• VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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    9 months ago

    How is not everyone freaking out over this?

    Because you’re wrong. Massachusetts is not throwing out all amendments to the constitution. They’re just adopting a saner interpretation of one of them, one more in line with a modern and civilized country.

    • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      The Massachusetts ruling is not the problem here. This is the tiny silver lining in a really big storm cloud. The court has shown us that they are not just trying to implement conservative policy using textualism as a fig leaf. They are tied to the mast and intend to really rule on the text of the U.S. constitution.

      Pretty much all your social programs and regulatory systems depend on a very creative interpretation of the constitution to get around the reserve clause. But if SCOTUS starts jettisoning out those interpretations and moving to eg a literal interpretation of the commerce clause and other popular loopholes, it all comes tumbling down.

      Social security? Medicare? The FCC? The EPA? NASA? All history.

      More information on the constitutional basis for social security and other programs can be found straight from the horse’s mouth:

      https://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html

      • unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        While your analysis of the way that the courts have been implementing conservative policy is spot on, I have to disagree with your conclusions about how it will play out in practice.

        Social security? Medicare? The FCC? The EPA? NASA? All history.

        Surely this would be a wet dream for the most diehard conservatives, but the reality is that there exists simply too much popular support for many of these programs. Constitutional or not, take away people’s social security checks and there would be a popular backlash unlike anything we’ve seen in ages.

        Having said that, if Trump gets elected, who’s to say that he wouldn’t try to take a swipe at some of the more controversial programs, like the EPA? That certainly seems plausible, but the idea of fully dismantling the federal bureaucracy seems far-fetched.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          They’d be more than happy to hold a Constitutional Convention to fix that. They’d sell it as making a Constitution that allows for stuff like social programs.

          Except they’ve been practicing for one for decades and their actual proposals are downright insane. Like rolling back women’s suffrage.