[jakogut]

Something I've been wondering in recent cases where courts are overturning recent government action, whether unconstitutional bills passed into law, or unconstitutional executive actions that overstep authority, is where's the penalty for committing those actions in the first place?

The state of New York famously responded to the outcome of NYSRPA v. Bruen, which overturned the defacto ban on concealed carry, by declaring nearly all public spaces "sensitive areas" in which licensed individuals may not carry for their protection. Regardless of one's opinion of said rights, how do courts blatantly ignore rulings and orders from higher courts with no repercussions?

How do courts declare certain executive orders unconstitutional, and yet the perpetrators, who took an oath to uphold and defend said rights and values, face no consequences?

[RC_ITR]

>where's the penalty for committing those actions in the first place

You've hit the core problem of society/government that countless generations have tried to obfuscate via an academic body that implies that social interactions can be studied/understood like natural sciences.

At the core, all social structure is built on the threat of violence - Commit non-violent white collar crime? Show up to court, because if you don't you'll get arrested. Run from the police when they try to arrest you? You'll get taken by force.

Reject Capitalism? Starve to death on the streets.

Sure, there's political theory and economics can act like "utility" drives all things, but at the end of the day, it's the threat of some sort of violently bad outcome that keeps society in check.

The recent rub is that we have (probably correctly) decided that violence is bad and we should all just be chill and work together because it's good for all of us. We've also created hyper complex systems that couldn't even theoretically be kept in check with violence (Who am I going to punch when I was duped by a crypto scam?).

So instead of angry mobs tarring and feathering bad politicians/business people (probably bad) we just grouse on the Internet (bad but not as bad).

And stuff like this keeps happening, because an increasingly large number of people (especially the wealthy and politicians) are realizing the threat of violence isn't that great anymore. Like look at Elon Musk - his whole deal is proving that there are no bad consequences to doing whatever he wants and he's revered for it because people who still have a risk of violence in their lives are jealous but believe they one day could get to a similar place.

There's not really a solution other than figuring out how to may people be chill and cooperative on their own (good luck).

[Aunche]

>Reject Capitalism? Starve to death on the streets.

What's "rejecting capitalism?" You can't blow up the NYSE, but most everything else is fair game. Your employer isn't going to care if you reject capitalism so long as you get your work done. If you don't want to work under a capitalist, you can join join or start your own cooperative. If you can't do that, you can be an independent contractor. If you don't have the motivation to do that, you can fall back on the charity of others.

>Like look at Elon Musk - his whole deal is proving that there are no bad consequences to doing whatever he wants

Musk got ousted as board chair at at Tesla, and was forced to buy Twitter at a very overpriced valuation.

[ClumsyPilot]

I am sorry, if you 'reject capitaliam' but have to check if 'your employer' cares, and pay 'your landlord' and go to the same grocery store, what exactly have you rejected?

[gruez]

Based on what you're describing "reject capitalism" is just edgier phrasing for "not respecting property rights" (ie. expecting your employer to give you money for nothing, or for your landlord to house you for free).

[Aunche]

I'm not the person to ask, but plenty of people claim to reject capitalism and participate in society like Rage Against the Machine.

[ClumsyPilot]

Simple example - bhuddist monks, they don't take part in capitalism, they do their own thing.

Would you be allowed to build a monastery on top of a random mountain in America today? Clearly not. Force will be used to remove you.

So you portrailyal of 'anything short of terrorism is fair game' is totally inaccurate - the only way you are allowed to reject capitalism by selling tickets to a concert where you just talk shit.

[weberer]

You could always move to a communist country. However internet communists always get real quiet when you suggest that.

[afarrell]

> At the core, all social structure is built on the threat of violence

Cripes. Nope.

If this was true, how do you explain backyard cookouts, pool parties, trick-or-treating, or Christmas present exchanges?

How do you explain folk dance festivals, buskers, and non-royal weddings?

How on earth do you explain hugs?

