You, Me, and our Fantasy World

“Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.”

That quote comes to us from William Howard Taft, who knew a little something about both jobs. He’s telling us, essentially, what we already know: the United States Supreme Court is really old. Not just because its members have a combined age of 604, but because it’s been around almost since the beginning of the Nation. And also, it’s really important. The decisions it hands down often end up governing huge aspects of our lives, whether we agree with them or not. And those decisions often last, if not forever, then at least for a very long time. In fact, as you’ll discover if you follow the Court the way I do, it’s extremely hard to get rid of a Supreme Court decision once it’s gone into effect.

         Now, if you’re like most people, you probably don’t think about the Supreme Court much at all. It pops its head around the door from time to time to tell you what it has come up with about gun ownership or immigration, but mostly, it keeps to itself. It doesn’t ask for your advice or your input. You don’t get to vote on the things it decides. And when it does deign to talk to you, it talks down to you in the voice of one of your college professors, someone who knows they’re smarter than you and has made it their mission in life to make sure you know it too. It uses long, complex sentences. It refuses to translate its Latin. It genuinely doesn’t seem to care whether or not you understand what it’s actually saying.

All of that can make reading Supreme Court cases a little bit like trying to read War and Peace in the original Russian. Make no mistake, much of that is intentional. You see, it’s in the best interest of all lawyers to make the practice of law seem like something intricate and arcane. After all, you can imagine what would happen to the legal profession if everyone could understand and practice the law without a lengthy and very expensive education.

Here’s the problem with all that though: every Supreme Court decision, from the big ones we’ve all heard of to the obscure ones that no one remembers, affects our lives in some way. These effects are often small, or else they don’t appear until years down the road, but they always turn up. And if you’re a person who doesn’t have the time to read through thousands of pages of legalese or listen to hundreds of hours of oral argument, you probably miss things. Even if you do have the time—and the masochistic streak—required to follow the Supreme Court, unless you’re a lawyer yourself, you probably aren’t getting the whole picture.

So what do you do? Well, you probably do what everyone does: you get your information from the news media. One channel tells you that the conservatives on the Court are evil and that they’re endangering your civil rights. The other channel tells you that the liberals are monsters, plotting to take away all the freedoms that you hold dear. Now, it’s 2020, so we all know by now that the news media isn’t really news at all. We know that it’s really just a clever system of emotional carrots and sticks designed to make us all think the same thing.

I’m not here to offer my opinion on that, but I will say that the media very often misses the point when it comes to the Supreme Court. The Court—and any court for that matter—at its most basic level, decides cases based on nothing more or less than the facts of the case and the law that applies. In an ideal world, the Court wouldn’t care at all about political parties or the agendas of various presidential regimes. It would simply apply the law impartially to the cases that came before it. Now, most people would say that I’m being unrealistic, that our Supreme Court is more political now than it’s ever been. Those people would say that I’m living in a fantasy world. And they’re probably right.

Thankfully, I’m not here to fix the mainstream media or the Supreme Court. I’ll leave that problem for someone smarter and far more patient than I am.

Instead, you and I are going to dive into my idealistic fantasy world. We’re going to live in a world where cases are decided solely based on the facts and the law. We’re going to live in a world where no one is bad or evil, and the only real issue is a healthy difference of opinion. We’re going to live in a world where there are no politics on the Supreme Court at all.

         Ok, Mr. Blogger, you’re probably thinking, sounds interesting, but what in the actual fuck are you talking about?

Well, here’s what I’m proposing: together we create a completely impartial resource for discussing the most important developments in Supreme Court case law, with a focus on all the ways these developments affect your life. We look at the parties and the issues and the law, and we make no prior judgments. We leave our prejudices and our political beliefs at the door, recognizing that such things have no place in the law. We respect both sides, and we acknowledge that there is nothing evil about either one.

I’ll give you the information you need to make an informed decision, and you go out and do it.

Now, if you’re still reading at this point, then hopefully this sounds interesting to you. But before we get started, we need to lay down a few ground rules:

1.     First, and most important, everything you read on this page is going to be as impartial as humanly possible. That’s my promise. No political agendas at all. If you want the spin, go to CNN or FoxNews. Sounds good in theory, you’re probably thinking, but he can’t possibly pull it off. Oh, but I can, and here’s how:

2.     All of the information on this page is going to come directly from the Court record. It will be composed of the arguments of the parties, the comments of the Court in prior cases, and, if necessary, encyclopedias and dictionaries. There will be NOTHING taken from mainstream news media or political groups.

3.     This page is made specifically for people who don’t have the time or energy to comb through all the documents that make up a Supreme Court case. Because of that, it’s going to be a quick and dirty sort of review. If you want a thorough analysis, with case citations, historical analysis and legalese, check out www.Oyez.org.

4.     I’m not going to take any position on the cases themselves. If I do my job right, no one will ever be able to figure out what I actually believe.

5.     You’re going to hear arguments made by people at all ends of the political spectrum. If that isn’t something you’re comfortable with, I have good news: CNN and FoxNews will be happy to take you back.

6.     The focus, at all times, will be on the ways that these cases will affect your life.

7.     I’ll pick the cases I think are the most impactful, but I’ll also listen to your feedback and take requests, so if there’s something out there that really interests you, feel free to get in touch with me via my contact page.

And that’s it. If the concept interests you, check out my glossary of legal terminology, and look for the inaugural review, which should already be up on the blog page. If you like what you see, remember to check back in for more reviews, which should be coming out on a semi-weekly basis.

So here we go, off into the uncharted world of unbiased facts and law.

The Impartial Review is now live!