[vmception]

Every creature from the New Deal is probably unconstitutional.

Additional context on that threat of court packing is that the Supreme Court was already invalidating and gutting the New Deal! Its such an important story to me because my grade school history books all upheld the New Deal as this monumental and amazing thing.

From what I can tell, 75% of it (or 75% of the programs it created) was declared unconstitutional, and everything else just hasn't been challenged yet!

And of the things that were challenged and declared constitutional, it was under the threat of court packing! Now, 3-5 generations later, the Supreme Court just can't imagine how society functions by ruling accurately to begin with! I'm pretty interested in any court unwinding this incongruency.

[munificent]

I think implicit in your comment is that the New Deal must not actually be amazing because it turns out that it's likely unconstitutional but... how does that logically follow? It's not like the Constitution was handed down from the heavens as a flawless document.

It may be that the New Deal does contain many unconstitutional provisions, but also that that same legislature was in fact a net benefit for Americans.

[jonhohle]

There’s a process for that. The authority to override or change the constitution is not given to a single government branch but to the states. We’ve had an amendment as late as the 1990s, so it isn’t as of the constitution is immutable.

The authority of each government branch is explicitly enumerated. I’d rather them behave according to the contract they are beholden to than decide they have whatever authority they wish. That’s no longer a constitutional republic.

I’m not saying that a constitutional republic is the end all, be all. I’m just saying there is a process for getting things done and it is supposed to checked by the constitution and the other federal branches. That can be changed by amendment or revolution, but should not be changed by the whim of politicians.

[vmception]

Net positive and constitutional are mutually exclusive concepts. That I do agree, and I agree that my earlier statement doesn't seem to give room for that level of nuance.

It just so happens that all my causes and grudges are from creatures of the New Deal, and I'm not in a position to bring them before the courts yet. Imagine my excitement when I realized how flimsy that era's legislative flurry really was.

[lovich]

> It's not like the Constitution was handed down from the heavens as a flawless document.

au contraire, in some opinions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion

[bayareabadboy]

Processes were included to amend the constitution for this exact reason! Of course the framers knew that it was a flawed document.

[zozbot234]

If you look at the data, industrial production starts bouncing back when the worst provisions of the New Deal get struck down by the courts. It was very much self-defeating, the only part that helped was devaluing the dollar wrt. the main foreign currencies.

[naravara]

Show this data please