When A Conservative Supreme Court Is Not So Conservative
If there is one subject that gets everyone hot and bothered, it is the United States Supreme Court. The highest court in the land is the focus of so much attention because it has such far reaching power. The court has recently become much more conservative, but that may not mean what many conservatives really want.
The United States Supreme Court is the most powerful governmental agency in the United States. Well, maybe after the Federal Reserve! The reason for this is the Supreme Court can overrule any law and can dictate how things should be handled in legal issues. This ranges from whether alleged terrorists can be held at Guantanamo without legal recourse to whether major league baseball violates anti-trust laws. This power is all the more prevalent given the fact the Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they retire.
The great Supreme Court war is all about getting “your” justice on the court. Conservatives want conservative justices on the court. Liberals want liberal justices on the court. The fight tooth and nail to get them there, only to find that most justices don’t fit in a nice round whole once they get there. Many a conservative justice has become liberal and the recent appointment of Sotomayor is actually going to be a surprise to liberals as she has some very conservative views on certain subjects.
Perhaps the most ironic thing about these titles is they often do not carry the same meaning as they have in political discourse. The Court is turning conservative, so let’s take a look at that. One of the prime elements of conservative political views is government should be small. A conservative Supreme Court, however, does not take this view nor do they believe government should be large. Instead, a conservative Court is going to give the legislative [Congress] and executive [President] plenty of room to do whatever it wishes. As you’ve probably noticed recently, this leads to more government instead of less.
Admittedly, this twisted result is not always the case. A conservative Court will tend to view things as written in the Constitution. This means there will be no limits on guns and Miranda rights may be in trouble. The issue of abortion is always a hot one. The Court is unlikely to reverse it in one fell swoop, but will instead most likely chip away at the ruling over the years until the ultimate result is already apparent for everyone to see. That is, of course, unless a number of liberal justices are brought on board.
Thomas Ajava is with StLouisWrongfulDeathAttorney.com – your online resource for finding a St Louis wrongful death attorney to handle your case.
