A Supreme Injustice

The Supreme Court’s recent horrendous decisions, which primarily attack women’s rights, remind me of a phrase from the Eagle’s Hotel California — We are all just prisoners here, by our own device. We voted for the Republican presidents who then nominated a cadre of conservative ideologues to the highest court in the land, and these guys have decades left to make our lives as miserable as humanly possible.

Anton Scalia is proof positive that time travel is possible. How else can you explain a 21^st century man basing his legal decisions on a pre-Enlightenment worldview? He was powdering his wig somewhere in Italy one day and “poof,” he was transported to the current chambers of the Supreme Court. And then there’s Clarence Thomas, a man so confused by the complexity of modern life that he can’t put together a single coherent sentence expressing his opinions.

The conservatives on the court are also corporate toadies who consistently decide in favor of Wall Street over Main Street. Corporations have the same rights as people? Pulleeeze. Their decisions have turned our elections into auctions where the congressional seat goes to the highest bidder. The Koch brothers and the Waltons and the Coors are spending billions to turn Congress into an extension of their boardrooms.

And to top everything off, even if Obama were given the opportunity to nominate a judge to the Supreme Court, I don’t have any confidence that he would choose a liberal judge. His pathological need to be seen as a bi-partisan centrist has led him to make some pretty poor choices in the past. Let’s say Obama goes crazy one day and nominates a liberal judge. Would that person stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting confirmed by our current congress?

Term limits for Supreme Court judges is the only thing that can change the nightmare scenario that is our current reality. Give judges 10 years on the bench, then they can go out and make their millions in the private sector. It’s a win/win.

Let’s consider term limits for Supreme Court justices

As the Supreme Court (I should say, the conservative majority in the Supreme Court) hands down decision after decision in favor of corporate and moneyed interests, the idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices is getting some traction. I think this is a good idea. The old argument that lifetime appointments to the court would free justices from the bipartisan ping pong match played by the other two branches of government just doesn’t ring true anymore.

            I don’t think anything could be worse than having a court majority of arch-conservative corporate stooges who could be passing out damaging decisions for the next two or three decades.

I suggest limits of ten years on the bench. This would give a particular court enough time to establish its agenda, but still allow for the court to change its perspective and add new blood in a reasonable amount of time.