Thread by @Gitabushi

In a thread recently, I came out in favor of the Wisdom of Crowds.
I firmly believe in it.
Not that I believe the crowds are always right, but that it is a principle that *must* be embraced and adhered to.

Wisdom of Crowds is either based on or underpinned by or related to the most basic foundation of the philosophy of the United States' Experiment in Liberty.

We all have the individual (and universal!) right to Pursuit of Happiness.

We *all* have agency.

The US is not a Free Market Capitalist nation by Constitution.
But it inevitably ended up there, because Free Market Capitalism (the sum of individuals making individual decisions on the value and exchange of good and services) is agency writ large.

And due to the realities of governance, the US Constitution actually limits free market capitalism to various extents in various ways.

But back to the Wisdom of Crowds.
I've been making Thom Jeff work for me a lot lately.
Here's the quote:

Side note: @AndToddsaid pointed out that he wished it ended *before* the final "Aristocrats and Democrats", because it is painfully clear that Democrats are no longer really based in the People, but have become Democrats.
They want to *rule* the people, not trust them.

If you think it through, your choices really *are* that stark, and that basic:
You either trust the people, or you are an Elitist who wants to take away agency and options from the people so they don't make "bad" decisions. Meaning, decisions you don't like.
That way be Tyranny.

I don't want to be an Elitist.
I fundamentally embrace the principles described in our founding documents that we are *all* created equal, and we *all* have the individual Right to Pursuit of Happiness.
So I have to accept the Wisdom of Crowds.
I *must* trust the People.

Now, the Elitists have a point.
Individuals do stupid things.
Groups do even stupider things.
The counter to Wisdom of Crowds is "a camel is a horse designed by committee."
Bureaucracy, Friday afternoon meetings, Prohibition, communism: all choices made by groups.

This Demotivational Poster:

Each of us is eminently capable of sorting through options, choosing the one we prefer, and then changing our mind if we don't like the outcome.
This is the most basic right/aspect of agency and Pursuit of Happiness.

Even stupid people do this.
This is how we exploit systems to their extinction. This is the basis of welfare farm. Go do an internet search for "Tax the rat farms".
This is human nature in all its glorious stupidity.
But it's how things work, and it's liberty.

But one vital necessary aspect is that crowds get to change their mind and backtrack, too.

Prohibition is a success story.
Lots of people wanted it, and it went through the arduous Amendment process to get enacted. It became obvious it was a mistake, and was repealed.

The problem with Communism isn't really Communism.
We could try it.
You could do it with your neighbors right now, if you wanted to
No, the problem with Communism is it is enacted by Totalitarian Authoritarians.

They don't enact it until they have the power to compel dissenters to participate, or eliminate them if they don't.
So once enacted, even if chosen by the crowds, the problem is that they aren't allowed to stop when it inevitably fails.

Had a friend who was convinced that the reason Socialism never worked is that it *had* to be voluntary, and all the attempts in history were imposed with force.
And then he was excited when he thought Bernie would get nominated.
(continued)

Cuz if 51% of the nation voted for Bernie, then they could enact Socialism and it...wouldn't be imposed by force?

smdh

And via my meandering way, here's the point I've been building to the entire time:

We have made a huge mistake with the Supreme Court.
I want to blame Democrats, but extremely open to arguments it's both parties' fault.

It was sort of inevitable.
The power of Judicial Review was deliberately left out of the US Constitution, out of fear that it would be misused.
Instead, the power was so obviously necessary that when it was seized, no one really resisted at all.

But the problem really didn't materialize until maybe the Commerce Clause ruling that ruled Congress could regulate an individual growing grain because of extremely indirect and faint influences on interstate commerce.

I'm not a legal scholar, maybe there's a better example.

But bit by bit, ruling by ruling, Chief SCOTUS by Chief SCOTUS, we have accepted the ever-heavier yoke of SCOTUS tyranny, by making SCOTUS rulings a special Super Amendment with weight *stronger* than the US Constitution.

An Elite drawn from the smallest of smallest slices of exclusive subset of the population decides how to interpret the Constitution.
To the point that "The Right to Bear Arms *SHALL NOT* Be Infringed" is interpreted to mean all sorts of infringement is acceptable.

And that there is some sort of Right to Privacy that only covers sexual activity and in particular, the right to kill children that result from sexual activity.

Along with these mistakes, there is some sort of anti-liberty principle of Stare Decisis, which common use convinces me means "Rulings Democrats like can never be overturned".

These rulings are in force until a case comes up that can allow SCOTUS to overturn it...maybe...if they can somehow justify ignoring Stare Decisis...but only if the Justice Elites decide to allow standing.

So the Wisdom of Crowds is dragged into the alley and stabbed to death.
Not only do the crowds not get the chance to provide input to these decisions, they aren't allowed to backtrack if the Elite doesn't want to let them.

Regardless of what you think about Same Sex Marriage, its legalization was not the result of Wisdom of Crowds. Every time it came up for a vote, it was denied.
It was imposed by courts.
When a court might rule against it, The Ratchet Only Goes Leftward came in to overturn stays.

All they needed was one location to allow SSM marriage licenses, and then the camel's nose was in the tent, because once one couple got married, they would find a sympathetic judge who would say that it created the expectation of SSM legality (continued)

...typical Elite games with "Standing" were played to allow the correct suits to go forward, then the argument was made it was horrible to be married in one location and have that marriage nullified just by crossing a state line...

And even one judge who wanted to marry his boyfriend got to rule that a Constitutional Amendment was unConstitutional.

Regardless of what you think of SSM, there is no way to pretend legality wasn't imposed by the Elite.
The reality is if it ends up a problem at any scale (evidence accumulating it has a negative impact on *some* population subsets), the People will not be allowed to end it. Ever.

There is some hope.
Over decades of infringement, the 2A is slowly getting restored as the Right it was intended.

But I really think we need to have a Constitutional Convention to end the Super Amendment nature of SCOTUS rulings.

We need a way to nullify or overturn SCOTUS rulings when they get it wrong.
We need a way to remove individual SCOTUS justices when they are clearly deciding based on ideology rather than the US Constitution.

And I realize that last sentence could be exploited by Democrats who seem to believe that deciding based on the US Constitution is an unacceptable ideology.

But I think we can put protections against that in place.

There is not a single person in the history of all time that admires Jewish/Catholic graduates of Yale/Harvard law schools more than I do.
But I reject the implicit assumption they are the *best* suited to consider & protect minority views/interests of the middle class.

SCOTUS has provide the Elites a way to sidestep the Wisdom of Crowds' input while still getting blame the Wisdom of Crowds when things go wrong.

We don't want pure democracy. We *do* need some additional checks and balances against this Elite rule.

We need to take action to *force* government away from these Super Amendments and back to the normal Amendment process.

Even if that means fewer changes happen.
*Especially* if that means fewer changes happen, really.