RBG’s dead and Mitch is gonna do it

gorfias

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The american constitution is outdated and taken as gospel by far too many. And it is only made worse by the notion that states should have the right to make laws that are exclusively binding in said states. The US needs a unified set of laws that apply universally. And should probably renew the constitution entirely to fit a modern age and make sure you don't need to be a legal scholar to understand your basic rights.
I don't take it as gospel but as controlling. If it does not control, what does? The opinions of people guaranteed an upper class income for life? Who have graduated from Harvard? We need a new Constitution. There are provisions for Amending the one we have. I'd be very concerned with the process in which we R&R the thing.
 

tstorm823

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I wanna know if a law that says you have to donate blood and tissue to somebody you injure in a no-fault auto accident would be constitutional.
It wouldn't, but that's also not a great analogy in multiple ways. Getting pregnant is typically not a no-fault accident, and the standard of care you're legally required to provide to your children is greater than that of a random stranger.
 

dreng3

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I don't take it as gospel but as controlling. If it does not control, what does? The opinions of people guaranteed an upper class income for life? Who have graduated from Harvard? We need a new Constitution. There are provisions for Amending the one we have. I'd be very concerned with the process in which we R&R the thing.
It was already written by elites shortly after a revolution. That has influenced it a lot, though I'd say usually for the better. The problem is that by now the constitution is a mess of precedence rulings and originalists vs. textualists vs. whatever-the-others-are-called-ists. Besides, a range of the assumptions on how society would function in the constitution are horribly outdated but since the US is almost completely partisan there is no way to actually amend the damn thing.

Just look at how confused people were over the entire "high crimes and misdemeanours"-thing during the impeachment, the dated phrasing and strange dependency on precedent makes the constitution an almost useless document to the regular citizen beyond a few commonly known parts, most of which are still outdated (looking at you, 2nd amendment).
The citizens of a country should be able to keep themselves informed of the law with relative ease, otherwise we might as well go back to the 17th century where the accused wasn't even involved in the trial process, because why would you include someone who didn't understand (and also because it allowed the judged and those in power to leverage the system to their own benefit).
Furthermore the opaque nature of the constitution results in people not knowing whether or not justice has actually been done, which undermines the trust in the system, not that there is much left at this point.
 
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Trunkage

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Who makes a "right" a "right".
Usually one that someone else has but others don't. Like the ERA should not need to be a thing. You shouldn't need to be told that shooting a gay guy and get free of murder charges breaks rights. Or the laws that only men can rape. Or after many decades of 'equality', you still had to make laws that stopped wives being property.

Whatever rights white men had generally should apply to every (with the proviso that sometimes the laws favoured white women so pick that instead.)
 

TheMysteriousGX

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It wouldn't, but that's also not a great analogy in multiple ways. Getting pregnant is typically not a no-fault accident, and the standard of care you're legally required to provide to your children is greater than that of a random stranger.
Driving a car is fun. People do it as recreation. Occasionally, one of the side effects of driving a car is that random people get hurt.

So...what part of the Constitution prohibits the government from forcing people to donate blood, tissue, and organs to people that get injured in automobile accidents?
 

TheMysteriousGX

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A wife can tell her husband: "I know we are married. There used to be all sorts of rights and duties involved with voluntarily engaging in such a relationship. Still I am to have your child in a few days. The child is viable and healthy. But for whatever reason whatsoever I'm going to have the baby killed." That the law, as written, has always intended that this unilateral decision can be made? I think our experiences have told us this is a hard sell.
I mean, if that ridiculous straw man situation actually happened, you could make a pretty solid argument that said woman is mentally unfit to have a child.
Should the government force said woman to have that child on her own expense? Is that a constitutional law? Or would that be an unreasonable seizure of her person? Is it a reasonable punishment as defined by the 8th? Would it be considered involuntary servitude to the fetus, thus violating the 13th?
 

TheMysteriousGX

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To the point: these are the considerations a Supreme Court Justice needs to actually debate. Having a religious ideologue jump in with a "because I say so" is going to detonate the court
 

gorfias

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Usually one that someone else has but others don't. Like the ERA should not need to be a thing. You shouldn't need to be told that shooting a gay guy and get free of murder charges breaks rights. Or the laws that only men can rape. Or after many decades of 'equality', you still had to make laws that stopped wives being property.

