this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
1003 points (99.0% liked)

politics

19120 readers
5158 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] EleventhHour 39 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

His cowardly inability to pursue justice fairly forces me to disagree with you here. He may have been better than the alternatives, but that hardly makes him any good at all.

[–] NateNate60 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You do not need to "pursue justice" as a judge. You just need to allow others to pursue justice through you and possess an ability to apply the law. There are no political repercussions for judges that can harm their career. He acts the way he does because he doesn't want political backlash about it. If he's a judge, he has the ability to not care about others' opinions of his rulings.

The position of attorney-general requires a different skillset and mindset. An effective attorney-general is willing to take risks to pursue justice. Judges play a more passive role. That's why he's not a good attorney-general, but I still maintain he'd be a very good judge.

Lemmy has the tendency to think that because a person is bad in one aspect, they must be bad in every related aspect as well. Of course, nobody will admit they think like that, but I pray you don't.

[–] EleventhHour -4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

I cannot and do not, in any way, support - not agree with - your defense of this man.

The only fair application of justice is to be blind to anything but the facts of the crime and to properly adjudicate them in accordance with the law. No person who is too scared (or corrupt) to do the job of the top criminal prosecutor in this country should never hold the position.

[–] NateNate60 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Your position and view towards the law is admirable and very worthy of respect, but you are holding him to a standard that is not applicable within a legal system based on the traditions English common law, like the American one. You're describing the role of a judge in an inquisitorial system, not an adversarial system.

The role of a judge in an inquisitorial system is to answer the questions "Did they do it? Do they deserve to be punished?"

In the traditional English system, the is the role of the jury. The judge is just there to ensure everyone is playing by the rules of the court.

Of course, it is impossible for anyone to be truly divested from personal opinion and bias. We are all human, after all. The guiding design principle of an inquisitorial system is that judges are expected to be as neutral as possible, and then the legal system presumed they succeeded. An adversarial system, on the other hand, is aware of the inherent biases of mankind and attempts to design around them.

Which approach is more valid is a long-running topic of debate in philosophy.

[–] WhatYouNeed 3 points 3 weeks ago

Thank you for a solid, informative explanation. Any judge must be impartial and resistant to their own biases, which is not an easy task.

[–] EleventhHour -5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I just can’t countenance your open and blatant endorsement of cravenness and corruption running the DoJ. Oh, and your patronizing tone is nothing short of insulting.

If your best argument is that there’s no legal requirement to do this correct and just thing - the moral and ethical thing - you’ve only made yourself look as inept and corrupt as Gorsuch.

[–] NateNate60 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

You're free to disagree with the way the American legal system is structured. I'm not here to argue with you, and in many ways, I actually agree with you wholeheartedly that Garland would make a terrible judge in my notion of an ideal legal system.

The role of a judge in an inquisitorial system is to answer the questions "Did they do it? Do they deserve to be punished?"

In the traditional English system, this is the role of the jury. The judge is just there to ensure everyone is playing by the rules of the court. And in that role, Garland is pretty suitable. And yes, a sense of fairness and impartiality is not strictly required. Just a sense of logic, which Garland definitely has. You can correctly describe that as a fault of the legal system.

I apologise if you find this insulting.

Think of the judge in My Cousin Vinny. Do you think that he walked into that courtroom every day thinking "these idiots definitely did it"? It's very likely he did. But he also recognised it wasn't his job to broadcast that to the court. He had to put on a mask of neutrality because he recognised that it is the jury's role to determine guilt, not his. He doesn't need to be truly impartial to the defence's case; he just needs to make the correct evidentiary and legal rulings. Which he mostly did.

Contrast that to the role of the prosecutor, which is what the attorney-general is. It's the prosecutor's job to come into court thinking "these guys are guilty" and convince the jury of the same.

[–] confusedbytheBasics 1 points 3 weeks ago

Garlands inability to execute the duties of his current job don't indicate to me he would have been a inadequate as a Justice. It's a different job with different duties and by all indications he would have likely performed fine.