[News] The Supreme Court is about to NERF Unions

So unions have to argue for benefits for everyone but a bunch of conservative freeloaders can get all the benefits and pay for none of it? That sounds like a racket, and only a conservative would call that justice.

[Cons] Article 3, Section 1 (1 of 10) Actual Breakdown of the Text, General Thoughts

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

It is evidently clear from the creation of the document, both in the size of the article and the flexibility of interpretation, that of the three major branches, the authors of the constitution gave the least thought to the Supreme Court or to the law in general.  Why would they?  American Courts worked perfectly well in their eyes, and the English legal system was 'the envy of the world.'  While America had revolted against Monarchy and Kings, thus necessitating a new experiment in legislative and executive activities, courts were just, you know...COURTS.  Everyone knew how they worked.  They knew they wanted a supreme court that could decide federal cases, and they knew that it was a good idea to have lesser courts under that.

And they basically said, "Hey congress, you guys just handle this mess, OK?"  They put a few safeguards in that seemed obvious at the time, such as not being able to suddenly state that a judge was earning nothing so congress could destroy their lives, but that's about it really.  Nothing about how many people there were in the court, not about how many courts they should be, and that's about it.

In the other two articles (which I'll address later) they specified which cases were to go to the court, how they were supposed to be tried, and that political cases were specifically in the hands of the legislature...and they defined treason.  That's it.   

So is it any wonder then that our system is so messed up?  The amendment process does add some more guidelines, especially in the Bill of Rights.  At the time, many people thought we didn't need a bill of rights because they didn't want to 'lessen' our rights by defining them.  Can you imagine where we'd be now without it, in this second gilded age?

Due Process would be optional, unless the executive declared it classified and a state secret, oh wait, that was recently declared unconstitutional.  Good luck getting it enforced.  To quote Andrew "I like Genocide" Jackson, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" This is a serious problem in our court system as well.

But as I mentioned in the intro to this article, American justice is a farce.  So aside from the vast amounts of what is NOT written into Article III about how courts should work, is there anything wrong with what IS there?  Not really.  The court is very ill defined, so checks and balances against it are slim at best.  The court, thanks to English Common Law (enshrined into our constitution in the little known 7th amendment), has a tradition of doing things a certain way.  Why do people obey the court? In part because federal judges have tremendous power given them by congress by statute and also by tradition, but in part it is largely because people simply recognize the court as being the final arbiter of these kinds of decisions.

But even that has had to be taken by the court.  Marbury V Madison, in which the court basically said that it had the right to interpret the constitution is even now contested by psychopathic conservatives.  If it isn't written in the document, it isn't acceptable to them.  And really, who am I to disagree? Our courts require lofty standards of documentation and legalisms, which in turn require lofty standards of regulation and arguments, but is it viewed as fair?

The vast majority of the population do not believe so.  So if the court isn't viewed as fair, why do we put up with it? Partly inertia, and partly because we view the alternatives as far worse.  But as I have mentioned earlier, just because 'democracy is the worst form of government except all the others' doesn't mean you don't examine other methods.  Just because Article V strikes terror into the hearts of many for what it could do doesn't mean we timidly fail to explore an alternative to what is clearly a fundamentally unfair and utterly broken process.

And I aim to do just that.

[Cons] Article III, Section 0 - Not Justice

Before I start with Sections, I want to explain why I'm doing Article III before Article II.  Article II is about the executive, but the majority of the abuses by the executive, except some of the more recent and blatant abuses of power, Are taking place because of the very nature of our laws.  Look, remember that civilization is an illusion, and such one of the most important things that Government can do is maintain that illusion through the belief that there is Justice in the courts.

Yet no one really believes that, especially about the justice department of the American government.  The lists of abuses are endless, but I'll cite some of them here.

• Dozens, perhaps hundreds of innocent men killed by bloodthirsty out of control prosecutors.
• Failure to prosecute Wall Street Bankers who stole trillions from America because they are 'Too Big to Jail.'
• The National Director of Intelligence LIED to congress, committed Perjury and has yet to be prosecuted despite claims that they are 'looking into it.'
• George W. Bush, war criminal and advocate for torture, has not been held to account by the Holder Justice department.
• Federal raids on peaceful medical marijuana dispensaries in direct contravention to the 10th amendment to the constitution AND their own given word.
• Recurring prosecution of whistle blowers trying to expose the festering rotten corruption in the US government whilst allowing other evils to flourish.  Attacking our own immune system of truth.
• A Supreme Court that has said that Imminent Domain can be used for the rich, that Corporations are people, that money is speech (and thus the rich are entitled to more rights than the rest of us), and so many, many, many abusive decisions in favor of insane police privilege. 
• Failure to prosecute the police who destroyed peaceful Occupy Protesters in a massive federally coordinated attack.  In fact, one of them was even given a fat check for 'trauma' he suffered from complaints filed against him.
• Minorities are singled out by law enforcement, not given proper representation, and executed at far higher rates.
• You have to be rich or go into debt or find a lawyer that likes you to take on the rich and powerful in the courts of justice.
• Your public defender is under paid, over worked and is likely working to make you plea for a bargain even if you did nothing wrong.
• Your prosecutor is looking out for their own career prospects in most cases, rather than than whether or not you are guilty if you happen to be the one the police pin it on.
• For profit private prisons rake in the money, in some cases bribing judges to set up little factories to send them prisoners. In other cases pressuring law makers to make tough crime penalties to get more prisoners for rural counties to increase their political clout.

The list goes on and on and on and on.  But one of the root causes of the problems, aside from lying sociopathic conservatives and libertarians, is the moderates who buy into the 'abusive government regulation' schtick the sociopaths spin, BECAUSE IT IS TRUE.  And why is our government filled with abusive regulations?

In large part because it must.  Our justice system uses English Common Law, which states that a prior judgement takes priority until a judge changes it in a new case.  The idea of a jury of one's peers is at the heart of American justice.

But lawyers get to lie to juries with half truths.  Judges lie to juries.  Juries are just little pairs of eyes, carefully selected for their stupidity.

In the adversarial system, the Prosecutor is supposed to represent Justice (ie US), the defending lawyer their client and the judge (US) or at most Justice.

Does anyone REALLY REALLY believe that these people represent us?  The thing is, when you meet a conservative face to face, they seem like nice people.  It is easy to forget that they believe things that will kill all life on earth, and that may very likely threaten the freedom of your children.  Abstractly, perhaps, you may be aware that conservatives are liars, but when you see someone's face, are you likely to call them a liar?

Hell, I'll admit I'm not.  I might believe my friends are liars when they are speaking AS a conservative, but I don't want to call them liars.  No one does.

So of course a prospective Jury, sitting in a box, being asked questions by a defense attorney or a prosecutor doesn't want to think that the entire thing is a farce, that the judge may be insane or abusive and totally unaccountable for their actions, that the prosecutor may have been hiding evidence from everyone and will NEVER be held accountable for it, and that the defense is trying every trick in the book to help their client, but that may involve taking a shady crooked deal for less time even though they are TOTALLY INNOCENT?!

The regulatory weight of our schools, our governments and our regulatory agencies are in large part based upon this system that carries greater and greater weight as the centuries pass, property law from the time when people thought people could be property echoes down upon us like a ton of bricks.  Laws passed by useless legislatures and regulations must withstand the connivance of corporate lawyers seeking to game the system to make a quick buck.

It cannot continue like this.

And before we speak of enforcing laws, we must discuss fixing the system that tries them.