May RBG RIP. Condolences to family. No court - even a final court - should have so much power. A healthy polity is one in which most people respect the work done by courts presided over by judges they cannot name because they are not in the news. Juristocracy is very unhealthy.
American liberalism sought to use courts to obtain victories - which tbf it has had - for results that it could never have achieved through elected legislatures. This may work until the “court as super legislature” also turns against you.
The elected Parliaments and legislatures are messy & full of disreputable hacks etc. But they are elected and they can also compromise. Courts esp constitutional courts are absolutist and final. While the latter is tempting, the former is a much healthier place to reform society.
The idolatry of judges is sick in every sense-it corrupts courts with politics & it does great damage to all judges esp with the crazed expectations that are raised. People who make most of your laws should be people you can easily remove...Or go for a more efficient autocracy...
The key problem of liberalism treating courts as legislatures for decades is eventually everyone understands this is the new playing field for the political game & everyone just wants to make sure they win a majority in that super legislature as well with “their judges”. Caveat
I resist tweeting about Law here as much as I can (this is my relief) but if I ever did 'law twitter', it would be in part to remind Australians & other common law peoples that Bills of Rights are terrible esp for Courts & point at what is happening in the US right now as why.
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"Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end" (John 13:1)
Good morning to all on this Good Friday:
"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
It is interesting the number of people who find Good Friday hard - the betrayal, the disloyalty, the widowed Virgin Mary watches her son’s brutal, public death, with the women of Jerusalem & only John the youngest apostle who goes to the trial & Calvary (too young to know better)
My #TartanDay thread for all who are celebrating & to all those with their familial ancestry in Scotland, or who, rightly, love the Scots as a people. 🏴
#TartanDay marks the anniversary of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath made by the Scots Nobility & Clergy to the Pope: "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom–for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself"🏴🇻🇦
"But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert." #TartanDay 🏴🇻🇦
Disagree-the signs were there in the 1990s and not just in the US. It was always going to end when first world countries' populations saw open trade & borders as making them less secure not more secure. Making China part of the WTO (Blob conventional wisdom) guaranteed this
I have thought more on this - as I was a school and then university student in the 1990s - and yes there was a whole 'whither the globalised world order?' Thomas Friedman sort of midwit debate that went on then & you can find it in many books from the era
At the same time, the 1990s, for every Globalisation point, you had:
- former Yugoslavia with combatants periodically massacring each other
- Somalia & Rwanda, which had their own causes & body counts
- Soviet collapse & then the Russians fighting the Chechens and Dagestanis...
The problem of all Free Trade ideology for nation-states with real world responsibilities is its complete unrealism ... rather like open borders, free trade is utopian ... you cannot be a great or even regional power & rely overly on others supply to you in critical industries
Conservatism in the English speaking world, historically, was always Protectionist. The British Conservative Party & the GOP were historically for Protection and Tariffs (until Thatcher & the Bushs) - unchecked free trade & free markets were considered dangerous liberal heresies
The British Empire was almost destroyed for two World Wars by liberal Free Trade's slow gutting of British industrial capacity & but for Imperial Preference in the 1930s, there would have been few if any UK & Empire industries left for WW2 esp the Alone period of 1939-1941
This @Telegraph long read by @SAshworthHayes @CDP1882 on the UK's long-running rape (and in some cases murder) gang scandal is bracing reading and not for the squeamish. But it must be read - and acted upon.
Social media bill is another very poorly drafted law from the very same people who drafted the Voice constitutional alteration (which failed) & the Misinformation/Disinformation bill (which was withdrawn). Sheer lunacy for the Coalition to support the social media bill #Auspol
One of many problems we have with our Parliament in 2024 is its membership is simply not across how modern economies & communications work - you do not have to be any expert but you do need some lay understanding. One saw this in the Misinformation/Disinformation bill #Auspol
As a matter of public law - which binds everyone & should be as simple to follow as law can - the social media bill has ridiculous complexity & carve-outs ... and it is unreal to legislate on social media access separate from AI & exposure to its knowledge & also 'fakes' #Auspol