I really do not understand the Supreme Court.

So the other day, the Court makes a landmark decision granting the right to Trump to ban Muslims from coming to America due to national threats. This seems so against the 1st Amendment, but what do I know.

Anyway, the next day, Anthony Kennedy quits.

What the hell is going on here?

I have always thought of the Supreme Court justice position as being the most prestigious. Maybe not the most important, but the most respected. The president always gets lampooned; historically we are very critical of past presidents. The Congress…well shit…..no one likes the Congress. So that leaves us with the Supreme Court; we may not know any of their names, but we think of them as dignified.

Apparently they are more like the other branches than we thought.

First off, Kennedy quitting after a landmark decision is shirking responsibility. Yeah, he says he wants to spend more time with his family (something all coaches and GMs say in sports when they want out, later to always return to the sport. Fuck their family!), but that is a bunch of poo. I mean the guy is like 80, who is exactly his family? His daughter of 55? His grandson of 25? Yeah Tony, real family oriented guy I’m sure. Also, this is handing the reins for Trump to elect some 30 year old nut that the GOP Congress will just let pass because they are a bunch of fuckin’ cowards. Thanks Tony for the help on this.

Secondly, for a bunch of highly educated lawyers/judges, people who have spent their entire lives studying and practicing law, why is there still this great chasm between what is ‘Constitutionally’ right and wrong? What kind of subject is law? Is there anything axiomatic about law, or is everything up for interpretation? I mean how can we still be arguing Roe vs Wade? That was literally like 50 years ago, and yet there are still judges in the wings ready to become a Supreme Court justice ready to shoot it down. And their reason? Some weird reading of the Constitution.

If the Constitution is that nebulous and up for debate, isn’t it time to turn to something else? I’m tired of debating things that are already decided based on what some old people with wigs wrote down 240+ years ago. Should we write science books based on only finding from Isaac Newton? Should all patent law be referenced to the very first laws written on this subject? Don’t times change? And when they change, we have to accept and move forward, not rehashing the past over and over again.

I know what is deemed as right and wrong are ambiguous and hard to enact into law, but how in the world can 9 of the most expert people in the world on these matters can disagree so much? I simply do not believe this is just a function of the hard-to-interpret document of the Constitution. Personal opinions and biases enter into their decisions just as much as if Lionel Hutz was a justice (the Simpsons lawyer played by the late great Phil Hartman). In fact, I would argue that their decision making is as based on personal feelings and biases far more than it is based on some sort of academic interpretation. Unbiased my ass!!!

Just goes to show all three branches are a clown show.