fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2135 ]

[ SECRET POST #2135 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2135 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

__________________________________________________

14.

__________________________________________________

15.

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #305.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - IC secret? ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The worst thing that could happen is that he appoints 2 or 3 young, ideologically-rigid conservatives to the Supreme Court, and gets a pro-life conservative majority that would stay on the Court for the next 15 or 20 years.

Unfortunately, Supreme Court politics, just by themselves, make it kind of difficult to ignore the presidential election. You're definitely right that the power of the President is exaggerated, but it's something that you legitimately have to fear.

the judicial branch is subject to checks and balances too, so even if they had romney's favour, they'd have to get through the legislative branch.

further, romney isn't for criminalising abortion. his issue is with roe v. wade - more specifically, that the judicial branch made such a call. he's in favour of handing power back to the states, which can also go poorly, yes, but it gives states a chance to make their own abortion laws, rather than leaving it up to judicial mandate.

so really, overall i'm not even worried about that. i would if it were some other conservative, perhaps, person depending, since there are many politicians who are far more strict on certain issues. extremism is never good; such passion makes it easy to manipulate our system. but with romney? nah, i really don't think it's an issue he'd be willing to take that far.

In terms of Supreme Court nominees, Romney's position doesn't enter into it. The nature of Supreme Court nominations in the modern era is that any nominee he makes will be a well-vetted, anti-Roe v Wade, ideologically consistent conservative. Or the right-wing elements of the party will go insane (the same way they did when Meiers was nominated). And the nature of the process is that, as long as the candidate is well-vetted and hasn't made any controversial public statements (and the candidate will not have done so) the Congress will put the nomination through. That's the way Supreme Court nominations work - both parties have their shit down with Supreme Court nominees these days. The time when Supreme Court nominees get challenged isn't when they're nominated for the Supreme Court, it's when they're nominated for an appellate court.

If you're cool with overturning Roe v Wade, it's a fine position. I appreciate the logic behind it. I agree with the logic behind it. I just worry about the effects of it, because the de facto effect would be to make abortion illegal in many states.

no i understand what you mean, i'm just saying they'd have one final hurdle if romney really wanted to be a dick about it. plus (in my opinion at least) his position does enter into it at some point because, regardless of his court choices, he also has checks and balances privileges over the judicial branch. so, in the case that he does appoint some crazies, and they do try some ridiculous shit, it'll have to go through him as well as congress. i don't think he's the kind of person to accept any kind of abortion-related mandate from the courts, even if they're in favour of his opinions, which you agreed with (i think??). if his goal is to give that power to the legislative and executive bodies of the states, he'll be more inclined to go with that.

when it comes to congress checking the courts, they have complete impeachment power over judges. i don't think they'd reject an appointment, but if any of the judges tried anything, they'd have to answer to the president and congress. being appointed doesn't give them free reign.

i don't really have an opinion on roe v wade myself, honestly. i have in the past - on both sides of the issue, actually - but overall i think it's okay where it is. i wouldn't necessarily say i'd be "cool" with it being overturned, since it depends on what happens after the fact that really matters to me, but i wouldn't shit a brick house or anything either.

If the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade doesn't bother you, lucky you. For many people it's a terrifying thought, self included despite the fact that I'll probably die an old maid. Just the possibility of not being able to get an abortion if I got pregnant--shudders. I don't want to reproduce, for the potential kid's sake and the sake of the society that would have to deal with them when they were no longer my responsibility.

it's just my position, i know it's a rare one. roe v wade being overturned doesn't criminalise abortion though; again, it depends on what happens afterwards that matters.

ayrt

I think, with regards to judges - it's not that they're going to do anything fundamentally unconstitutional, but rather that they're going to use a philosophy that I think fundamentally wrong-headed and which would have bad effects. And in practice, the legislative branch doesn't exercise any power over the judicial branch except in the sense that it passes laws and it confirms their appointments. Being appointed doesn't technically give the judges free reign, but for all intents and purposes it does, as long as they don't do anything wacky.

we cool tho

and i guess it would be up to the legislative branch to determine what is and isn't "wacky" but again they do have the power to impeach judges. if roe v wade was ever overturned it would be because it was decided that the courts didn't have that kind of reach, so any law that would, in effect, criminalise abortion would by default be just as unconstitutional. if the courts didn't realise that, the legislature would.

