Why does activism have such a bad image?

[Gandalf]

I continually see (mostly here) references to "activist judges" and the like. Usually this is presented with a negative connotation.

So I ask you, why does activism seem to have a bad image?

[Rogue 9]

The problem most people see with that is that they believe that the so-called "activist" judges are 1.) biased in their rulings towards the issue they are being activists for and/or 2.) are overstepping their authority and in effect legislating (a favorite objection to Roe vs. Wade) rather than making a judicial ruling.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Here in America we're under the rule of King George II, known to you as George W. Bush.

His whole thing is he's had his brain warped by Christianity and wants to impose 19th-Century morals on America's population with the force of law, completely shredding the U.S. Constitution in the process and turning America into a Holy Christian Theocracy which would resemble a nightmarish mishmash of 1984, Nazi Germany, and Puritan/Victorian society minus any place to hide. Think 'Nuclear-Armed Taliban with crosses, bibles, and cameras in every bedroom.

Right now he's starting by attempting to amend the Constitution to specifically ban marriage between any entities other than one man and one woman. He's denouncing Supreme Court Justices who actually do give a rat's ass about human civil rights as "activist judges" and Un-American.

McCarthyism Lives...

[Rogue 9]

Its more than just that, though; people have been going on about activist judges since the 60s. Its hardly a Bush exclusive.

[SirNitram]

Social conservatives hate Change. Activism leads to Change. Do the math.

[Frank Hipper]

It's purest hypocrisy to for the right to label the left "activist" with a pejorative spin, they're the ones that have a aggenda.

[Joe]

It's purest hypocrisy to for the right to label the left "activist" with a pejorative spin, they're the ones that have a aggenda.

PNAC is all about foreign policy, what the hell does that have to do with the judiciary?

[Frank Hipper]

It's purest hypocrisy to for the right to label the left "activist" with a pejorative spin, they're the ones that have a aggenda.

PNAC is all about foreign policy, what the hell does that have to do with the judiciary?

The thread's about activism.

[Xon]

From my understanding; judges are supposed to be impartial and, in theory, not let there personal bias to overly influence their judgment. That is judges are supposed to be objective about things. "activist judges" implies the judges have a spesific agenda which they are pushing, that is they are being subjective about it.

Which is why, from my understanding, the term "activist judges" is slung around like an insult.

[Jalinth]

From my understanding; judges are supposed to be impartial and, in theory, not let there personal bias to overly influence their judgment. That is judges are supposed to be objective about things. "activist judges" implies the judges have a spesific agenda which they are pushing, that is they are being subjective about it.

Which is why, from my understanding, the term "activist judges" is slung around like an insult.

The problem with "activist judges" (when not turned into a general pejorative) is that people view that a judge is working backwards. They have the conclusion - they just need to find the right case to hang it on. In theory, it should be the other way around.

This happens on both sides - my understanding with a number of the civil rights cases, the cases were timed to meet both a changed society (a decision back in the 1910s would have been essentially ignored) and to ensure that the case was heard by a particular judge or panel of judges. In my view, this was "activism" in the sense of ignoring precedent and going back to the reason the US Constitution was amended in the first place. Also, the "separate but equal" could be proven as utterly bullshit by that time- if the schools were segregated but still roughly equivalent (same level of funding, college graduates, etc...) segregation still might exist.

The right-wing has similar ones on criminal rights, right to bear arms, etc... where they want a certain outcome and try to get a case to fit it.

[Master of Ossus]

Let me give you my family's example of a run-in with an activist judge.

There was once a poor restaurant owner who rented out some of my grandparents' property. His restaurant ran into hard times. My family gave him thirteen extensions on his bills, cancelled four months' rent, but he still couldn't come up with the money. Finally, they agreed to a date in small-claims court, where the guy admitted he owed them money, and thanked my grandparents for being nice to him when anyone else would have evicted him months before.

After listening to everything, the judge then rendered a ruling in favor of the restaurant owner, since he needed the money more than my grandparents did!

Judges are supposed to make sure that the laws are enforced. Whenever you have a judge who renders rulings like that one, it's pretty much an ADMISSION that they don't give a rat's ass about the law, and therefore they aren't doing their jobs.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

That seems a bit ridiculous. He won because he needed the money more than you? How did he figure? Did he think you rente office space for fun?

