[quote name='Ruined']It is abuse, there are no checks and balances in the supreme court. The people can't "fire" a supreme court judge like they could a politician if they think his decisions are outrageous.
And lately, some of the decisions have not been based in the constitution at all, as even
some of the dissenting judges on the supreme court argue. Read the recent dissents by Thomas and Scalia and you will find even they believe the Supreme Court is screwing up decision after decision by focusing on faulty past court decisions instead of on the constitution itself, which is what they should be doing.
The latest 10 Commandments one is the most ridiculous, case-by-case basis, especially funny when the Supreme court has them on its own walls. And every supreme court session begins with "God save this honorable court." They really need to go back and examine the consititution and determine what they want to do instead of wishy-washy decisions and faulty decisions based on past decisions. "Seperation of Church and State" is not written in the constitution, it specifically says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." That's it. Should we take references to God off money too? Such a wishy washy decision that basically says "With regards to God, whatever the Supreme Court says in your particular case goes," I think that is an abuse of power.
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
I don't want to just focus on that one though, because I think most of the decisions they have made recently have been horrendous and unfounded in the constitution.[/QUOTE]
There's a reason supreme court justices aren't voted on, and why the senate and house can't remove them, if they had that power then unpopular decisions could mean removal, regardless of the constitution, and unpopular rulings could result in them being voted out of office by the people, even if the peoples views have no basis in the constitution (ie. gay marriage could be such a case).
And the constitution is based on interpretations, of course the disenting judges are going to disagree, they often interpret it differently on some parts. To me, that line you quoted, is correctly interpreted to be separation of church and state. It's not word for word, but that's true of most rulings. You, well you obviously read it differently than I do.
Though I think references to god should be removed from money, pledge etc.
This is ridiculous, when we get liberal rulings then the conservatives start shouting, when we get conservative rulings then the liberals start shouting, you're both are being hypocritical (though it's just the liberals in this topic).
Any major alteration in the way it's run, in the sense of giving elected bodies partial control over it (after the judge has been appointed obviously), would be disasterous. It's one thing to remove a justice who acted illegal or constantly did things unbecoming of a judge (which can be done), but these cases aren't like that. If power to easily remove them was given, then every decision could decide their fate, and in those cases accuracy goes out the window, the opinions of people or elected official would be all that counted.
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ing puppets to corporatism.