• SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    3 days ago

    I am reminded of reading about how during the early days of Nazi Germany, confused liberal officials from the legal system would go to concentration camps and demand the release of prisoners who were held there illegally, only to be told to fuck off.

  • Lester_Peterson [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    Contrary to Liberal interpretations, this ruling doesn’t change much. If the President was capable of openly assassinating politicians, or launching a military coup to overthrow democracy, they would not be deterred by 9 people in black robes telling them they may be liable to criminal charges in the future for doing so.

    Until the Chief Justice gets their own division to command, the Court only has as much power over the Federal Government as they are allowed to, which is invariably determined by their usefulness to politically dominant factions of Capital. See what happened after the Marshall Court made a decision impeding the interests early-American Capital had in forcefully dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their land.

    I still believe the most incisive commentary on the Law’s function in society was given by Marx. He succinctly attacks the Liberal idea that all social structures (economics, politics, etc.) arise from the letter of the law. Rather:

    Society is not founded upon the law; this is a legal fiction. On the contrary, the law must be founded upon society, it must express the common interests and needs of society — as distinct from the caprice of the individuals — which arise from the material mode of production prevailing at the given time. This Code Napoleon, which I am holding in my hand, has not created modern bourgeois society. On the contrary, bourgeois society, which emerged in the eighteenth century and developed further in the nineteenth, merely finds its legal expression in this Code. As soon as it ceases to fit the social conditions, it becomes simply a bundle of paper.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      3 days ago

      I don’t know how anyone didn’t have an experience in early childhood or at least childhood that taught them rules aren’t real, only their enforcement

  • dumpster_dove [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    Assuming everyone plays by the rules, I wonder if the court order would prevent the president from imprisoning that person again or if they would need another court order thonk