[kojikun]

MoO: Judges (as well as Juries) are not only responsible for judging the defendant, but also the justness of the law itself. They are doing they job, even when they say the guy needed the money more than your grandparents. You may not like it, but thats how it goes.

[Master of Ossus]

That seems a bit ridiculous. He won because he needed the money more than you? How did he figure? Did he think you rente office space for fun?

He won because the judge was a fucker who didn't give a damn about doing his job--that of enforcing the law--and was more concerned with righting perceived social injustices (ie. he was a judicial activist). In the TWO MINUTES he gave to my family's case, he was apparently clairvoyant enough to realize that my great-grandmother was undergoing twenty-four hour nursing care and my great-uncle was dying of Alzheimers, and that they needed the money less than the restaurant owner. He was also able to determine that because the restaurant owner's need was so much greater, it over-rode the fact that the laws involved are explicitly clear, and that my grandparents' case was airtight--especially since the restauranteour admitted that he owed them the money.

So, in answer to the OP, judicial activism has a bad image BECAUSE IT IS A BAD THING. Not only is it blatantly unconstitutional, but judicial activists damage society's ability to function. In my family's case, the restauranteour was OBVIOUSLY guilty of breech of contract and a litany of other charges that damage the very fabric of the community's ability to do business. On a personal level, he had given his word numerous times to my family that he would make payments of all or part of the money on [insert date], and had repeatedly missed his self-made deadlines. He admitted to doing so in court, yet the judge seemingly disregarded this fact and instead decided that since his perceived need was greater, that overrode the fact that he had signed papers promising to make payments, and he hadn't done that! Imagine, for a second, that EVERY judge was like this since judicial activism, in our hypothetical scenario, is the norm. Society would COMPLETELY lose the ability to do business, since contracts would be totally unenforcable. While hardcore anarchists might be happy about such a turn of events, I highly doubt that anyone else would be.

Judicial activism is a crime against society. It has a negative image, and it FULLY deserves that image. Some amount of subjectivity in the judicial process is unavoidable, but when judges are making decisions that admittedly go against the law because of some farcical personal concerns you have a recipe for disaster.

[kojikun]

MoO: That was a civil case, and the judge's purpose was to do exactly that: right a perceived social injustice. Whether you like it or, obviously not, that's the way civil court goes. Tough shit. Get used to it. Civil court isn't about law, it's about opinion, always has been, so quit your bitching.

[Master of Ossus]

MoO: That was a civil case, and the judge's purpose was to do exactly that: right a perceived social injustice. Whether you like it or, obviously not, that's the way civil court goes. Tough shit. Get used to it. Civil court isn't about law, it's about opinion, always has been, so quit your bitching.

You gotta be shitting me. The judge ADMITTED that his decision was going against the law. It doesn't matter if it's a civil or a criminal case, a judge's duty is to make sure that laws are enforced. In this case, there was no room for interpretation since the laws and facts were clear. The basis of the court's power is the law, and to completely ignore the law in any courtroom is necessarily wrong.

[Howedar]

MoO: That was a civil case, and the judge's purpose was to do exactly that: right a perceived social injustice. Whether you like it or, obviously not, that's the way civil court goes. Tough shit. Get used to it. Civil court isn't about law, it's about opinion, always has been, so quit your bitching.

Ummmm

Yes. Yes, kojikun, courts are about the law.

[Gil Hamilton]

MoO: That was a civil case, and the judge's purpose was to do exactly that: right a perceived social injustice. Whether you like it or, obviously not, that's the way civil court goes. Tough shit. Get used to it. Civil court isn't about law, it's about opinion, always has been, so quit your bitching.

Wait a second. It's not a small claims court judges job to right social wrongs, his job to know the law (or at least have really good reference material) and making rulings based on it to settle disputes between two small parties. Practically all that civil court does is enforce contracts between two small parties, that's what they are there for. What the judge in MoO's anecdote was straight up wrong. Whether or not he sympathizes with the resturant owner, his job is to enforce the legally binding contract between MoO's granddad and the resturant owner.

