To save the US economy - Republicans turn to a tribunus plebis??!

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I think very soon, we should officially have a funeral for all discussion of whether the 2000 election was stolen or not. As far as I'm concerned, it's ancient history. I'll make the mashed potatoes.

 

If the supreme court didn't allow the recount, then it must have been the "right decision" and the election must have been clean. The Supreme court should not be political...

And for those six years were there not bigger concerns? Like a couple wars? An endless stream of attacks on the Republicans? And if the Democrats didn't agree that there was a problem with their program, wouldn't they fight any attempts to scrap or change it? It was the Democrats that dug the hole, and why should the American people trust them to dig their way out of it?

 

Of course it shouldn't, but it often is. It is also possible for the SC to be wrong. I don't think it was wrong regarding the 2000, but I do think it was wrong in Roe vs. Wade. Others reverse those opinions. The SC should be respected, of course, but that respect shouldn't extend to virtual worship of the institution or an assertion of it's infallibility.

I'd say that the blame for the current mess is liberal rejection of common sense coupled with conservative rejection of common sense. Let me explain:

Here in Alberta, human rights activists sometimes go after evil, greedy landlords, saying that "these landlords should not refuse to rent apartments to people just because those people can't pay." WTF? I mean really, WTF kind of logic is that? If someone can't pay, you don't give them the service or product. Otherwise you go out of business. Duh.

I'm betting that similar bleeding heart liberal thought patterns influenced the giving of loans to all and sundry, and then shocked surprise when a good many of them couldn't pay. Well, no poop, Sherlock, you give a $200,000 loan to someone who barely clears $1,000 / month you're not likely to get your money back.

Then the conservatives get on their high horse about the evils of regulation. IMHO regulating should be what governments do -- they should regulate food industries to ensure we don't have listeriosis outbreaks or Mad Cow incidents. They should regulate workplaces to make sure that workers are safe. They should regulate banks and businesses to make sure usury is not committed AND that the banks and businesses aren't lying through their teeth. etc etc.

By deregulating, conservatives of all stripes opened a door for this tiger to charge in.

Both blind ideologues deserve to be punished for their lack of common sense and vision.

 

I'm a little confused. Are you actually saying that if the Supreme Court stopped Florida from performing a re-count, then the election was clean? If this isn't what you are saying, please clarify. If this is your point, what logical basis do you have for this argument? It is agreed that the Supreme Court shouldn't be political, but I don't think I'll be the only one crying "shenanigans" if you insist that it isn't. The Supreme Court can - and has - made politically motivated decisions. The Supreme Court can - and has - made incorrect decisions. Any argument that assumes that the Supreme Court doesn't make incorrect or politically motivated decisions is severely flawed.

The legislation laid at Clinton's feet was written and passed by an overwhelmingly republican congress. To then argue that it was the Democrats who dug this hole is more than a little silly. You are arguing that, because Bill Clinton failed to veto legislation that was written and passed by an overwhelmingly Republican congress, the democrats are at fault. How dare Bill Clinton sign a bill handed to him by a Republican congress! Didn't he know that the Republicans in congress actually wanted him to veto the bill they sent him?

 

Are you serious? Or are you being ironic? By your tone, you sound ironic. Nevertheless, they over-turned the Florida Supreme Court's decision, which was to allow the recount. Are you saying the courts in Florida can't manage their own election?

Here, let me follow your same line of reasoning: "Gee, if that's what the Demcrats decided, then it must be the right decision."

Those are not "bigger concerns" than what we have now. Besides, if that's the excuse, then maybe the Republicans should not have started "wars" that would somehow (by your reasoning) cause them to turn completely incompetent in managing the domestic affairs of the American people. Also, really, that's not much of a reason. Although if you could explain how the "wars" indirectly led to the economic meltdown, that would be interesting.

 

Well, I agree with most of your post, Chandos, but Rags earlier mentioned that the huge amount of money these wars cost can't have been good for the economy.

But it is also true that it was the Reps who started the war, so they can't use it as a valid excuse for being "otherwise occupied" while the economy melted down.