[jkhdigital]

Social interaction which is based on mutual trust (whether from family or sustained direct interpersonal interaction) is not really what we're talking about here. Folk dance festivals do not feed the world. The social structure of modern society is, by and large, about interactions between mutually distrusting strangers and their agents as they negotiate the exchange and distribution of economic resources. Basically everything you own and consume was produced by people you've never seen or interacted with.

[eduction]

You’re talking about capitalism not social structure. The post above that brought up social structure is also a red herring. This is about legal power and the threat of coercion. It would be trivial to implement a law to punish (say) Eric Adams or someone else in or formerly in nyc government for what they did. There are probably some basic mechanical reasons that is not generally done (although I don’t mean to dismiss the idea).

[pas]

the idea is that sanctioning past behavior, which was legal at the time, is super extra bad (ie. no retroactive punishment), because then you can never be sure that the the ruling powers that be won't send law enforcement after you. (of course the brutal truth is that you can never be sure, hence people should realize that there's no opt-out from politics)

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

[RC_ITR]

>It would be trivial to implement a law to punish (say) Eric Adams or someone else in or formerly in nyc government for what they did.

Sure, but what, you're going to send the mayor to Jail (violence) over a political decision he made?

That would not be trivial.

[whoopdedo]

Because every stick needs a carrot.

Positive reinforcement is not antithetical to the threat of violence and can go hand-in-hand. If you're good to me I'll treat you like family. But violate that peace and me and my clan will come down on you with furious anger. That's how people have lived for time immemorial.

[JamesianP]

Even so, violence isn't so much the basis for society itself, just the govt. And either way, it's only how outliers are dealt with. Most of what most people do all day every day is constrained by things like their family and peers' expectations and their commitments. I'd say social structures are primarily based on cultural norms.

[afarrell]

Speaking as the son of someone who runs operations for the a federal district court, every ounce of the “violence” bit is covered by pounds and pounds of cultural norms and a fair bit of ritual as well.

Our aversion to violence is not new. In ancient Rome, it was sacrilegious to bring weapons inside the pomerium.

[RC_ITR]

>If this was true, how do you explain backyard cookouts, pool parties, trick-or-treating, or Christmas present exchanges?

How do you explain why you get to determine the guest list?

[giantg2]

Fostering good will to prevent future violence.

[cr4nberry]

> At the core, all social structure is built on the threat of violence - Commit non-violent white collar crime? Show up to court, because if you don't you'll get arrested. Run from the police when they try to arrest you? You'll get taken by force.

Is this true for all social structures, or just our current one?

The social structures that emerge are time dependent. The people living in the middle ages had no way of predicting the social structures of today. Since we can't predict the social structures that the future will bring, how could we know for sure that there isn't X social structure that doesn't need violence to propagate itself?

We can talk about the likelihood of X social structure emerging, sure. But to make the universal claim about all social structures, viz "human nature", is flawed reasoning

[toast0]

> Sure, there's political theory and economics can act like "utility" drives all things, but at the end of the day, it's the threat of some sort of violently bad outcome that keeps society in check.

Being incarcerated or dead is very low utility for most people ;)

[beambot]

Gotta DeMorgan's that statement to capture the true essence: Being not-incarcerated and not-dead is high utility for most people.

[hammock]

Free and alive (life and liberty)

[StanislavPetrov]

>At the core, all social structure is built on the threat of violence

This is completely wrong. Our current social structure in the United States is build on the threat of violence. Sense of duty, sense of shame, fear of ostracism, respect for tradition and family are all forms of social structure that have existed since we were crafting tools from stone. Of course all of these non-violent forms of social structure require a somewhat homogeneous population that shares the same values and culture. Many native American tribes had social structures like this where there was no police force, no threat of violence to enforce social norms. However, when a hodgepodge of people with different beliefs, different cultures, different educational levels, different educational values, different religions and different histories are jammed together in overcrowded cities the result is always going to be the same. Perhaps we should write "Our diversity is our strength!" On the side of all the prisons and police cars to make people feel better.

[RC_ITR]

> sense of shame, fear of ostracism

I think you have a loose definition of violence.

