Let's say you're feeling like doing something. It can be almost anything. I dunno, you want to sue the police for shooting your dog or get some money back from your neighbors for burning you with flaming Irish coffee or create a whole mini-state inside the currently existing state of Nebraska
Not to be contrarian about this, but I do think Alito and Thomas (but maybe especially Alito) behave in an unprincipled partisan fashion on the issues that make it into the news. It is interesting to remember, as a non-lawyer, that there are a bunch of cases coming before the court that are fairly apolitical, even if they are normative. Your case about taking someone's house and excessive fines is a good example of this. I think if that case somehow became more political then non-lawyers would care more. I think that for predictive accuracy the (very political) cases non-lawyers read about in the newspapers are easier to call with the colored robes. Just saying.
There's been a lot of writing about how a party taking up an issue makes the issue political in the sense I'm meaning it above, which is different to the sense I believe you're using it in your article. I'm not sure whether I'm relieved that the parties haven't found all such normative questions yet, or if it implies a state of rot where our legislative/democratic activities are simply blind to a lot of normative issues that then get decided by our nine oligarchs of the law.
"Perhaps the Court is unusually passionate about copyright disputes. One explanatory factor that conspicuously *doesn't* work is mere politics."
As someone who has been unusually passionate about copyright disputes, in both political and judicial realms, one reason why you can't explain copyright disputes on the court with politics is that politicians have reliably ignored the issue, or when they've brought it up, normally do not separate in the usual right/left ways.
And, while it's reasonable that your analysis is missing that, I think, "how politicized and party-line is this particular issue, among politicians?" is necessary for its validity. The less-politicized, or the greater variety of conflicting political takes come up, the less useful politics is for determining the outcome.
As it is, I still wonder how different copyright law decisions would look if there were a strong political movement by one party or the other that said, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times" means copyright law has to be substantively limited, not pro forma, and must always be justified by a test on how well it promotes progress.
Great read, I enjoyed it and learned a bit! Looking forward to tomorrow’s decisions
Not to be contrarian about this, but I do think Alito and Thomas (but maybe especially Alito) behave in an unprincipled partisan fashion on the issues that make it into the news. It is interesting to remember, as a non-lawyer, that there are a bunch of cases coming before the court that are fairly apolitical, even if they are normative. Your case about taking someone's house and excessive fines is a good example of this. I think if that case somehow became more political then non-lawyers would care more. I think that for predictive accuracy the (very political) cases non-lawyers read about in the newspapers are easier to call with the colored robes. Just saying.
There's been a lot of writing about how a party taking up an issue makes the issue political in the sense I'm meaning it above, which is different to the sense I believe you're using it in your article. I'm not sure whether I'm relieved that the parties haven't found all such normative questions yet, or if it implies a state of rot where our legislative/democratic activities are simply blind to a lot of normative issues that then get decided by our nine oligarchs of the law.
A
Minor correction: I think Rapanos is the 2006 case, the one decided this term was Sackett. At least if I'm reading the titles correctly.
"Perhaps the Court is unusually passionate about copyright disputes. One explanatory factor that conspicuously *doesn't* work is mere politics."
As someone who has been unusually passionate about copyright disputes, in both political and judicial realms, one reason why you can't explain copyright disputes on the court with politics is that politicians have reliably ignored the issue, or when they've brought it up, normally do not separate in the usual right/left ways.
And, while it's reasonable that your analysis is missing that, I think, "how politicized and party-line is this particular issue, among politicians?" is necessary for its validity. The less-politicized, or the greater variety of conflicting political takes come up, the less useful politics is for determining the outcome.
As it is, I still wonder how different copyright law decisions would look if there were a strong political movement by one party or the other that said, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times" means copyright law has to be substantively limited, not pro forma, and must always be justified by a test on how well it promotes progress.