Hrm...? No, not really.

if Roe V Wade were overturned, what that would mean is that the courts would decide that US citizens do not have a constitutional right to privacy, or that said constitutional right to privacy does not include abortion. as of now, the reason that no state can ban abortion is because, under the current understanding of the constitution, there's a fundamental individual right that an abortion ban would contravene. Roe v Wade wouldn't be overturned on the grounds that the Supreme Court isn't competent to determine abortion law; it absolutely is competent insofar as abortion law is a constitutional matter. Roe V Wade being overturned would be a decision that there's no constitutional protection for abortion. and that would leave the matter open to legislation from the states or from Congress to ban it.

at least i think so

defining the issue of abortion as one not within the reach of a right to privacy wouldn't criminalise it though, not inherently. what it would do is necessitate the reworking of protective legislation for abortion for each state. roe v wade rendered abortion a legal right on a federal level; for a president to desire that responsibility go to each state is more a reflection on his or her desire to empower states rather than criminalise abortion. to criminalise abortion you'd have to overturn roe v wade and pass new legislation making it inherently illegal, since abortion bans prior to roe v wade are obviously no longer in place.

i'm just saying, romney wasn't aiming to do that during his run. his stance was that he wanted to change the issue of legality from a judicial mandate to a state choice. obviously without the federal law there this would make it easier for state to restrict abortion rights, but if romney was as set out to criminalise it as people are led to believe, giving power to the states is not the route he would take. states already have a lot of power and they do have the right to challenge the federal government's decisions, so that would be a big risk, namely since this could go both ways (states could add more restrictions or enable more freedoms).

in the long run i view romney as someone who is against abortion personally but i think he was doing the right thing by expressing his wish that the issue be left in the hands of the states rather than his administration. it's also clear that he doesn't think the court had the power to make the decision.

so i see what you're saying but by deciding that roe v wade is unconstitutional, an executive would not be saying there is no constitutional right to privacy. that right is already there, under the 14th amendment. instead it would be saying that abortion is not an issue to be included in this definition, and/or that the courts didn't have the kind of reach they were utilising in this case. i'm not implying it's an issue of competency. it's merely an issue of power balance. all an overturning of roe v wade would do is remove abortion from the scope of privacy protection, thereby subjecting it to state law. it wouldn't inherently ban abortion in itself.

Ehhhhhh. I mean, what you're saying is broadly true - the effect of overturning roe v wade would not be immediately to criminalize it inherently. it would be to return the matter to the states. but the effect would be in many cases to criminalize it, since abortion bans would almost immediately be passed in many states - certainly most deep red states. i mean, there's a reason why overturning roe v wade is the focus of the pro-life movement (and hence why supreme court nominations are of supreme importance to that movement) - because as it stands, changing the issue of legality from a constitutional issue to a state choice is the only way forward to ban abortion. it's not a risk, because for one thing, the situation can only get better for the pro-life crowd - states currently have the ability to make abortion less difficult but not more difficult, and overturning Roe would change that. and, almost immediately, much of the country would have abortion banned - and although that would not be the legal effect of overturning roe v wade, it would be the result of doing so, and pro-choice activists want to overturn it for that reason. for all intents and purposes, overturning roe v wade would have the effect of criminalizing abortion in many states.

and although i think there is space for a principled stand on the issue on the ground that it ought to be the domain of the states, and i admire you for seeming to take such a stance and i respect it, almost all people who care about roe v wade do so because they either want to criminalize or avoid the criminalization of abortion. and i think that applies to romney as well, at the very least in the sense that, regardless of his personal beliefs, partisan politics in the United States would require him to nominate a Supreme Court justice who would overturn abortion to palliate his evangelical anti-abortion supporters.

and i just want to say in closing that this has been a really interesting conversation, and thanks for that

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2135 ]

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!

Re: Election!