“Go live in the forest” is very violent, in practice.

The duty and and family stuff are arguably window dressing on the ostracism violence.

[alasdair_]

> At the core, all social structure is built on the threat of violence

Put another way, people with nuclear weapons don’t need to pay parking tickets.

[pas]

Elon is bound by all the modern societal rules, markets and law.

He wanted to weasel out of his M&A agreement with Twitter. No luck, contract law is well established.

He is also wanted to just do automatic assembly for Tesla, no luck there. You might remember when they had to set up tents connected to the factory building to extend the assembly line, etc. all because the markets demanded results. (Many people were shorting Tesla.)

...

Sure, he built a nice cult of personality for himself, it allows him a few degrees of freedom in the eyes of those people. But the vast majority of the people don't know much about him, and don't care. Not everyone is glued to Twitter, HN, Forbes billionaires toplists, etc.

Similarly Trump built a bigger one. And a lot of authoritarian assholes too. It was the norm for a long time after all, pharaohs, divine kings, etc.

[dsfyu404ed]

>Who am I going to punch when I was duped by a crypto scam?)

This is what group violence is historically used for. When responsibility was so diffused among so many people that you couldn't fix things by picking one of the most responsible and making an example out of them the king or whoever would have everyone in the group subjected to violence or some other punishment under credible threat of violence.

[SllX]

The consequences in theory are political. Theoretically Congress should be impeaching Presidents and expelling members that do not uphold their oaths.

Executing consequences into popular Presidents or other members of Congress would also be politicized and have political consequences for Congress, so it doesn’t happen. That said, leaving impeachment or expulsion of legislative members to the Courts would also give them too much power.

So the real consequences are at election time. If you ran to retain your seat, and lost, that’s your comeuppance. It’s not granular, but it gets the job done eventually. This is also why control of the White House flips back and forth so much: nothing any President does is particularly popular most of the time, they just have the votes to do it. Incumbents do get massive advantages in staying power but in the present day, two terms looks like about the maximum we would be able to tolerate a President’s political party in the Oval Office and typically after midterms they no longer have the votes in Congress either.

Most of this is generally applicable to the States, but I don’t know New York politics specifically but would note that the previous Governor was put into a position where he was pretty much forced to resign both for scandals and for the actions he took while in office; and that was a slow slow build up.

[lkrubner]

Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels wrote a whole book showing that voters do not keep track of what elected officials do, and so politicians are not punished for bad behavior, see excerpt here:

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-t...

[phpisthebest]

This is also shown in polling data, where congress on the whole has an approval rating of less than 10%, yet most years the incumbent is reelected

That statistic alone has me questioning if democracy is a good system

[SllX]

That’s easy: it’s not our guy! It’s those other guys! We’re wonderful and they’re terrible!

That’s how incumbents can maintain their edge whilst Congress as a body is untrusted.

I’m convinced that capping the House of Representatives at 435 was a mistake, and Federalizing most laws even more of a mistake. The question isn’t whether democracy can scale, but whether ours can within its present constraints. The reforms I would want to see are mechanical; not social, economic or judicial. A Continental-sized nation with hundreds of millions and growing probably needs thousands—not a few hundred!—of legislators if representation is to be meaningful. Short of that, my Representative has 700K+ constituents, so any one individual holding her accountable without other connections is a pipe dream at best.

[HWR_14]

> That’s easy: it’s not our guy! It’s those other guys!

I mean, that has certainly been true for me, and many other people. I sent someone to Congress I liked. Congress then has a wide spectrum of people who end up doing whatever a small group decides (this term, whatever Manchin and Sinema want). It's pretty easy to like your guy but not the end results of the process or the body as a whole that produced it.

[SllX]

> It's pretty easy to like your guy but not the end results of the process or the body as a whole that produced it.

This is the biggest argument against my ideas of reform: this is compromise actually working even with all the flaws I think are there. In the absence of consensus the consensus is to do nothing at all, which drives the people who want to do a lot and quickly crazy.