[beyond hope]

On the "Agenda" thing, it's just politics-speak for "to-do list." There's nothing intrinsically diabolical about having goals. I'd be more concerned about a political party or interest group that didn't have one.

However, if your agenda reads like this...

1. burn the village
2. rape the horses
3. ride off on the women

...then there's a problem.

[kojikun]

Yes, he definitely should have upheld the contract, but in civil court, unfortunately, things are decided less on the necessary legality and more on the opinions of the people involved based on the rightness/wrongness of the situation, and thats how they're designed to work. Thats why OJ was innocent in criminal court, but guilty in civil court: because the jury in civil court didn't have to judge based on the evidence, they felt he was clearly guilty, and so should pay reparations.

[Durandal]

The "activist judges" that Bush likes to piss and whine about are the ones who strike down the Draconian laws that he fondles himself while thinking about as unconstitutional (Texas sodomy laws, the Pledge of Allegiance ruling, et cetera). Whether you like it or not, that is part of their job and does not qualify as "judicial activism."

[Master of Ossus]

Yes, he definitely should have upheld the contract, but in civil court, unfortunately, things are decided less on the necessary legality and more on the opinions of the people involved based on the rightness/wrongness of the situation, and thats how they're designed to work.

No. They're there to enforce the law. Civil courts aren't supposed to have anything to do with assessing "rightness" or "wrongness." They're there to interpret the law and make rulings that are consistent with it. Half the judges in NY state protested against the now-infamous "one-free-bite" laws regarding dogs, but just because they "felt" that the law was wrong did not give them the authority to override the state legislature and so they handed out COUNTLESS rulings in favor of the owners of violent dogs in spite of the fact that they felt the law was unjust.

Thats why OJ was innocent in criminal court, but guilty in civil court: because the jury in civil court didn't have to judge based on the evidence, they felt he was clearly guilty, and so should pay reparations.

That's bullshit, and you know it. He was found innocent in criminal court because the massively rigged jury FELT he was innocent, or that he had some other endeering qualities and therefore refused to examine the evidence properly. Jurors in the civil trial who were interviewed about the case afterwards almost universally stated that because of the high-profile nature of the trial they personally set standards of "beyond reasonable doubt." Some of them stated that they were looking for proof beyond ANY doubt. The difference was that the jury was more fair, and OJ didn't pour millions into his civil defense like he did in the criminal proceedings. Moreover, this has nothing to do with the case I brought up (see the last paragraph).

The standard for the plaintiff in a civil trial is often described as the "51% clause." In other words, to win a verdict a plaintiff must show that it is more likely than not that the defendant caused them damages. This is substantially less than the "clear and convincing" or "beyond reasonable doubt" standards of evidence.

And, once again with respect to the case I've been complaining about, the judge "felt" that the restauranteour was guilty. In fact, he stated as such. He just didn't give a damn because he wasn't interested in doing his job, and instead wanted to hijack the justice system for his own ends. I can't believe you don't see a problem with what he did. This goes beyond interpretations of the law, since the judge STATED that the guy owed my grandparents the money. There was NO evidence to indicate anything else, and the guy didn't even present a defense in court--he flat out admitted that he owed them the money. There was voluminous documentation (ie. bank statements, bounced checks, etc.) to indicate that he owed them money, and this went WELL beyond subjectivity since the judge said the guy hadn't paid his debts. This is TOTALLY different from anything you can even pretend was going on with the OJ trial, since in that case the FACTS were in dispute. My grandparents' claim was never disputed by the restauranteour. There is a HUGE difference between saying "well, I'm not sure the case is strong enough to warrant a ruling," and admitting that the case is strong enough but ignoring that in favor of one's own misplaced idealism.

[Spyder]

On the "Agenda" thing, it's just politics-speak for "to-do list." There's nothing intrinsically diabolical about having goals. I'd be more concerned about a political party or interest group that didn't have one.

However, if your agenda reads like this...

1. burn the village
2. rape the horses
3. ride off on the women

...then there's a problem.

If your "to do" list happens to read like that of a Bond villian.

"The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership."

[kojikun]

MoO: Conceeded.

[Durandal]

Civil court, while it has a much lower standard of proof (the so-called "preponderance of evidence", I believe is the term), still goes by the law.