File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 892


Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 00:18:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Tyranny of the Majority (Charles Brown)


On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Mark Jones wrote:

> Justin Schwartz wrote:
> 
> > Personally I think the elected judiciary is a fraud.
> 
> What kind of judiciary wd you prefer? An appointed judiciary?

Well, that would be better. It is better where it exists, as in the
federal court system. But I said that I wanted a civil service judiciary. 

> 
> > Most people have no
> > idea who the judges are and if they bother to vote for them, vote straight
> > party line or party endorsement.
> 
> evidence? Or is this more blind assertion of a bucolic judge in waiting?
> 

Me, a judge? I'd love to see the confirmation hearings on _that_. But I'd
be a good judge and I think I'd like the job. In a different time and
place I might have had a chance at an elected position. Justin Ravitz was
elected in Detroit in the 70s. But that was then.

I don't have scientific evidence. But I have anecdotal evidence taht I
regard as strong. This is that in the lst coyuple elections when judges
have been on the ballot in Columbus, neither I nor any other law student I
know at the top law school in the state had any idea who these people
were. I asked a friend of mine who's an attorney who to vote for.

> > Moreover the need for electioneering
> > injects what I regard as improper influences, generally pro-employer ones,
> > into the law. If I had my druthers, I'd have a civil service judiciary, as
> > in Europe.
> >
> 
> Well, now we know what Justin prefers. Do you feel that the European judiciary
> better serves the cause of justice, abstractly perceived? Or is this empty
> pontificating? Why do you waste your time giving us these Opinions, for which you
> will not be imbursed?

I don't know much about the European system or how it works. I would not
impose a civil law model on a country with a common law tradition. But,
abstractly speaking, if one had a civil service judiciary, the judges
would not need money to get elected or powerful friends to be appointed.
If they were given seats on the bench by examination, the process would be
as a political as it could be in a capitalist society.

> 
> > The Court takes 100 or so cases a year.
> 
> Give us the facts Justin. How many cases, in 1997? I have done a search and I know
> the answer. So tell us.

About 100. Why are you being a jerk?

> 
> > The federal appeals
> > courts are practically speaking The Law in their jurisdictions as far as
> > federal questions go, and most state cases never get out of the state
> > system. The theoretical rigfht to appeal an adverse state court decision
> > to the Supreme Court is a joke in 99.99% of cases.
> 
> Justin, your ability to make rash decisions in 99.99% of cases is the reason why you
> work in the place you work and not, after all, because of your politics. A
> theoretical right of appeal cannot be a joke under any circumstances, and it
> obviously conditions the work of lower appellate courts, does it not? I am sure you
> would agree if you were in thinking mode when you replied.
> 

Sure, it's an imprtant right and I would fight like the devil to keep it.
I oppose limitations of the sort Congress and the Court itself has been
imposing on the federal courts' jurisdiction. But the fact is, in more
than 99 cases out of a hundred, if you get an adverse judgment in a
federal circuit or from your state supreme court, you are out of luck.

> > Charles says:
> >
> > > <<Isn't the Parliament/Legislature an elite/minority committee?>>
> > >
> >
> > Sure, in a capitalist society.
> 
> No, it is not. Is it? If it was, justice would not be served, would it, and you
> really would just be pissing in thge wind for a career.

I see. You disapprove of my choice of law a career. If no lefties were
lawyers, who would defend the workers, pray tell?

> 
> > Well, I think that a republican form of government is both inevitable in a
> > laerge society and a good thing in any case, although I advocate more mass
> > partricipation.
> >
> 
> This is the kind of thing which got Brutus out of favour after all: he bored people
> to death by sententious restatements of what is only superficially self-evident.
> 
 We bore each other then. Was this the ruthless analysis you promised me?

> > The majority can be and in many cases is more "liberal" or progressive
> > than the elites. But in many cases it isn't. That's part of why we need a
> > BoR.
> 
> More argument read off scribbles on your shirt cuffs. Why do you love to to
> pontificate in this empty way? Is this how you represent your godforsaken cl
ients?

I'm not a lawyer yet and cannot represent anyone. But if you would care
too see any of the briefs I have written for the work I have done, send me
a stamped-self-addressed envelope and I will show you how I wiould
represent clients if I could. 

> Is this a theory of law, realist or surrealist? "Sometimes I, Justin Schwartz, think
> the masses are progressive, but then again not, so we need to catch them in the
> right mood, and at the same time get the elite committee in a moment of
> forgetfulness to issue a blank cheque against itself and get them all to agree 
> on sg which they will all cordially hate forever, but which I, being
> a conscientious pain in the ass, will always be around to remind them of."
>  This is yr plague-on-all-houses notion of demos and the elites, right?
> 

It's reality, chum. Sometimes the masses are progressive. Sometimes not.
Sometimes the elites do issue things that turn into, if not blank checks,
at least enforceable obligations against them. And I sure as hell will be
around to remind them that they have to pay. 

> Boy, you never will get a proper job, Justin.
> 

And what sort of job would that be? So far I'm doing pretty well. I've
worked for the Natioanl Lawyer's Guild and the Auto Workers union and will
be clerking for some federal judges. What is is that you do that's so
revolutionary by way of making a  living, btw?

> Lochnerite smochnerite. You are the worst kind of elitist going, Justin, the kind of
> sanctimonious sob who hates the plebs and despises the elites he still contrives
> somehow to serve. 

Do you think this advances discussion?

> 
> >  segregagtion is inherently antidemocratic.
> >
> 
> Is it? That might be intuitively obvious to a pompous fool who is sure of more than
> he knows, but not to anyone who can do arithmetic.

Yeah, well, since you know what democracy is, why don't write it up and
get yourself a tenured job at a high powered university so you can tell
the world. 

--jks




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