I get that. Admittedly, what I meant by that was a little different than what you're referencing now or your previous post. I'm going all the way back to the purpose of government and the social contract. With no government people have total freedom, but since everybody else has total freedom people only have as much safety as they can muster by self-defense and in practice have less freedom.

So people establish governments for to protect their rights. By doing so, though, they agree to certain restraints on their behavior: you can't kill your neighbor and take his house, the government can require you to pay taxes, etc. This is what I meant by "some minimal limitations of rights." In that context there are very few people who refuse to accept any limitation of their rights in exchange for living in a society.

Now, what you're talking about is different but I know what you mean. Broadly speaking it's probably true that Americans seem to be more preoccupied with perceived violations of individual rights than many other cultures. To my mind, though, it seems that people should be very concerned about individual rights so I don't view that as a bad thing.


I don't think the Constitution does this, but rather it's been done by the Supreme Court. I won't bog this post down with unnecessary detail, but if you want me to I'll be happy to elaborate, but the Court has essentially elevated speech and the right to bear arms (just in the last 15 years) above the other rights. Those two are absolutely better protected than the others (explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights or not). It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Since you've mentioned free speech in your last couple posts, is that one of the dumber ones? Or do you just mean the right to bear arms? Personally, I think freedom of thought and speech is about as important as it gets.

Thanks for the response above 4/5 - I don't have much more to say on things really. I guess I don't really understand the inner workings of SCOTUS or your Constitution truth be told. Lucky I don't really have to I guess...

Moving on...

OK, so your SCOTUS has agreed to take up the Trump Immunity case and are slow walking it so that it will make it all but impossible to hear the actual case before the election proper commences.

This is even after SCOTUS was specifically asked to expedite the process by Special Agent Smith in the interests of all Americans (and because the case had been heard and appealed and was already a pretty clear slam dunk).

So their decision to take the case and do so in a way that gives Trump more delay that he has been wanting benefits only one single person - Trump.

Is this not a case of total "Fuck the voters" and "All hail Trump" by SCOTUS?

Or am I missing something, because this feels like SCOTUS are fully in his pocket and its laid out for all to see.

They raced through the case to confirm Trump on the Colorado ballot, yet this one gets stuck in molasses? Sounds fair.

The delay also benefits (in their own minds) millions of MAGA voters

I recognize the importance of due diligence when it comes to litigating hard line around presidential authorities. But I also can’t imagine that a majority of legislators or judges on either side of the aisle want to live in a world where presidential immunity is sufficiently broad to excuse disruptions to the base laws of democracy. That becomes a world where the Court’s authority itself is diminished.

So it’s honestly very hard for me to imagine that this is headed towards a successful immunity plea, but I understand the need to consider (and be seen considering) before deciding.

But I also think the decision to hear it is an ominous one, in terms of real world ramifications. I think we are already very possibly headed towards an election that cannot be successfully certified. If the finding is indeed that the President does not have superseding immunity, then I expect that a Court declination to hear the appeal in February would have been a lot less explosive politically than a closely watched decision in early Summer. The gasoline-on-the-fire of a criminal trial conclusion that happens within weeks of an impending election adds a chaotic amount of uncertainty.

And, lastly, I think our options for how to process this moment do sort of run out. Because if a president is not immune to prosecution for these acts, then concluding a trial over whether these particular acts constituted a crime absolutely must be completed before that person has a chance to become president again.

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That’s my opinion, which is less about the law of the matter and more about the ramifications of delaying this critical moment until just before an election in a splintering nation.

I’d love to hear our resident Court watchers’ thoughts and predictions about the case, though.

really makes you think

Court rules against Colorado removing Trump from the ballot.

Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson concur with the judgement, but not the opinion.

They did that pretty quick. Why do they need two months to decide if Trump isn't all-powerful God King?

It was obvious bullshit that Colorado should have been embarrassed to have tried in the first place.

It made a shit ton more sense than Trump's immunity argument.

That's a low bar

I don't know much about his team's argument but in general it's a bad idea to allow elected officials immunity from prosecution over laws that were in place during their terms, President or not.

doesn't his immunity argument allow biden to be able to break a bunch of laws right now? am i missing something?

Sure. If he succeeds, Biden could just kill him before the election, and the first democracy would thusly end.

But it would be legal.

Just imagine what’s going to happen if they validate his immunity claim and then he gets elected.

They’re not gonna uphold that nonsense, either. I think the complaint will be that there won’t be time for a trial before the election.

It's cute that you still have faith in the Supreme Court as good faith actors.

As for the delay, my instinct is that Roberts was begging them to decline the case and let the DC circuit decide it. It’s unfathomable to me that he wants this case. And surely the three liberals don’t want it. It only takes 4 though. Thomas and Scalia for sure. They’d probably vote to end the republic for Trump. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch I’d guess were the other two. Hopefully from a perspective that this is too important to be decided by a circuit court and not from an agreement in presidential immunity.

*Everything I’ve just written is basically a wild guess, but this is my instinct so far.

Seems past time for SCOTUS to revisit this issue, hope something in this vein gets kicked up to the federal courts.