Pete Buttigieg Endorses Court Packing

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

[John Dule]

The replies so far in this thread are deeply unsettling.

What the GOP did to Garland was deeply unsettling.

I would accept a compromise where Thomas and Kavanaugh are impeached for their sexual crimes and replaced by Garland and (in the spirit of compromise) another centrist/tilt left judge in his 60s. In fact, we'll be so gracious that we'll let Stolen Seat Neil stay on the bench.

Or we can expand to 11 with two socialists in their 30s. Republicans can choose which one they want, or if they refuse, they get the latter. But Democrats must fight fire with fire before we just let it go.

Packing the court is not the same as what was done to Garland and you know it. There is absolutely no defense for this position. Any elected official who so much as suggests this should be pressured to resign from office. I'm disgusted.

It is the same. I would never, ever post claim something that I "know" to be false, and I'm offended that you would suggest otherwise.

The natural order of things would be for there to now be 5 justices appointed by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Democratic senates previously confirmed Reagan and Bush SC appointees, including in the election year of 1988, so McConnell broke long-established tradition by refusing to even consider a Democratic nominee. He did this for partisan ambition and nothing else. He flipped what would be a D+1 SC to an R+1 SC.

All Buttigieg is proposing is to flip it back to its rightful D+1. Nothing any different than what McConnell did.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

You say "legitimacy."  Others would say "supremacy."

I mean, it's literally called the Supreme Court, so I don't know what you expected.

[John Dule]

I mean, it's literally called the Supreme Court, so I don't know what you expected.

That doesn't address the substance of the concern.  Are you really okay with a small body of people with lifetime appointments, granted their authority through anti-democratic means, arbitrarily declaring which laws shall stand and which shall fall, all with no accountability or recourse?  We rightly disdain this kind of legal system when we observe it in other countries.  We should be equally as outraged that our own politics have grown around this warped system.

The Bill of Rights isn't up for a vote, and I don't want it being decided "democratically." The justices do not rule "arbitrarily," they interpret the law to the best of their abilities based on years of studying and practicing constitutional law. I would support expanding the court to 15 people provided that both sides of the aisle each nominate three justices, because this would make each pivotal vote a little less important. I would also support term limits so that each president would choose two nominees every four years or so. Unilaterally packing the court, however, is what dictators do. As you say, "we rightly disdain this sort of thing when we observe it in other countries," so I'm sorry that I don't want to fill the court with activist progressive justices who explicitly attempt to interpret the constitution to fit their own personal opinions.

So destroying the legitimacy of the highest court in the country is worth it so long as you get what you want. Got it.

The legitimacy of the Court has been on life support since Bush v. Gore. It isn't our job to blithely accept whatever the right dishes out so as not to imperil the institutions they're on an active mission to destroy. If you have a problem with the current state of affairs, you ought to focus your ire on the folks responsible. As it stands now, we've had a appointment stolen from us. Our proposed redress is perfectly constitutional, it just involves the abrogation of a few norms. Norms which are completely meaningless in a context in which the opposition has jettisoned any pretense of civility. Any norms being violated at the Justice Department these days? Whether you recognize it or not, it's incumbent on us to destroy this monster before it metastasizes into something truly abhorrent. And yes, that entails getting our hands dirty.

At least half of the country will never accept this, and another 25% or so will be uncomfortable with it. It is not a good idea to wrench this country apart solely to enact your partisan political agenda. Your language reads like the personal journal of a wannabe authoritarian dictator.

Do you understand why Al Gore chose to step aside in 2000? It's not because "Democrats don't have spines" or "We're not willing to fight hard enough." It's because he understood that democracy requires legitimacy in order to function. He chose to be the bigger man. While the petty and ignorant partisans of the world might've preferred a long, drawn-out, destructive legal battle, we cannot allow the process itself to become any more politicized than it already is.

McConnell destroyed the legitimacy, and I want to make the Supreme Court legitimate again by restoring the rightful D+1 balance.

Only the most ardent party-line Democrats of America will see this as "restoring legitimacy." The rest of the country will see it for what it is-- a power grab that will further erode our democratic norms.

This is how the Roman Republic fell.

[John Dule]

About Al Gore, he should never have stepped aside. He should have fought tooth and nail. I agree with what he did at the time, but in the 18 years since, the Republicans have totally abandoned the spirit of democracy and the Constitution. Sorry, but that's the truth.

One of my principles is that in a healthy society, prosocial behavior is rewarded and antisocial behavior is punished, because that will encourage the former. What reward did Al Gore get for stepping aside? Seeing 1 million people slaughtered because the guy he conceded to exploited a terror attack to start a war on false premises? Where is Al Gore now? Looking in the mirror at his gray hair and beard, perhaps thinking about his last decade and a half of wasted activism over a climate agreement that his country is no longer even a part of. A failed, broken, forgotten man.

No, he should have fought.

How do you define "antisocial behavior" and what do you do to "punish" it? Serious question.

[John Dule]

The Bill of Rights isn't up for a vote, and I don't want it being decided "democratically." The justices do not rule "arbitrarily," they interpret the law to the best of their abilities based on years of studying and practicing constitutional law. I would support expanding the court to 15 people provided that both sides of the aisle each nominate three justices, because this would make each pivotal vote a little less important. I would also support term limits so that each president would choose two nominees every four years or so. Unilaterally packing the court, however, is what dictators do. As you say, "we rightly disdain this sort of thing when we observe it in other countries," so I'm sorry that I don't want to fill the court with activist progressive justices who explicitly attempt to interpret the constitution to fit their own personal opinions.

My God.  You don't actually believe this nonsense, do you?  For the past 25 years, the judiciary has moved increasingly further right and the Supreme Court has tossed out duly enacted legislation, opened the floodgates to public corruption, and undermined substantive democracy.  But people like you are just so committed to this fairy tale of a non-politicized Court that they can't see what's been blindingly obvious to activists on the right for over a generation.

There are elements of a constitution that should not be overridden for any reason. They must be constant and immutable. This includes the Bill of Rights, which is coming under attack from both Republicans and Democrats as of late. I do not want the court charged with protecting these rights to be turned into a partisan arm of either party.

At least half of the country will never accept this and another 25% or so will be uncomfortable with it. It is not a good idea to wrench this country apart solely to enact your partisan political agenda.

F**k 'em. My half of the country doesn't accept the current Republican Court as legitimate, and for good reason. So it looks like someone's gonna be disappointed. Better the degenerate, proto-fascist minority than the decent, respectable majority.

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Impressive mental gymnastics. Wanting to end the illegitimate reign of a racist, authoritarian minority party using perfectly constitutional measures makes me an aspiring autocrat. Sure thing, hombre.

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You're delusional. This is the logic of appeasement. Can't risk another war, so we have to give Hitler Czechoslovakia. I'm sure that will sate his appetite! (Good thing Gore conceded, otherwise we'd have children in cages and Republican presidents praising Nazis.) Plus, if we forcefully oppose Hitler, why, wE'LL bE jUsT aS bAD aS hIM !!! /s.

Thankfully, most of the left is waking up.

I've never liked the whole "love it or leave it" mentality of the right, but honestly at this point, you should probably just move to Europe. It fits your politics much better, and after all, what's the point of living in a country where you loathe half the population this much? Democracy only works when everyone has the interests of the nation at heart; you can't make decisions based on how much it pisses off the people you don't like.

I know it's pointless to ask this, but why are you comparing Trump to Hitler and his followers to Nazis? Is there anything they've actually done, or any policy they've enacted, that warrants such a comparison?