Whatever rights white men had generally should apply to every (with the proviso that sometimes the laws favoured white women so pick that instead.)
I don't know what that means. I'm not certain you do either. Who decides? Voters? White men make up something like 30-35% of the population. Never mind that they are more likely to have felonies that disallow them from voting than do women. They're a minority. Do voters, through their representatives, enact laws they think make for a more just society? Or do we let people with guaranteed upper class salary for life who come from an elite background, graduating from Harvard University, unilaterally make those decisions? People that are not your family or neighbors and have biases that make them nothing like you?

I mean, if that ridiculous straw man situation actually happened, you could make a pretty solid argument that said woman is mentally unfit to have a child.
Should the government force said woman to have that child on her own expense? Is that a constitutional law? Or would that be an unreasonable seizure of her person? Is it a reasonable punishment as defined by the 8th? Would it be considered involuntary servitude to the fetus, thus violating the 13th?
Is it a ridiculous straw man situation? Would a similar situation be dramatized in the show, "Grey's Anatomy" if it were that unheard of? (OK, Yang isn't on the verge of birth but it costs her her marriage when she makes this unilateral decision). Would a regulation at least requiring she notice her husband that she is getting the abortion be Constitutional? Who decides?
 

tstorm823

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Driving a car is fun. People do it as recreation. Occasionally, one of the side effects of driving a car is that random people get hurt.

So...what part of the Constitution prohibits the government from forcing people to donate blood, tissue, and organs to people that get injured in automobile accidents?
Like, you're still not trying to make a good analogy. If you were driving the car, and your own child got mortally wounded and could only survive with an immediate blood transfusion, and you're the only match available to save them, and you decline to keep them alive just because it's your blood and your decision, should the supreme court tell states that they explicitly are not allowed to have a law against that decision?
 

Trunkage

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I don't know what that means. I'm not certain you do either. Who decides? Voters? White men make up something like 30-35% of the population. Never mind that they are more likely to have felonies that disallow them from voting than do women. They're a minority. Do voters, through their representatives, enact laws they think make for a more just society? Or do we let people with guaranteed upper class salary for life who come from an elite background, graduating from Harvard University, unilaterally make those decisions? People that are not your family or neighbors and have biases that make them nothing like you?
Nobody has ever been family or neighbors of me and been in power to make decisions. I'm pretty sure thar true for most people. What you're worried about is just reality. Get used to it.

Who decides that the 'I'm freaking out because you're gay and that means I get a free murder' is a bad law? I dont know man. It's so hard to figure out /s.

Or IDK maybe we could have the standard that everyone gets treated the same. So unless there was a law that lets me freak out over you being heterosexual and that means I can murder you, it's not remotely the same.
 

Trunkage

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Like, you're still not trying to make a good analogy. If you were driving the car, and your own child got mortally wounded and could only survive with an immediate blood transfusion, and you're the only match available to save them, and you decline to keep them alive just because it's your blood and your decision, should the supreme court tell states that they explicitly are not allowed to have a law against that decision?
I'd be fine with them being charged with child endangerment.... maybe negligent homicide
 
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happyninja42

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I'd be fine with them being charged with child endangerment.... maybe negligent homicide
Those would, or SHOULD only apply if the driver actually did something wrong. If you are saying that I should be charged because I was in an accident (the fault wasn't actually specified in this example), that wasn't my fault, and I refuse to give a donation of blood (not sure why a parent would refuse, unless it meant they would die themselves?), that I'm now charged with homicide/endangerment, sorry but I consider that a pretty fucked up situation.
 

gorfias

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Nobody has ever been family or neighbors of me and been in power to make decisions. I'm pretty sure thar true for most people. What you're worried about is just reality. Get used to it.

Who decides that the 'I'm freaking out because you're gay and that means I get a free murder' is a bad law? I dont know man. It's so hard to figure out /s.

Or IDK maybe we could have the standard that everyone gets treated the same. So unless there was a law that lets me freak out over you being heterosexual and that means I can murder you, it's not remotely the same.
Everyone that has the voting franchise has the power to make decisions. Which decisions govern? Which one would you want governing? Those of the voters or those of the USSC (if they cannot make the case that they are actually ruling by the intention of the law).
 

Trunkage

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Those would, or SHOULD only apply if the driver actually did something wrong. If you are saying that I should be charged because I was in an accident (the fault wasn't actually specified in this example), that wasn't my fault, and I refuse to give a donation of blood (not sure why a parent would refuse, unless it meant they would die themselves?), that I'm now charged with homicide/endangerment, sorry but I consider that a pretty fucked up situation.
Your job as parent is looking after your child. I dont know if refusing a blood donation would legally not fall under something. But I sure hope that any parent who doesnt get charged gets the most cancelled.

