If your point is that they should not accept bribes and should not act as tools of the elite, then certainly I agree.
But I don’t think we need to make “has token poor friends” a job requirement.
Justice Thomas was EXTREMELY poor growing up.
That doesn’t seem to have the effect you believed it would.
This would only be true is a world where poor people can’t vote. Since poor people out number rich people, they should be able to replace any politicians who are ignoring the desires of poor people.
Also, Twig never said that only rich people should be in power. She simply pointed out that people naturally socialize with people in proximity to them, and those tend to be people in a similar social stratum.
I don’t think Thomas forgot that he grew up poor. I’m sure he can visualize all of these people. Hell, he spends is vacations driving around the country in an RV talking to random people.
The result: An ideological extremist who pushes an extremely conservative agenda.
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I think it’s a little harder for poor people to vote out elite folks than you suggest, but I mostly agree.
I did not know Thomas’s background or vacation habits so thanks for that.
yes, and she also recognizes that the SC does not have justices that grew up poor, and she recognizes that rich people tend to only hang out with rich people.
Yet she doesn’t see a problem with that. That’s why she’s part of the problem
Well, then she is simply wrong. Because Thomas grew up poor. He is the descendant of slaves and didn’t experience indoor plumbing until his parent’s house burned down, and he moved in with grandparents.
I don’t inherently see a problem with it either, considering the justices who grew up poor are harsher towards poor people than the ones who grew up rich.
You haven’t established why it should matter what background these people come from, and if anything you have illustrated that a justice’s wealth during upbringing seems completely uncorrelated with how they make rulings.
Indeed she was wrong. But she admitted that.
I can understand why a was-poor-now-rich justice would vote to keep his status now. That is a choice.
However, someone at the level of let-them-eat cake is worse.
Further, I don’t think it’s the job of the SCOTUS to be in touch with every person in the country. Their job is to be extreme experts in law and to make rulings based on those laws.
Conversely, when it comes to the legislature, that group of people should be in touch with all segments of the population. They need to understand both the needs of all of their constituents, and a basic understanding of all the people they have law making power over.
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Especially when they get gerrymandered out of what little power they have. and it takes some money to run a successful campaign for congress.
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Okay?
You’ve yet to illustrate how having justices that were raised poor would improve anything. It currently seems like nothing more than a virtue signal.
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I’m not here to write a dissertation. None of us have that kind of data.
And don’t get me wrong. I don’t hang out with poor people either.
But I at least recognize that if things were to change, it’s not going to be out of some divine revelation from a rich justice who has never experienced poor, but probably rather from someone who’s lived through it.
The only reason it’s difficult is that the poor people buy into the propaganda that “the elite” people put out. They also tend to not vote at the same rates as wealthy people.
Ah. Because citing a single source for any level of evidence = writing a dissertation.
It sounds like you want to be able to make a wild claim without evidence and then shield yourself from any criticisms that your claim is unfounded (especially in the light of contradictory evidence). Maybe stop aggressively attacking somebody for not subscribing to your seemingly invalid beliefs on the makeup of the SCOTUS.
So you are worse than Thomas? Hell, I hang out with poor people all the time. Am I some weird outlier here? Or is my family just unusual?
Or you can see that being poor is only correlated with a justice being terrible.
If we look back through history at the greatest changes/improvements for poor people, how many of them were enacted by poor people vs enacted by rich people. That information would at least be a start in determining if your claims have any validity at all. For example, FDR started many programs aimed at helping poor people even though he was raised in a wealthy family. Conversely, Ronald Regan was born into a low income family and when he gained power he continually passed laws the hurt poor people and helped rich people.
If anything, I’m seeing the real world play out the exact opposite of your claims. Being raised poor seems to be correlated with supporting anti-poor people polices.
Further, we shouldn’t be hanging out hopes of change on the SCOTUS. That’s insane. The change needs to come from the executive and legislative branches. Obsessing over the social circles of justices is weird.
So maybe instead of being so incredibly aggressive towards Twig you might spend some time determining if you are spouting utter non-sense or if there is a shred of evidence to support your stance.
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This is a good point. And certainly one factor involved.
why is it a wild claim?
I never claimed hanging out with rich/poor people is a good/bad thing. It IS a thing when you are in a position of power to make decisions. I’m not in that position.
I don’t know, are you poor?
Not the world I’m seeing. Many of the people supporting the socialist movement seem to be from the poor. That said, there aren’t that many poor people in government, which is the problem.
Agree with the first statement. But no one is obsessing over anything here. We’ve trade some sentences. That is all.
Zero evidence in favor, and all examined evidence is against it.
I’m an actuary. So I feel like I’m at least upper middle class. I’m certainly not poor currently.
All the socialists I know grew up as middle to upper class white kids. I’d require evidence to believe your claim that support for socialism is correlated to being raised/living poor.
This again is a baseless claim based on your personal biased anecdote.
You spent a series of nearly a dozen posts getting super worked up and attacking somebody because they dared claim that it’s not critical for a Justice to have poor people in their social circle. You haven’t even been able to show how that harms their ability to execute the functions of their job.
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Claim: If you grew up poor, you are more likely to support socialism
Your counterargument: I know socialist people who grew up rich
I’ll let you figure out what’s wrong with that logic.
I’m sorry you drew so much zeal from my posts. I’m a stoner. I never get triggered. I’m actually working right now.
You’re halfway to the reality of that discussion.
Claim: If you grew up poor, you are more likely to support socialism
Support for claim: JSM’s anecdotal “world he’s seeing”
My Counterargument: My anecdotal experience is the literal opposite. We now require actual evidence to determine what’s actually happening.
I’ll let you figure out why your argument is bad now. (I still stand by mine.) Especially because you’ve been completely wrong about wealthy people and their actions on the SCOTUS. I now am less likely to be charitable to your anecdotal assertions.
You literally twisted Twig’s words and claimed she said something that she never said; all because you are pushing for a narrative that so far seems completely false.
(I assume all of us are “working” right now. I don’t see how that illustrates that you didn’t post a series of posts attacking Twig and misrepresenting her claims.)
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Keep in mind, you are talking about justices, so they don’t make laws. Your claim is already wild.
She made a post about not judging people based on the money their social circle has. You responded with a claim that twig is okay with a world where on the rich and powerful rule. So you’ve already changed the scope of the conversation from a Justice to the entire government and everyone in a position of power. At the very least, this is a dishonest form of argumentation. You either intentionally misrepresented her claims or you understand them so poorly that you don’t see how you misrepresented them.
VA comment: I edited this post to remove quoted material that has been deleted.
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I once polled the AO, and there was a strong correlation class and politics. People who grew up in lower classes were overwhelmingly conservative. People who grew up in higher classes were overwhelmingly liberal. Can’t say for how that applies to the real world, because I have no real world friends.
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That’s an extremely weak rebuttal. I have a feeling that you understood exactly what I meant but just want to fight.
Nope, not wild at all. SCOTUS is making laws and I’m sure people on both aisles agree with me.
True. I used the democratic base as support, you used your own social circle. All I said about my own social circle is that I don’t hang out with poor people, but I didn’t use that as evidence for anything.
Everyone on the SCOTUS is rich except 1. I’ll give credit to your one example that goes against the direction.
I’ll be your friend.
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