 

So if I understand correctly, then the Supreme Court is a bunch of crack addicted, mentally challenged monkeys, the executive and legislative branches are stocked with five year olds that are throwing blame at each other because they don't want to admit to the mess the economy is in, and the candidates in the election are doing the same bloody thing?

By the time this is over, the 30's will look like the 20's...

 

No. It is merely a bunch of imperfect humans that, aren't always as impartial as they are supposed to be, don't always have the purest of motives, and even when they are as impartial as they are supposed to be and have the purest of motives, they sometimes make mistakes. You know, just like every other human being on the face of the earth.

Who, pray tell, has refused to admit the mess the economy is in? McCain made an unfortunate error in judgment when he argued that the fundamentals of the economy were strong within hours of the market tanking, but he certainly doesn't think that now, and I haven't heard anyone, Republican or Democrat, honestly argue that our economy is in good shape since then.

 

You want to know what I blame fr all this? Remember this, it may change your life. I blame the debt-based economic system we (and most economies in the world) use today. It wasn't always this way, you know. There was a time when you were actually expected to have the money to pay your employees yourself, and not have to borrow from someone else to do it. The economy used to be based on the idea that you have enough money for the next X months in savings, but now it's based on the idea that you can have that 'money' in credit, borrow it, and then assume you'll earn that much profit durring those next x months. The moment current spendings started to be based off of projected profit, we started walking down a very dark, very dangerous slope. One that has random cliffs every so often, usually with sharp, pointy things at the bottom.

 

It has been going that way since we went from the gold standard to the fiat currency standard.
Just in case you don't understand what that means : "it relates to types of currency or money whose usefulness results, not from any intrinsic value or guarantee that it can be converted into gold or another currency, but instead from a government's order (fiat) that it must be accepted as a means of payment" (wiki)

This means that the money is backed by nothing more than the word of the government. Boy, doesn't that just feel you with a sense of well-being.

 

I wish all branches of the government operated with the same level of scrutiny and accountability as the US Supreme Court. There have been many times I wanted the US Supreme Court to rule differently -- most of those are for personal reasons. In those cases I find myself agreeing with the dissenting side.

In my opinion, "incorrect" is a matter of opinion. The US Supreme Court interprets the Constitution and clarifies laws on the basis of the Constitution. Nobody will agree 100% with their rulings because we all have our own biases (just as they do). But I've never felt the US Supreme Court misinterpreted the Constitution in their rulings. The only true "incorrect" ruling is one that goes against the Constitution.

 

T2, sometimes the court just plain makes the wrong decision. In 1944, when the courts chose to uphold the forcible relocation and internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans* to "War Relocation Camps", they made the wrong decision. When the Supreme Court ruled that people of African descent and their descendants—whether or not they were slaves—could never be citizens of the United States, they made the wrong decision. When the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation - even in public accommodations (particularly railroads) - was constitutional, they made the wrong decision.

* 62% of those held were American citizens.

 

Of coruse this is allways the case. Even with the gold standard and back in the days when dollars were convertable to gold it relied on the government to be actually willing or able to make such a conversion. Which it of course at the end was not.

No but then neither was the economic growth. If you wish to keep the economy stable the best way to achieve that is to stagnate it. In reality credit is necessary for the financial system today and for investments to work efficently. If credit was not used for corporate or individual investments it would basically any possibility for reasonable growth.

 

Look, there was a lot of cheap, available credit in the market. The emerging Asain markets fed tons of money into the US economy. People were using that credit to buy-up houses and real estate, many of them for investments.
The thing is, people were investing in real estate that was expensive, in many instances, much more than they could afford.

That worked great as long as the value of houses went up and there was a market to sell them, which is what people have been doing for years. In fact, a lot of homeowners bought more house than they could afford, but they figured they would live there for a year, scrape by, and then sell it, often for a small profit. In places like Cali, Florida and Nevada, where the hot housing market was, many professional investors jumped in at the wrong time. These investment loans were passed around (bought or sold off) as investments to other companies. Believe me, investments in home loans were hot. We all know the end of the story: The housing market, especially in those parts of the country, burst.