I work with parents all the time. There are the parents out there who'd probably refuse, but I'm just guessing... based on their parent styles. Thinking about the child they made is not a priority. And I'm not just talking about the typical absent dad stereotype. There are plenty of dads that are the better parent.

Edit: This is separate from the responsibility of who caused the car crash. I'm just talking about blood donations. Failure to look after children under your care is chargeable.... and probably the reason why we have helicopter parents today.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Like, you're still not trying to make a good analogy. If you were driving the car, and your own child got mortally wounded and could only survive with an immediate blood transfusion, and you're the only match available to save them, and you decline to keep them alive just because it's your blood and your decision, should the supreme court tell states that they explicitly are not allowed to have a law against that decision?
I mean, I'd say yes, given there's a vast expense and a decent risk of death in doing so. Add to the fact that it might not be your kid, the person who got injured might be missing half their skull to begin with, the person might be already literally dead, etc, etc, etc. (Seriously, Christian supremacists want to ban abortion even for things like ectopic pregnancy, a thing which will only grievously harm the person having one and will never result in a viable offspring. That's what we're looking at here)

AND FOR THAT MATTER, WE GRANT CORPSES THAT LEVEL OF BODILY AUTONOMY, WHICH IS FUCKED UP THAT WE DON'T GIVE PREGNANT PEOPLE THE SAME LEVEL OF AUTONOMY AS A LITERAL DEAD PERSON

The law is a blunt instrument. I'm already granting the Christian Supremacists their argument that a fetus is a person and not just a fertilized egg. It's hilarious to me how the party of small government wants to force people to undertake massive personal expenses, permanent physical changes, and no small risk of injury and death to birth something that the party of small government doesn't want to help take care of.
Is it a ridiculous straw man situation? Would a similar situation be dramatized in the show, "Grey's Anatomy" if it were that unheard of? (OK, Yang isn't on the verge of birth but it costs her her marriage when she makes this unilateral decision). Would a regulation at least requiring she notice her husband that she is getting the abortion be Constitutional? Who decides?
Fucking Grey's Anatomy is your basis for a Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade, are you shitting me? Not even a real Grey's Anatomy episode, but a significantly bastardized one that only exists in your own head?
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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And because this is a Supreme Court thread: when does a person become a person? To answer this, you cannot use a theological argument, as there many theologies to argue from and the First Amendment says you cannot establish a government religion.
If that entity is placed within you involuntarily, either through accident or assault, and that entity is a person, would forcing somebody to donate blood and tissue to it, to undergo permanent changes for it, to pay vast amounts of money for it, to drastically change your own life around it, and to ultimately risk death in service to it, would that be involuntary servitude to it that is not punishment for a crime? (13th amendment)
 

Dirty Hipsters

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And because this is a Supreme Court thread: when does a person become a person?
I personally think that a person becomes a person at the point where they can survive outside of the womb. Prior to that they are only a potential person. Once a fetus can viably be removed from its mother without killing it then it should have all the rights of a person. Before that might it might as well be a blob of lunch meat.
 
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gorfias

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I mean, I'd say yes, given there's a vast expense and a decent risk of death in doing so. Add to the fact that it might not be your kid, the person who got injured might be missing half their skull to begin with, the person might be already literally dead, etc, etc, etc. (Seriously, Christian supremacists want to ban abortion even for things like ectopic pregnancy, a thing which will only grievously harm the person having one and will never result in a viable offspring. That's what we're looking at here)

AND FOR THAT MATTER, WE GRANT CORPSES THAT LEVEL OF BODILY AUTONOMY, WHICH IS FUCKED UP THAT WE DON'T GIVE PREGNANT PEOPLE THE SAME LEVEL OF AUTONOMY AS A LITERAL DEAD PERSON

The law is a blunt instrument. I'm already granting the Christian Supremacists their argument that a fetus is a person and not just a fertilized egg. It's hilarious to me how the party of small government wants to force people to undertake massive personal expenses, permanent physical changes, and no small risk of injury and death to birth something that the party of small government doesn't want to help take care of.

Fucking Grey's Anatomy is your basis for a Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade, are you shitting me? Not even a real Grey's Anatomy episode, but a significantly bastardized one that only exists in your own head?
So, are you writing that drama is in no way important? It never reflects real issues in real life? Art never imitates life? No. I don't buy that. But I was referring to a popular show so that we might have a common frame of reference.
Here is the top link from a search I did. It appears to be pro choice. It still notes in the US some 15% of abortions are done on married women. https://thefrisky.com/study-finds-married-women-have-more-abortions-than-anyone-else/
Again I ask: would it be unconstitutional to require married women to inform their husbands that they are getting an abortion?