News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare by johnnyanmac on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @02:15AM (#31245263)
>You just had to listen and watch what they were doing for the past 20 years.

in all fairness, that is prime conspiracy narrative. "just follow the line of strings and it all makes sense!".

The US has been in a swing between the two parties for the past 40 years. to suggest that there's been some kind of plan to fill the courts up an convince the country to overturn a previous ruling would only be possible if you believe the opposing party was in cohoots with the plan. Which is a conspiracy level take that I'd need signifigant, official documents to be swayed on.

Occam's razor still supports your point while keeping the story simple: there's been decades of swing votes with each party getting a justice in over the decades. with the last case happening right towards the end of a controversial president with a controversial 2016 and 2020 election period.

It's a platform, sure. But I think this comes down to a series of happensstance for their plans lining up rather than some carefully crafted web of plans like some sort of thriller movie. We don't need to turn into reddit and make things out to be some grand conspiracy to discuss a topic

Re:How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare by ModernMech on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @09:38AM (#31248145)
> "just follow the line of strings and it all makes sense!"

No I'm not saying follow any strings, I'm saying this is exactly what they said they'd do, and then they did it. How is that a conspiracy? Not every coordinated human movement is a conspiracy. I'm not articulating a conspiracy theory, I'm articulating the Republican Party Platform as expressed by them. Go back and read the platform for any year and it's in there.

I didn't say it was a carefully crafted plan, you're reading that yourself with your assumption that I'm describing a conspiracy. What I'm saying is that when given power, Republicans used it maximally and with purpose to advance the objective of overturning Roe v. Wade. Your observation that parties have swung back and forth does not imply Democrats would have to be in on the plan because Supreme Court appointments are for life, so every time Republicans appoint one Democrats cannot get rid of them.

Republicans did get lucky in 2016 with Trump winning the election, but only because they had previously used their power to unilaterally hold that seat open. And they held that seat open for the express purpose of putting someone on the court who would overturn Roe. And look, that person they put on has voted to overturn. Republicans also got lucky in 2020 when RBG died, but only because they had decided they would abandon their rationale for keeping the previous seat open, and they filled the newly opened seat anyway. That person will be voting to overturn as well. They say that opportunity is luck + being prepared. Yes Republicans got lucky in some ways, but they were prepared at every turn to use all available levers of power to advance this singular objective.

> Occam's razor still supports your point while keeping the story simple

This is an inappropriate usage of Occam's razor, as it requires us to put our heads in the sand about how politics and power work in relation to the supreme court. Saying "there's been decades of swing votes with each party getting a justice in over the decades" implicitly gives weight to the fact that Supreme Court Justices are appointed as part of a political process, driven by political parties, who have stated they intend to use the appointments to further political goals. To that end, conservatives erected an entire vetting system of rating SC nominees on the basis of their friendliness to the anti-choice cause. Only those who were friendly enough have been confirmed.

That the justices then go on to do exactly what they were put there to do is therefore completely unsurprising. But to discount it as mere happenstance and a confluence of factors completely ignores that the process of appointing and confirming them was considered (they didn't just pick the names out of a hat, they picked the names from a list of judges approved by groups who are anti-choice). Arguments were given for appointing these justices, and they always included a recognition that they supported the anti-choice position.

The alternative, that Republicans have been attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade for 50 years, yet when it happens attributing it to happenstance is much more unbelievable to me. It would seem to imply that political parties are completely powerless in advancing their own political goals, and even when they are achieved they can't be attributed to their own deeds. It would mean that Republicans worked feverishly with a singular mind to overturn Roe v. Wade for decades, and ended up doing so on accident. How would the world even work if that were the case?