volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
So?
Correct decisions benefit a lot of people, and that has absolutely nothing to do with their correctness.
It's such a stretch to try to say that simply because this guy indirectly benefited, therefore let's ignore all of the checks and balances and protections and systems of governance surrounding the place of the Supreme Court in the US system of government, and just draw the sensationalized, politically spun drama into the center of it all.
It's really naive.
I appreciate that as I criticize people for promoting the reality TV nonsense instead of actually looking at the substance of Thomas's work, you reply with more reality TV nonsense.
Really captures the state of affairs there, and why it's so easy to dismiss these accusations as hollow.
Because this is a rush to judgment based on a factually screwy narrative put out by an organization with a history of sensationalized reporting that gets debunked farther down the line.
That's hardly a good basis on which to threaten judicial independence.
I honestly don't care what Thomas did in his personal life. I only care about what he did in the job that he was hired to do, and there's amazingly little actual criticism of his work in office.
This isn't a legislator. He doesn't get to just vote yes or no, subject to bribery. His opinions are published and only count to the extent that they are logically coherent and factually correct.
So yeah, not only do I think these accusations are generally false, but it wouldn't even matter if they were true, because that's not the role Thomas plays in the US system of government.
You say experts, but that overlooks that these are political agencies, so it is really letting politicians in the executive branch interpret the laws outside of the democratic process in the legislative branch.
That's a very important thing to keep in mind when talking about this deference, and it's a huge reason to be skeptical of it.
It's funny to see a statement that the Thomases offer an example of malfeasance when I'm still waiting for anybody to offer an actual example of the Thomases committing malfeasance with regard to their actual jobs.
It's amazing that with all of the sensationalist headlines, the thing I never ever see is an actual reference to a place where the actual decision of Thomas was wrong. That is the job of the Supreme Court, to issue opinions, but no one ever actually talks about places where the opinions were actually wrong.
It's all this reality TV drama that just distracts from anything that could be seen as actual malfeasance.
But it doesn't matter. No matter how reasonable or unreasonable the Supreme Court may be, they just don't have the authority to order around the Treasury as that exists in the executive branch.
There would be no constitutional crisis. The order lacking authority would simply go in the trash can, and that would be that.
It's pretty simple. The Constitution says that the president can't borrow without permission of Congress, and that law was an example of Congress giving permission.
This is just enacting the clear text of the Constitution.
I mean you can say there are no checks and balances until your face goes blue, but it cannot change the fact that there are checks and balances.
You are spouting conspiracy theories here. And it does no good.
There are so many reasons that is a stupid thing to say.
Bought a Supreme Court Justice? As if that makes any sense at all, one of many justices, with the checks and balances in place already to make sure that no justice can be bought and impact the rest of the legal system? Not to mention the role of the judicial branch in the US system of government?
No. That doesn't make any sense at all. It is idiotic to even suggest such a thing, and I'm not mincing words here because, seriously, that is an idiotic thing to say.
That conspiracy theory makes no sense considering the design of the US government, and anybody who believes such a thing does not know how the US government functions.
And I'm just sad for you that you would buy into such a idiotic theory.
Oooh! Sounds like you're spinning up quite the conspiracy theory! Do keep us apprised as you write your plotline!
No, we need to be calling out all of these sensationalist clickbait stories that just don't really make much sense.
My taskmaster is my own idea that we should probably call out all of this moronic reporting.
It's not about trust. It's about passing actual legislation. It's ridiculous to talk about trust in this sort of situation, it's about what will and will not be passed by the people's representatives in our democratic process.
I mean in a way he clearly did as he passed a budget that didn't have funding, that wanted to spend a lot more money than the Treasury would have.
That's the whole reason we're in this mess.
And that sounds very literally like a miscalculation.
Yeah stonewalling, here the idea that private matters should be private, and the legislature branch should not violate judicial independence at the same time as they want to engage in political grandstanding over private matters.
Really the guy just called out congresspeople for going off the rails.
You're missing that the Constitution also assigns authority to borrow against the credit of the United States to Congress, which is really all the debt limit is, the amount that Congress has so far authorized.
And this is a pretty important authority! Congress should be involved in the issuance of debt since it's about obligating generations of Americans to repaying it. We should at least have the democratic process affirm that the country really does want to take on that debt.
So no, the debt limit is not a manufactured idea that has created an unnecessary stalemate. It is a democratic idea built into the core of the country for really good reasons, and the president needs to get on with paying debts out of the Treasury instead of fighting for more borrowing power.
The debt limit didn't create this stalemate. Political grandstanding did.
Exactly. The 14th says that the debt shall not be questioned, but here we have Biden and other politicians spending months questioning the debt and even threatening not to pay it, and they really need to called out on that.
This is a president explicitly threatening to violate constitutional principle, and no one seems to care.
That's not how that would work, though.
The Supreme Court in the judicial branch can't order the Treasury in the executive branch not to pay debts.
That's really up to the president as head of that branch.
But that's just the checks and balances that the US government was designed around, to make sure no individual or group would be able to amass too much power.
At the end of the day It was always known that it would take pretty serious negative results to force people to seek compromise despite their opposing interests.
If the president wants more power then he has to work with the legislative branch to gain it, and the threats flying back and forth are just part of that political process.
@gwfoto@newsie.social
GOP lawmakers have already voted in favor of the president's request for increased borrowing power, though.
Not to mention, the 14th Amendment doesn't give the president a choice. It's not that he should consider following the Constitution, but that he is required to follow the 14th Amendment. He can't legally turn his back on the Constitution and have the treasury just not pay debts, as he has been threatening for so long.
This whole thing has been made into such a farce.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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