As the Colorado Supreme Court wrote, January 6 meets the bar for insurrection āunder any viable definitionā of the term. The legal scholar Mark Graber, who has closely studied the Fourteenth Amendmentās history, argues that āinsurrectionā should be understood broadlyāan act of organized resistance to government authority motivated by a āpublic purpose.ā That certainly describes the Capitol riot, in which a violent mob attacked law enforcement and threatened members of Congress and the vice president in order to block the rightful counting of the electoral vote and illegally secure the victory of the losing candidate. The historical record also suggests that the amendmentās requirement that a prospective officeholder must have āengaged in insurrectionā should also be understood broadlyāmeaning that Trumpās speech on the Ellipse that morning and his encouragement of the rioters while they smashed their way through the Capitol more than fit the bill.
Umm, no? It might have to rule if someone under 35 got themselves nominated and was about to be put on the ballots, but even that would probably not be necessary because someoneās ageāassuming there isnāt a debate around what their birthday isāwould be a notorious fact.
It wouldnāt need to go to a trial court because there are no facts under dispute.
You donāt need to get me started on the Supreme Court. Americaās court system has been fundamentally broken for decades. They have a long history of legislating from the bench and making rulings thatāwhether you agree with them morally or notāobviously do not follow from the text of the law they claim to interpret. All the 2nd amendment interpretations are probably the worst in terms of actual impact. This not helped by Americaās uniquely inept legislature, with both the worst election system in the democratic world, and the least-functional procedures for operating once people have been elected, which has made it so easy for the SCOTUS to get away with so much legislation. (And SCOTUS has, in turn, provided the legislature with excuses for not legislating things that should be legislatedālike abortion rights.)
I donāt think itās obvious at all. Itās not an unreasonable argument to make, and if you go back to my original comment youāll see that I specifically made allowance for the historical precedent of it being used in this way. Indeed, as far as what outcome would have the best impact on your country, I think this would be great. Anything to keep Trump away from a second presidency.
My point was that itās very much not obvious, and that coming down on the side of not having politicians decideārather than a jury, or a bench trialāseems more in keeping with the principle of rule of law.
This is clearly not the case. Donald Trump himself has disputed the natural born citizenship of Barack Obama, and he has done it for almost a decade. You are making an assumption, and taking for granted that someoneās natural born citizenship or age is plainly obvious. The rule of law is only as valid as the system of jurisprudence that backs it up, and only remains broadly applicable as long as it is backed by the consent of the governed.
Therefore, the delegitimization of the judicial system and erosion of the law through slippery interpretations of the constitution that are in no way ambiguous either in language or spirit is the HALLMARK of conservative legal strategy. Conservatism is based on the fundamental principal that there are groups that the law protects but does not bind, and binds but does not protect. You are feeding into this dangerous ideology by suggesting these legal definitions are ambiguous, or that we do not have contemporaneous interpretation from the people who wrote & debated them.
I donāt hate you for it, but I donāt respect it either. You may not like my assertion that you are legally & historically illiterate. I can understand that, and I donāt blame you for that either. Sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesnāt mean you should insulate yourself from it. The honest, mature thing to do is to approach criticism from an objective, dispassionate position.
My criticism is that you are not willing to follow your arguments to their logical conclusions, and are engaging in reinforcing the dangerous practice of smuggling in ambiguity via āwhataboutismā arguments that really only serve to strengthen the psychopathic modern crypto-fascist movement that is being lead by ivy league educated authoritarians who are abusing the cognitive dissonance of the uneducated working class that falls victim to their social control mechanisms.