Judicial Branch
Hey,
When I was in school and learned about civics, social studies, history, and government, I was always taught that there are checks and balances in place to keep one branch of government from getting too powerful. The executive branch was limited by the legislative branch, the legislative branch was limited by the judicial branch, and so on. However, this memo seemingly hasn’t made it to United States Supreme Court because they’ve gone full scorched earth this past month.
The judicial branch of the federal government has decided to flex their Republican/Conservative muscles and follow up on every action item sitting on their desk since 2016. This includes reversing a New York gun law that expands the rights of concealed carry gun owners, reinforcing the ability of coaches and athletes to be able to pray before games, and deciding they aren’t going to listen to a case on libel and free speech. Most famously though, they also decided that women should no longer be able to obtain abortions and that states can decide for themselves whether to allow legal abortions within their borders. This isn’t even including the seven other major cases the Supreme Court has sitting on its desk now for the remainder of the year. All hell is breaking loose.
There are two things that I learned this past month. The first is that Republicans band together in times of action to get stuff done and they don’t care whether it’s the popular opinion or not. The effectiveness with which they all came together to enact these sweeping changes has to be commended, as a sort of “by any means” type of strength. I don’t know if these individuals truly believe the vitriol they spew and the dehumanization of people needed to get their way, but that’s almost irrelevant now because what’s done is done. They played the game to win and they’re winning.
The other thing I learned is that Democrats do not have the same testicular fortitude to get things done in this manner, and we’re all worse off for it as a result. Democrats in 2022 remind me of babyfaces in professional wrestling. They want to fight a clean and fair fight at all times, which is great in theory. But the moment their opponent starts bending the rules or fighting dirty to win, rather than fight fire with fire they simply complain to the referees that their opponent is cheating. There are two famous quotes when it comes to sports, and those are “All is fair in love and war” and “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.” It seems that the Democrats are behind the times and aren’t willing to do whatever it takes to emerge victorious. They’d rather sit around and tell everyone how they tried to do the right thing.
I have no idea what the long game is for politicians here, but this is yet more fuel for my long-held opinion that maybe we would all be better off without politicians and political agendas at play. If our democracy depends on a two-party system and one of those parties starts every fight at a virtuous disadvantage, why do we ever expect things to be contended fairly and honestly? If we have one side willing to do whatever it takes to win and one side only willing to go as far as the rule books say, it’s not a shock to see them getting their asses kicked. And if we can’t count on Democrats and Republicans to balance and offset each other, why do we think voting for either of them will solve all of our problems?
Who’s going to provide the checks and balances for our federal government?
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