Who should make policy the courts or the legislators?

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:22 am

Given what Ms Sotomayor has said, what do you think? Who should dictate policy? The courts or the Legislators in the congress?

I made a poll with options based on how most here seem to feel about the US in general, feel free to participate...

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:36 pm

There's a fourth option needed. As much as the courts apply the laws made by congress and/or signed by the president, the courts do set precidents, which are law making extensions, which can help define laws set down by congress and/or signed by the president.

Specific court casses are brought up for acceptable uses of applied law. Sometimes, judges can break with precedents, sometimes they follow them. Court case reasoning is the wiggle room to apply the law in situations that weren't expected/thought of at the time the law was made and part of the reason why said reasoning is mentioned.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:44 pm

The Courts are far more potent, notably with precedents. Their power in that sense needs to be counter balanced, even if lawyers, judges and magistrates have a greater "reality of the terrain."

The problems come when the Congress is eaten from within by gangrene and the judges obviously can't put behind them their interests and ideologies.

Perhaps a Citizen Cooperative Organ would be needed in between.

Option 3 is not funny.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:35 pm

It's a very realistic thing to say that courts make policy. Laws are often vague or conflicted.

All three branches of the US government have a role in setting policy; the legislature writes laws, the courts interpret (or, when laws are found unconstitutional, eliminate or reduce in scope), and the executive branch executes. For Ms. Sotomayor to acknowledge that apellate courts set policy is about as uncontroversial as saying that the sun rises in the east. Scalia has said almost exactly the same thing, and legal experts agree.

sonofccn · Post by **sonofccn** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:52 pm

My two cents:Congress makes the rules. The courts primary duty is to ensure it is constitutional. I am not a fan of ruling from the bench as I believe it's called and believe change should come solely from people elected officials not life termed guys, or gals, in black robes.

Edit: The poll is a little lopsided. As much as I no doubt disagree on many issues with the bulk of the populace on political issues none here would deliberately harm American lives.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:12 pm

sonofccn wrote:My two cents:Congress makes the rules. The courts primary duty is to ensure it is constitutional. I am not a fan of ruling from the bench as I believe it's called and believe change should come solely from people elected officials not life termed guys, or gals, in black robes.

Edit: The poll is a little lopsided. As much as I no doubt disagree on many issues with the bulk of the populace on political issues none here would deliberately harm American lives.

Well for the looks of it most would not spit on an American if he or she were on fire which amounts to just about the same thing. But then again most here are Europeans and they have never cared much about anything have they/ I mean when the Axis powers were storming around they rather ignored the problem hoping it would go away and blame others such as the jews etc. Off course that did not work then and is most certainly not going to work now but they stick to that policy like Crazy Glue none the less...

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:08 pm

PunkMaister wrote:Well for the looks of it most would not spit on an American if he or she were on fire which amounts to just about the same thing.

No, they'd throw water, hose them down with a fire extinguisher or throw a blanket around them, assuming they weren't scared out of their minds of catching fire.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:20 pm

GStone wrote:
PunkMaister wrote:Well for the looks of it most would not spit on an American if he or she were on fire which amounts to just about the same thing.
No, they'd throw water, hose them down with a fire extinguisher or throw a blanket around them, assuming they weren't scared out of their minds of catching fire.

Dude is a freaking saying. It means that they do not care period. Just like they did not much care for the Jews for example...

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 12:46 pm

PunkMaister wrote:But then again most here are Europeans and they have never cared much about anything have they/ I mean when the Axis powers were storming around they rather ignored the problem hoping it would go away and blame others such as the jews etc. Off course that did not work then and is most certainly not going to work now but they stick to that policy like Crazy Glue none the less...

Racism was hardly unique to Europe at the time and US was certainly in no hurry to help the jews not to mention involved in it's own eugenics programs. Not surprising considering Americans are mostly Europeans who immigrated in the past 200 years regardless of American insistence they are somehow special and completely dissimilar to Europeans.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:24 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:Racism was hardly unique to Europe at the time and US was certainly in no hurry to help the jews not to mention involved in it's own eugenics programs. Not surprising considering Americans are mostly Europeans who immigrated in the past 200 years regardless of American insistence they are somehow special and completely dissimilar to Europeans.

Really now where is this American Eugenics program that rivals the Nazis and just about everything done in the history of mankind as you claim?

Links please!

I will not doubt be greeted by tons of liberal conspiracy propaganda crap but is still good to ask anyhow...

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:10 pm

I never claimed the eugenics program rivaled Nazi crimes. It was an example of the widespread government sanctioned racism that existed in the US. Not to mention treatment of the black population. The point is that German Nazism was a natural outgrowth of the sentiment prevalent in both North America and Europe at the time not an aberration.
Not to mention that Nazi Germany did not constitute the entirety of Europe. Europeans like Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians lost 20 million lives fighting the Nazis.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:36 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:I never claimed the eugenics program rivaled Nazi crimes. It was an example of the widespread government sanctioned racism that existed in the US. Not to mention treatment of the black population. The point is that German Nazism was a natural outgrowth of the sentiment prevalent in both North America and Europe at the time not an aberration.
Not to mention that Nazi Germany did not constitute the entirety of Europe. Europeans like Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians lost 20 million lives fighting the Nazis.

No, no, no! You mentioned an Eugenics program! There is a huge and I mean huge difference between segregation and actual Eugenics which call for the actual elimination of so called lesser races and you have miserably failed to do so 'cause as I suspected is nothing more than liberal propaganda or more properly pure BS in this case. I still await evidence of the American Eugenics program complete with photos of the death camps that you still allege and I'm going to nag on this until you provide actual proof of such a program or retract your statement that such a thing even existed.

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:29 pm

When did I mention any death camps? The Eugenics program in US was the compulsory sterilization of certain groups as well as anti miscegenation laws.
And the black people weren't merely segregated but treated as cattle for centuries.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:22 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:When did I mention any death camps? The Eugenics program in US was the compulsory sterilization of certain groups as well as anti miscegenation laws.
And the black people weren't merely segregated but treated as cattle for centuries.

Actually the US was hardly the only one implementing such a program and again this programs as untasteful as they might be do not even begin to compare to what Nazi Gernmany did or begun to do. Related articles here and here about my very own Island and it's program back in the day!

Neither of the examples you provided can make a case of the US having a similar program to that of Nazi Germany.

And again I see another brilliant example of Euroliberal bullcrap when you mentioned centuries! The US has only been around 200 years tops if you would have said over a century I would have bought it as it would be correct but centuries? Gimme a break...

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:53 am

PunkMaister wrote:Actually the US was hardly the only one implementing such a program and again this programs as untasteful as they might be do not even begin to compare to what Nazi Gernmany did or begun to do. Related articles here and here about my very own Island and it's program back in the day!

Neither of the examples you provided can make a case of the US having a similar program to that of Nazi Germany.

1. I never claimed the eugenics program had the same scale as those of Nazi Germany only used them as evidence of widespread racism.

2. Nazi Germany is not Europe. You claimed Europe didn't care about Nazism, I showed US didn't either until Pearl Harbor and that other European countries sacrificed far more lives fighting Nazism than US did.

PunkMaister wrote:And again I see another brilliant example of Euroliberal bullcrap when you mentioned centuries! The US has only been around 200 years tops if you would have said over a century I would have bought it as it would be correct but centuries? Gimme a break...

Slavery predates the founding of US and was recorded on the territory of the original colonies as early as 1600s and all the way to 1860. That's 260 years.

Starfleet Jedi

Who should make policy the courts or the legislators?

So which one do you think should dictate policy?

Who should make policy the courts or the legislators?