That said, Federated States in a Union with a weaker Federal government than we presently have would have fewer compromises they would have to make at the cost of also having to live with the fact that others who are ostensibly as much a part of the nation as you are are going to live differently; and as people, humans really, we tend to hate that. C’est la vie.

[phpisthebest]

I have been in favor of 3 changes to the House.

1. Wyoming Rule. No district should be larger than the least populist state.

2. Make DC a Museum. With modern technology there is no need to "send" legislatures to Washington DC, they can vote, meet, etc all remotely. This will make lobbying more expensive, and put the representatives back in their actual communities, because lets face it most of them represent Washington DC not Local Communities.

3. Expand the Term to 4 Years, with a 2 year offset to the president Election. So every 4 years the entire house is elected as a Mid Presidential term Election

[prottog]

I'm entirely in favor of making lobbying as expensive as possible, but I disagree that there isn't something to be gained from having people be in the same physical location to achieve a common goal. Some things just can't be done very well over Zoom.

I do wish that more federal functions would be spread out throughout the country, in the same way that Germany does; many of their federal agencies are headquartered in places far away from Berlin. There's no reason why the USDA shouldn't be headquartered in Kansas City, the Fed in New York, and the Department of the Interior in Wyoming.

[lkrubner]

"Streamlining the actual process of the legislature so that more can get done"

"For the important stuff, insist on two votes, but for everything else, make it easy to get stuff done fast"

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/streamlining-the-actual-pro...

[zugi]

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For those decisions that need to be made collectively, democracy is just the worst bad method we've come up with.

But one huge benefit of freedom is that if we embrace freedom, the vast majority of decisions can be made individually, or by mutual agreement of consenting individuals, and not collectively. So the negative consequences of democracy aren't as impactful.

[Thiez]

Perhaps democracy is fine, but we are just doing voting wrong. See this page for some interesting alternative voting systems that have different / better outcomes: https://ncase.me/ballot/

[ClumsyPilot]

We need an option 'against all' and if that option wins, all candidates are disqualified for life.

Then approval rating would mean something.

[lkrubner]

Assuming we need some kind of government, then does "against all" actually offer an improvement over the current system? The economist Kenneth Arrow suggested something in the opposite direction, approval voting, where the voters get as many votes as their are candidates, so the voters have the option of voting for everyone except maybe the absolute worst. Arrow did the math and liked the results from such a system of voting. And also, what is the goal of voting? Is it to give an individual an avenue for self-expression, or is it to achieve the social goal of forming a government? This is the argument against self-expression:

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-a...

[gruez]

That arguably makes vote splitting worse. Do you cast your vote for the least bad corrupt candidate so the other candidate that wants to [legalize killing babies/control women's bodies] doesn't win, or do you vote for the "against all" option so that both corrupt candidates get disqualified?

[alasdair_]

Democracy is fine. Representative democracy can go to hell.

[seneca]

You're contradicting thousands of years of political philosophy and theory with that statement. Democracy is a complete mess of whiplashing changes. It's only real redeeming factor is that it's better than tyranny by a monarch or aristocracy. That's an incredibly important factor though, so you need to find a way to make it work. Representative democracy is a way to temper the erratic will of the people and turn democracy into a workable form of government.

[int_19h]

Most of those thousands of years of political philosophy was devised by that very aristocracy. Of course they're horrified of "mob rule", if it means that they get stripped of all the wealth that they have so patiently fleeced from their slaves / serfs / workers for generations.

In practice, all the claims that were made about representative democracy being superior to direct on the basis that it's "less erratic" have been proven false by experience - just look at who we keep electing to Congress etc. At best, it gives the whole circus some veneer of respectability - as in, our representatives still make an erratic mess, but they do so with gravitas. But even that doesn't last for long - at some point, if enough voters really feel like it, you get someone like Donald Trump.

