• logicbomb@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think that there are many serious inherent flaws with the idea of lifetime appointments, especially for the highest court in the land, and this is one of them.

    I’ve recently become a fan of the idea that for Supreme Court justices, they have a fixed-length term, and each President gets to nominate a predetermined number of them.

    • seathru@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 months ago

      While I absolutely agree with you on opposing lifetime appointments; I can not fathom what this incident has to do with that.

        • seathru@lemmy.sdf.org
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          4 months ago

          You think it was targeted? This 18 year old was working his way through her security detail and just happened to get so unlucky as to get shot in the face by the first one?

        • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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          4 months ago

          Fathoming it is easy, but no two people connect things the same way.

          Upon first reading the headline and clicking through to comments, I did wonder if this was a “carjacker” rather than a carjacker. But even with an assassination attempt in mind, the tail end of your comment that detailed more of a policy solution made me think more of policy, and less of the previous thought about assassination attempts.
          So my mind was in policy-land, rather than assassination land by the time I tried to connect your comment back to the topic.

          Could be be a packaging issue (maybe you could have mentioned you thought it was someone trying to end her term early), maybe I should have drank my coffee sooner (because now there’s a fucking gnat in my coffee and I’m still sleepy. Ugh.), maybe it’s ADHD, or maybe me and the other person are just dumb? Iunno.

          Edit: And for what it’s worth, I kind of like your suggestion.

          • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            It doesn’t have to be an assassination attempt. Just the fact that there was life-threatening violence in a place that is so close to her that her bodyguard had to be involved brings this issue to mind. Even if a liberal justice dies of natural causes right now, with the Senate’s razor-thin margin, it’s possible for another RBG moment were Trump to win, making SCOTUS an even worse 7-2 supermajority for conservatives. If Supreme Court justices were elected to proportionally represent Americans, there would be at least a 5-4 majority for liberals.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’d say, every two years a new judge is appointed and the longest serving gets to retire. Some stuff needs to be worked out for unexpected deaths/early retirement, but, would give presidents at least 2 per year and get rid of the gaming bitch McConnell did to stack the courts.

      It would also provide some inertia against changing times without being bound to it. (Potentially 18 years,)

    • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I don’t disagree with you on justices but being lifetime appointees but I don’t understand how a bodyguard shooting a carjacker can be used to argue either way.

      • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        A carjacker pulled a gun on a person sitting in a car in front of Justice Sotomayor’s home, a place where it’s very possible that she might have been. It doesn’t matter whether she was targeted or not. If she dies for whatever reason, it’s a concern. Whoever Biden appoints would have to pass the Senate with the current razor thin majority.

        Had she been in the car for some reason, then we might have another Ruth Bader Ginsberg moment, and in the worst case scenario, Trump could get reelected and appoint somebody for a 7-2 conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

        Don’t get stuck in the idea that lifetime appointments are only a problem for assassinations. Ginsberg died of natural causes, and see what that got us.

    • Audacious@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      I agree with the term length, but not with a political appointer, especially not by the president (look at the current packed SCOTUS that’s politically charged)