Justice

 

No Peace, No Justice

We glow in the dark
And we shine in the light
The souls of Kings and Queen
As we all rise

Can we have peace and justice?

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”  This phrase comes from Spiderman comics.  It describes a System Optimal solution.  A User Optimal  solution  would be “With great power, comes great opportunity”.  The tension between User Optimal solutions and System Optimal solutions is at the heart of many conflicts, most recently the invasion of Ukraine, a User Optimal solution by the Russian Government, versus the opposition to that invasion, a System Optimal solution; and the hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, where the Democrat Senators appear to be on the side of the System while the Republican Senators appear to be on the side of the Users.  The US Constitution designated The People as its sovereign but recognized that people will act as individuals and might not act for the good of the sovereign People.  A majority of people acting through their representatives may decide that an action should be undertaken, such as administering justice.  But that is justice as determined by the majority.  The constitution was not ratified without protections of the individuals against the tyranny of the majority.  The Bill of Rights established the rights of the individual which can not be abridged by the majority and the US Constitution was not ratified until these protections were in place.

The framers of the US Constitution also recognized that they were only human and could not be perfect.  They established that it would take a super majority, NOT a majority, to amend the Constitution. A majority of the people could view a law as just, but it takes a supermajority to amend the Constitution.

The constitution is not infallible.  It did not recognize the probable formation of political parties which led to the 12^th Amendment.  It did not consider that life expectancies would increase and that presidents might need to be limited to two terms which led to the  25^th Amendment.  Morality could also change.  While slavery was originally allowed, it was abolished by the 14^th Amendment.  Women were granted the right to vote by the 19^th Amendment.  Morality can change and lead to mistakes.  Alcohol was prohibited by the 18^th amendment and then allowed again  by the 21^st amendment.  An income tax was deemed unconstitutional before the passage of the 16^th amendment.

The Constitutional purpose of the Supreme Court is NOT to administer justice.  It is to decide when a law is in conflict with that Constitution.  Claims that a nominee to the Supreme Court is soft on crime are irrelevant. The only consideration should be whether that  nominee can correctly establish that a law is in conflict with the Constitution.  Justice by a simple majority is still vigilante justice.  The People decide justice. Not a majority of the people, but a Constitutionally mandated supermajority of The People.  The Supreme Court decides whether the laws enacted by the majority are in conflict with the justice of The People as established in the Constitution.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Can the Supreme Court be wrong  in its decisions? Of course.  Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson.

Can the Supreme Court make a correct decision but explain that decision poorly? Of course.  Roe v. Wade.

The question is not whether fetuses are people, marriage is only between different genders, what Critical Race Theory is and how it should be applied, or what is justice for pornographers.  The questions that will be faced by the Supreme Courts are only whether a law is in conflict with the Constitution. The rights of the majority versus their government is not in question.  The Constitution is about protecting the rights of the minority from the government.

Conservatives used to be those who realized that while the People, collectively acting though the government for a System Optimal, must still be comprised of people who are individuals.  Those individuals might be acting in their own self interest, are User Optimalists, and not in the interests of the People.  Also people as individuals can change their position or lie about their original position.  Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely leads to a belief that government, the System, should be composed of as few individuals as possible with as little power as possible.  People as individuals might also not see the long-term consequences of their short-term decisions.  To protect against unintended consequences, as few actions  as possible should be undertaken.

Conservatives used to favor small government, not a User Optimal government which is an oxymoron.  Activist judges who invent rights are not confined to so-called liberals.  See the unstated right to self defense justifying a law to bear arms NOT in support of a well-regulated militia invented by Justice Scalia; Corporations who are NOT listed as people have protected speech; yet that right was granted by conservative justices. The Voting Rights Act applied to governments not individuals, and governments are NOT limited by a life span, and yet conservative justices decided that those governments have "suffered" long enough. These were not liberal decisions.  The Republican majority in the Senate is acting as if they are User Optimalists which is NOT a conservative position.  Framing the nomination hearing as a conservative versus liberal conflict is a lie.