I don't believe Thomas was bought by bribery. I don't think any reasonable observer does. Rather, I think that he was friends with a very wealthy person, who appreciates that Thomas is ideologically inclined to give him what he wants.

Nor is that illegal. The illegal part is failing to disclose it. Nobody can say why he failed to disclose it. He has no reason to be embarrassed by it. It's widely interpreted as contempt for the law -- an uncomfortable thing to believe about the highest court in the land.

I know that a lot of lawyers (of all ideologies) have a lot of respect for the work of the Supreme Court. As a non-lawyer, my lack of respect should mean less than theirs. But when a decision comes down to ideology, they can be relied on to vote with their decades-old beliefs, and the entire charade of presenting a case seems unnecessary. The decision could have been written without pretending that they were actually deciding anything.

As you day, democracy is about losing gracefully. But as of now, I'm practically guaranteed to lose for the rest of my life any time it comes down to an ideological issue. That's not corruption; it's the fact that there are at least five justices who I don't believe will even consider it. The fact that one of them doesn't consider a law relevant is an indicator that something is badly aligned, upsetting the balance under which I'm expected to be a good loser.

One of the respect-worthy things about Scalia (even Thomas) is that they believe(d) that what the Constitution says, should be followed. One of their fundamental differences with, say, the more liberal justices, is that you should not read new/updated rights into a document that says what it says. If on the other hand you say that justices should adapt to what the current interpretation of a document implies, then maybe it goes your way, but someone interpreting modern values differently might equally conflict with what you want.

In that sense their position is clear and stable. They don't agree that the rights you're claiming are found in the Constitution.

How then, do you change that or turn it to your advantage? You make laws and amend the Constitution to change the ground rules of society over time. And justices that take the above approach will, if they are reputable, continue to follow their adherence to what the Constitution (updated) says.

Now, as I said above, our system seems to be quite dysfunctional right now in that a lot of issues cannot be decided by society given our political reality right now. But having a court decide an issue when 50% of people disagree will not gain it any credibility, or resolve it for society.

As a mode of rationalization of why the Constitution should be read in a way which supports their ideologically preferences, yes. As anything more deeply meaningful than that; some evidence in Scalia’s case, less in Thomas’s.

> One of their fundamental differences with, say, the more liberal justices, is that you should not read new/updated rights into a document that says what it says.

That’s not actually a difference between them and most of the more liberal justices; they actually legitimately disagree on original intent.

> If on the other hand you say that justices should adapt to what the current interpretation of a document implies, then maybe it goes your way, but someone interpreting modern values differently might equally conflict with what you want.

Believe it or not, its just as easy for people trying to interpret “what did the document mean in the eyes of the original writers” or “what would this text be seen as meaning in the original context it was written” (originalism/textualism) to come to differing conclusions than each other. The idea that either originalism or textualism produces stability is…well, I mean, its inconsistent with the decisions the Supreme Court has rendered with originalist or textualist rationales.

The Ninth Amendment makes it extremely clear that the list is not exhaustive. There is no originalist or textualist reading that can make "these are the only rights you have" valid.

But whether the SCOTUS judges should write wholesale changes to the scope of the Constitution or rights that drift away from the original intent? That certainly is a matter for debate and thinking about implications.

There is a mechanism for changing the Constitution, amendments. Why should certain topics, if they rise to the level of "should have been an amendment passed by the people", be imposed by the justices?

What if the Constitution envisions that judges should interpret ambiguities at the margin, and not create whole new rights that drift from the fundamental codebase, if you will?

And then on top of that, if some new right involves significant social questions and implications, why should 9 justices (legal professionals) be the ones to say what the answer is?

As you said, these are open for adjustment. But whether the rights you seek should be created by justices versus the democratic process I think I differ with. Or at least, I see the logic of the more conservative approach to.

The law is already a high bar. The process is designed to favor inaction. A dedicated minority can prevent law from passage -- and can do so solely for political reasons, regardless of their personal feelings or those of their constituents. To pass a law requires control of the House and the Senate (by a filibuster-proof margin) and the Presidency, at the same time. And an amendment is even higher than that.

The Supreme Court should be able to shortcut that by recognizing that the 9th Amendment explicitly forbids a reading of "you don't have this right if James Madison didn't give it to you". When they make that claim, the entire process is cast in doubt.

I would vastly rather see the Congress pass these rights. But when the Congress has cemented a Supreme Court dedicated to ensuring that you gain no rights, and is further willing to use any minority advantage to guarantee that it can't be done by law, then the Constitution really is a suicide pact.

The Constitution draws its concept of rights from philosophy surrounding natural rights. If you're not using the word in that context you're talking about something else.

If we actually lived in a true democracy, then, yes, I would agree. But we don't. The US naturally degrades to an undemocratic two-party system, and apportionment gives minority citizens outsized influence. Sometimes it even gives the minority citizens a majority in governance.

> You want term limits on the current justices -- would you have been in favor of that for the justice that was giving you "yes" votes on cases?

Yes, absolutely. The problem is that the lifetime appointments cut both ways. For example, RBG fucked up: instead of doing the smart thing, stepping down years earlier (when she already had plenty of health problems), she was selfish, stayed on the bench, and was replaced by someone with views that would likely disgust her.

A term limit would make things more fair, and would have justices entering and leaving the court at predictable intervals. Of course, term limits would likely require a constitutional amendment, so that will never happen.

I was a fan of another proposal I read a couple years ago: every presidential term gets some fixed number of SCOTUS appointments (say, one or two), and the size of the court varies term-by-term based on who is or isn't retiring. When a justice retires, they aren't replaced. Presidents just get their one or two guaranteed appointments every four years, and that's it.

Of course, you still have the issue of Senate consent; we could certainly have another situation where when the Senate is controlled by a party different from the president's, they stonewall and refuse to confirm. Fixing that would of course require another constitutional amendment, so that wouldn't work. But when appointments aren't "precious", it's probably less likely that would be an issue.

> I am not in favor of suddenly finding / proposing all sorts of new rules just because a ruling didn't go your way.

This isn't sudden; people have been talking about SCOTUS reform for many years. It's just that incidents like the current one bring it back into the spotlight.

Earlier in history a Court at odds with the other branches basically "blinked" when confronted with the threat of packing, but it's hard to see that happening now. It's obvious that Roberts is concerned with the image of the institution to the degree that it's affected the outcomes of cases before that were likely to be seen as overtly partisan, but there's now a conservative majority even with his exclusion.

Some of the court's outsized power and importance has happened because of Congress's unwillingness and/or inability to act, leading both parties to look to the court for "wins." I think fixing that (itself a tall order) could turn down the temperature a little, but the Supreme Court itself holds a lot of control over whether that can even work, as they're effectively the arbiter of the scope of their own power.