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Comment by sixstringtheory | Hacker News Reader

Your naïveté lies in the fact that you don’t realize that Supreme Court justices are elected by proxy of voting for the president that nominated them and the senators that confirm them.

It stands to reason that on average, if you elect conservative presidents and senators, you will get conservative justices, and vice-versa.

You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country. I counter that reality is more boring than that, and that these people can be taken at face value by virtue of what they’ve said and done for decades.

Furthermore, I think yours is an apologist/denialist stance people use so they can get someone in the courts they truly approve of, while hiding behind the “hope” that they won’t be as bad as everyone else knows they will.

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The only part of what you wrote that addresses my point is this:

> You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country

Against this characterization I would oppose John Roberts, who was appointed by a Republican president, but has been reluctant to create any non-trivial precedent on topics that figure in the Republican platform. There's a lot of anger among Republican voters over that, but what can they do? They can't vote him out, he is not beholden to the Republican party, and he's done nothing impeachable.

I understand how this can be difficult to perceive from outside, especially if you happen to be in a bubble that perceives Republicans as uniformly deplorable. But I assure you that Roberts is viewed that way. (I view them from another direction entirely.)

As far as my stance being apologist or denialist, you have no idea what I think or want.

you: “we don't vote for Supreme Court justices… There's no…electoral…pressure on a justice[‘s] motivations…”

zzleeper: “Are you naive…? Republicans have lists of candidates for justices…they have deemed…anti roe-vs-wade”

you: “If I'm naive, please explain”

This is where you lost the point, and where I explained your naïveté, an explanation you ignored in your response to me.

Your last two paragraphs consist of speculative ad hominem (judging by your profile, we have similar life circumstances, and I have many conservatives in my “bubble” ie family members) followed by a hypocritical self defense. We don’t know anything about each other outside of what we’ve said here. I’m simply calling it like I see it:

you: “Why [wouldn’t Thomas change his mind once he is appointed], if he's now free to act as he pleases?…what's to stop him doing as he thinks is right…?”

The obvious answer is that he was appointed precisely because it was expected he would act the way he has, because what he believes is right is fully aligned with who appointed him, as are the three most recent appointees. You want to point out exceptions like Roberts, but those merely prove the rule from my original explanation.

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