The worst thing about representative democracy is the sham scalability. In theory, a parliament can "represent" as many people as you want - there's an upper limit on the number of MPs who can still hold a coherent discussion, but there's no limit on how many people each MP "represents". However, the higher that number is, the more said "representation" is removed from the voters, and the more of a sham it is. With direct democracy, because of how poorly it scales, you have to keep the scope of the government small for it to function at all procedurally, and then come up with some federation arrangements above that - and that's a good thing.

[lkrubner]

In the other comment seneca points out that you're ignoring history with your comment. You might want to consider a system that goes in the other direction, and adds more layers of representation:

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...

[SllX]

Correct, which is why I spoke mostly of Presidents and Parties who are all big enough targets that most American voters do form opinions about what they’re up to, even with only vague notions about the details. Individual members of Congress can usually skate by, but that’s only as true as their district or State is uncompetitive.

And in States where “big issue” lawmaking is deferred to the public via referendum on a regular basis there’s almost no incentive at all to mind what the legislature or governor is doing; especially if tax increases also have to be voter approved. Who do you hold accountable when it’s the voters who make a bad decision about a law?

[lkrubner]

The emphasis on parties might be the most accurate part. This is a possible reason for the so-called "Panama Exception" -- a nation the should be a dictatorship and yet has been a thriving democracy:

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception

[kodah]

This is pretty good insight. Now I'm wondering what public data sources show overturned bills as well as all sponsors of a bill. I think Congress' website tracks the latter, but the former might be difficult to obtain.

[crazygringo]

In cases of judicial review where the courts strike down a law, it's usually not as simple as you're trying to make it.

First of all it's not at all clear in advance that the laws are unconstitutional, and that the lawmakers are "perpetrators". Plenty of times the laws are challenged and the courts uphold them. The whole point is that laws often push boundaries or address areas not previously addressed by the courts, and of course courts are political too. Lawmakers are trying to do what they believe is right for the people, and courts are too, and sometimes they disagree, and all of this is legitimate.

And second, what would it even mean for a court to "penalize" lawmakers? For the government to penalize itself? The lawmakers are elected and often passing laws their constituents voted them into office precisely in order to pass. Do you want to fine the lawmakers and take away their salary? Do you want to fine the people who voted for them? No, of course not. That's ludicrous. Just as ludicrous as legislatures (or governors) fining judges when they think judges decide cases wrongly.

This isn't criminal, it's legitimate disagreement over what policy and law ought to be. Penalizing lawmakers doesn't make any sense. In the end the court overturns something, and if a change is dangerous/disruptive enough the courts place an immediate injunction until the final decision is made. This is how democracies work.

(On the other hand, if a legislator breaks a law personally, e.g. murders somebody, they are tried personally and go to jail just like anybody else.)

[muaytimbo]

I’d like to see them held accountable. Every person who was affected by an unconstitutional law should have the ability to sue for damages arising from the intentional abridgment of their constitutional rights.

Our rights would remain more intact if lawmakers actually faced personal financial penalties when they try to deny us the already very few rights afforded to us by the constitution.

[hash872]

I mean that's just ridiculous. 'Unconstitutional' is incredibly vague & subjective (and incredibly political), to the degree that most developed countries don't allow judges to overturn laws based on this at all. (1) As an example of how subjective 'unconstitutional' is, consider that different levels of the judiciary disagree with each other about whether a law is constitutional or not all the time. It's very, very common for one appeals court to declare that a law is in accordance with the constitution or not, and then a higher level to disagree completely. If judges who've devoted their entire lives to the field can't agree and constantly overrule each other....

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

[crazygringo]

How are you going to handle it when the Supreme Court reverses itself on decisions decades later? Or even just a few years later when a new Justice is added? Does all the money from damages get returned, with interest and accounting for inflation?

Law is never settled and courts disagree and reverse frequently... So I don't think you've really thought this through... :)

Including who is going to pay for all those damages, which is going to be the taxpayers, so hello much higher taxes! ;)

[muaytimbo]

I guess the politicians at a loss could try to sue each individual plaintiff that was previously paid out, but that seems improbable. That would be a good thing in practice, if you toe up to the line so close that multiple courts overrule each other you lose regardless. That would help keep our rights intact.

