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Senate Democrats introduce bill to implement term limits and biannual appointments to Supreme Court
(www.washingtonexaminer.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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I mean I definitely get their reasoning behind it. I’m just saying that I don’t understand how they didn’t realize lifetime appointments could lead to some really shitty consequences if the wrong people were put in power.
Like, they set term limits for everything else because they saw the absolute shitfest what having a lifetime-appointed official could have with the king, but they didn’t think about the possibility of the supreme court getting filled with people who were just as, if not more, awful?
Just seems like a major oversight
I suppose they thought the vetting process and confirmation hearings would be enough.
They were wrong.
250 years ago, men in positions of power were expected to adhere to a minimum public standard or remove themselves out of honor. This is something the current Republican party doesn't care at all about so the system is breaking down.
Not to mention, the only people eligible to vote were rich landowners that could delegate daily "work", so they had the time and were expected to stay up to date on politics. It was essentially required of their position in society.
I feel like impropriety isn't a new problem. For example in 1787 we had to remove senator William Blount for trying to get Britain to invade Florida in a land speculation scheme. This is more so just recency bias.
Well then that went away not long after because we had a congressman beat a senator with a cane, until he was unconscious, in the chamber of congress. He came up behind him and hit him over the head with a can that had a metal knob handle at the end. He hit him over and over and the senator never fully recovered from the beating, leaving him with chronic conditions the rest of his life.
The congressman who beat him "retired" to avoid the censure, and then was quickly re-elected and put back into his position. So, I don't think the past had any more honor, civility, etc. than we do today. I actually am of the mind we are far more civil today than 250 years ago after reading, and listening to, first hand accounts of life at the time.