re: #270 Mich-again

Where did the Supreme Court get its authority to impose taxes? The Constitution makes it pretty clear which branch of the Government is charged with raising funds. But add layers and layers of opinions that slightly change the law one detail at a time and eventually, Voila! The Supreme Cort now has the power to impose taxes.

The problem with judicial activism is that if its OK for your side, then it will be OK for the other side when the pendulum swings back the other way.

So if its OK in your opinion for Liberal minded judges to mold and shape the Constitution instead of just interpreting it, then don’t complain when non-Liberal minded judges do the same. I think we are better off if the judges stick to the rules and make the legislators do their job.

I’m going to have to actually look that case up, no offense, I don’t really trust anyone’s cliffs notes version of a SCOTUS case. My father and I have had many beers over the various ways that SCOTUS cases have been misrepresented in politics. Over and over again they get simplified in argument. “Sticking to the rules” is exactly what SOCTUS tries to do, what you’re speaking of is not codified in any rule. What you’re complaining of is amorphous philosophy that is impossible to nail down.

There’s a reason the SCOTUS exists, because there must be a judgement call on these cases. These decisions ar eoften extremely complex. Cases only make it to the supreme court when there is a constitutional question which cannot be rectified by a lower court. So there must have been a costitutional question. The supreme court makes those decisions, it doesn’t impose taxes by fiat, it decides whether a case that has made its way there because of a constitutional dispute is valid.

And I am fine with SCOTUS as it is, we have a pretty even split between liberals, moderates, and conservatives, and a kook (Scalia) thrown in for good measure.