The bottom line? There was no accountability in the system these guys were operating under - there was little regulation, oversite, or even basic standards for loaning out inverstment money. That part of it belongs to both Wall Street and the government. Really, most of what the government (both Republicans and Democrats) did was what the investors wanted: A self-regulated market. See how well that worked?

 

Drew, when looking at rulings of any judicial system a historic perspective must be used. Using standards of today, those were wrong decisions. When viewed using the standards and ethics as they existed at that time the US Supreme Court did not violate the Constitution.

 

Not really. Brown vs The Board of Education didn't reverse Plessy vs Ferguson because the Constitution changed. In 1944, the constitution rather explicitly didn't allow the government to imprison someone solely on the basis of his race. In 1857, there was nothing in the constitution that said even free blacks were not citizens (and therefore not allowed to, among other things, sue). All three of these decisions perfectly fit your criteria for a "wrong" decision on the part of the Supreme Court, since they all violated the constitution at the time they were reached.

 

The perspective changed -- and in some cases the Constitution changed as well.

In 1857 most states did not view blacks as citizens. The Constitution did not define citizenship until 1868. Before 1868, it was the state's definition of citizenship that was used in courts -- the US Supreme Court could not define citizenship on its own.

The US Supreme Court had four rulings on the internment: two upheld the curfews, one upheld exclusion zones, the last case the court accepted a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and paved the way for many detainees to be released. Those first three cases are addressed in many places;to quote the over used wiki:

I think a key comment there is "had it been known at the time."

Plessy v Ferguson upheld the doctrine of 'separate but equal' -- so long as a service was available for one race, it should be available for all races. Realize states were given total authority in all areas not explicitly defined by the Constitution and Amendments, so passing such a doctrine was well within a state's rights. So long as the services provided were truly equal, the doctrine was a valid way to uphold Art XIII and XIV.

By the time of Brown the doctrine of 'separate but equal' was proven to be false -- there was no equal, only separate. It was obvious the doctrine failed to uphold the Articles of the Constitution and the courts acted appropriately.

Your examples do not show to me the US Supreme Court -- even in infamous cases -- ruled against the Constitution. In fact, in two of the instances there appeared to be deception on the part of the state and federal government to keep the Supreme Court in the dark and thereby influence the ruling.

 

Martaug, the two may have coincided, but I don't see how they are related. So what if the government backs my money instead of gold? How does that effect how I use it and see debt?

Morgoroth, I see your point, and had concidered it, but there's a difference between stagnation and slower growth. What I'm talking about is a system that minimizes risk, while also reducing growth. Slow and steady, in other words. The current system maximizes growth, but also maximizes risk. Sure, it looks impressive, but it's an inherrantly unstable system. This is what caused things like this crash and the Great Depression of the '30s (and more than a few other market ups and downs). Investments work in both systems because the systems don't have to be entirely based on investments. Likewise, both credit and savings exist in both systems because the existance of one does not mean the entire system is based on it.

 

I don't know, T2. Given the way African Americans were treated back in 1896, I have a hard time believing that, at the time of Plessy vs Ferguson, the judges actually believed that "separate" was "equal" (or that they particularly cared, either, for that matter).

We may have been at war, but we were experiencing neither rebellion nor invasion at the time of this decision. Japan may have bombed pearl harbor, but they never mounted an invasion.

Point taken on the Dred Scott case, with the exception that I still feel that the decision was wrong - both morally and ethically - and that the decision went against both the letter (from a literal standpoint) and the Spirit of our Constitution.

 

Drew: The Japanese attacked Hawaii and invaded the Phillipines and Guam all on the same day. These were considered to be territories of the US. As such, the US was invaded (granted, it is a loose interpretation of invasion).

What the Justices believe is very different from what is presented to them in evidence. From what I've read, the Justices were shown examples of 'separate but equal' that were really equal -- albeit very few examples.

I do agree with you -- I don't like the decisions either. But then, we live in a different time, with different values and ethics.