A Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday that Elon Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway to voters can continue, in a victory for the tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally.
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta rejected arguments from the city’s district attorney, Larry Krasner, who argued that the sweepstakes was an illegal lottery violating state law and must be halted immediately.
The ruling came shortly after an all-day hearing in a packed courtroom in downtown Philadelphia. The hearing was heated at times, with Krasner’s team calling Musk’s political team “shysters” who are running a “scam” and “grift” – and Musk’s team accusing the district attorney of pursuing a “dreadful violation of constitutional rights.”
Call me a hippy but I’ve always had a problem with the very concept of a judge. As in, someone who gets paid (royally!) just to, well judge people. As we all know the law is anything but impartial, so my take was always that, say, the “wrong” type of people gravitate towards these posts. Keep this up for a few decades and you have a thorougly corrupt legal system (not remotely resembling a “justice” system).
It’s not as if I have any workable alternatives, but still the very concept feels wrong to me somehow.
The problem is that a judge, by virtue of being human, is incapable of impartiality.
If there were some sort of computer code that turned the legal system into a hard science that would be amazing, but I doubt that’s even possible.
No! I don’t want a computer making the decisions!
A judge can be merciful. A judge can have empathy and understanding.
By virtue of being a human being, a judge can understand what it means to be human.
Although the current state of the Supreme Court is demoralizing, it should be noted judges get second-guessed all the time through the appeal process.
I see the judicial system as one of those things that may be terrible, but is still better than every alternative, much like democracy.
If you want to replace people with computers, start with the CEOs and work down from there.
The problem is the computer code needs to be coded by a human, so it is just as fallible to biases and manipulation
And a lot of judges run for office. You have to act tough to get reelected, which means “tough on crime”.
Judges are a heavily flawed attempt on impartiality when poor people do crimes for different reasons than the state and rich commit them.
A rich man will never loiter, a poor person might have to. A state can declare war and pardon its commanders even with rape and murder illegal for everyone else.
Everyone and everything can be corrupted. Your train of thought that the “wrong” type of people gravitate towards these posts is taking a biased approach. It’s closer to reality to say that the vested interest in corrupting these positions will always be a strong contestant to the rule of fair and unbiased law.
No legal system can unflinchingly endure the internal and external manipulations seeking to exploit it because regardless of how much we intend its fairness, we ourselves are unfair and malleable - intentionally or not.
You are just describing the Federalist Society.