily swayed.
>All systems can be bent, broken, or subverted.
Very true, and the history of our nation is proof of that, from the founding right up to the present day.
>Still, we need to make systems which do the best within the bounds of reality.
It would be nice, but that is a long way from how things are, or have ever been (so far).
My impression was that American democracy is supposed to "derive its power from those being governed" (as opposed to being given power by God) and pretty explicitly was designed to actively prevent "the tyranny of the majority", not enable it.
I think it's a misreading to say the government should do whatever the whim of the most vocal, gerrymandered jurisdictions are. Instead, it is a supposed to be a republic with educated, ethical professionals doing the lawmaking within a very rigid structure designed to limit power severely in order to protect individual liberty.
For me, the amount of outright lying, propaganda, blatant corruption, and voter abuse makes a claim like "democracy is the will of the most people who agree" seem misguided at best (and maybe actively deceitful).
Re reading your comment, the straw man about "democracy is actually the institutions" makes me think I may have fallen for a troll so I'm just going to stop here.
>Re reading your comment, the straw man about "democracy is actually the institutions" makes me think I may have fallen for a troll so I'm just going to stop here.
You haven't, so be assured.
>I think it's a misreading to say the government should do whatever the whim of the most vocal, gerrymandered jurisdictions are.
It shouldn't, and I didn't argue that. My argument is that the people in charge have completely disregarded the will of the people en mass for a long time, and that the people are so outraged and desperate that at this point they are willing to vote for anyone who will upend the elite consensus that refuses to change.
>Instead, it is a supposed to be a republic with educated, ethical professionals doing the lawmaking within a very rigid structure designed to limit power severely in order to protect individual liberty.
How is that working out for us? Snowden's revelations were in 2013. An infinite number of blatantly illegal and unconstitutional programs actively being carried out by various government agencies. Who was held to account? Nobody. What was changed? Nothing. Who was in power? The supposedly "good" team that respects democracy. Go watch the conformation hearing of Tulsi Gabbard from this year. Watch Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator denounce Snowden as a traitor and repeatedly demand that she denounce him as well, as a litmus test for whether or not she could be confirmed as DNI (this is not a comment on Gabbard one way or another). My original comment disputed the contention that one party was for democracy and the other party was against it. Go watch that video and tell me that the Democrats support liberty, freedom, democracy and a transparent government. I don't support either of the parties, and this is one of the many reasons why.