[muaytimbo]

you didn't read my comment in full, note the use of the word "personal" financial penalties.

[ls15]

Three strikes. Politician voted three times for laws that later were deemed unconstitutional by the SC, so the politician can only be a politian again after 30 years and some mandatory training and test.

What is not fair about this?

[crazygringo]

What's the punishment for that SC when a later SC overrules it, three new justices later?

And while we're at it, are we also creating a three strikes law for lower courts that get overruled by the SC three times?

And what about the courts below them? What if they get overruled by a higher court... which in turn gets overruled by the SC?

I can't wait to keep track of all this ;)

[ls15]

The biggest risk would be that a politician will be wrongfully denied participation when they actually were fit for the job. That's a smaller price to pay than living with a politician who works against the constitution.

[arrosenberg]

The current Supreme Court is a right wing nightmare, so that sounds like an efficient way to get all the liberals out of government. Hard pass, what is fair about letting unelected judges determine who I get to vote for?

[ls15]

Ok, fair point, but how else can we get politicians to behave better? I don't think that assigning immense powers for four years without personal repercussions for bad actors has worked very well.

[nostromo]

You’re seeing this play out with student loan forgiveness.

Most legal scholars don’t believe it’s legal and will be overturned. But everyone also agrees any money given out will not be returned, so they’re rushing to get as much debt forgiven before it’s overturned.

[jackcosgrove]

Possession is nine tenths of the law.

[ksherlock]

Ancient Athens -- birthplace of democracy -- had an answer [1]. The sponsor of a law that was later found to be, in modern parlance, unconstitutional, could be fined.

Also worth considering: ostracism [2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphe_paranomon

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

[shadowgovt]

In general, such consequences would be applied by the public. If the people feel that the executive overreached and is no longer honoring their oath, the people don't re-elect that executive. There are some exceptions (such as the impeachment power of the federal Congress), but in a system where the public elects the executive, the last recourse of a bad executive is the public's right to elect someone else. And even in cases like the power of congressional impeachment, the punishment they can extend is removal from office and nothing more.

No, if someone broke the law in the process of exercising the executive authority, that's a different issue. But we don't generally have laws of the form "the executive is not allowed to infringe on non-fundamental liberties during an emergency," because history shows that emergencies happen and sometimes people just have to be told what to do (arguably, that's one of the reasons we bother to have an executive at various levels of government).

[barry-cotter]

> How do courts declare certain executive orders unconstitutional, and yet the perpetrators, who took an oath to uphold and defend said rights and values, face no consequences?

Same way no one suffered any consequences for deciding to support the opposition in the Syrian civil war to piss off Assad long after it was obvious they weren’t going to get him out and the only consequence was going to be lots of dead Stands mom Syrians. Same way there were no consequences for bombing Libya into civil war and open air slave markets. Same way there were no consequences for no WMDs in Iraq.

There needs to be a coalition to make them pay. It needs to be not just powerful enough, but committed.

[StanislavPetrov]

>Something I've been wondering in recent cases where courts are overturning recent government action, whether unconstitutional bills passed into law, or unconstitutional executive actions that overstep authority, is where's the penalty for committing those actions in the first place?

Unfortunately the penalty falls only on the taxpayer, and not at all on the lawmakers who pass unconstitutional laws or declare executive actions that they do not have the legal authority to declare as law. Indeed, lawmakers routinely flaunt their ability to enact laws that they know are unconstitutional across the political spectrum, to abortion laws (pre Dobbs) in "red states" to gun laws in "blue states". The recent NY legislation in the wake of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision is the perfect example. It contained all sorts of blatantly unconstitutional measures, like requiring those applying for gun permits to turn over all their social media accounts for scrutiny. But since there is no potential penalty suffered by lawmakers who willfully and knowingly violate the Constitution, this sort of unlawful, blatant political pandering is going to continue.

[coinbasetwwa]

This is what 18 USC 242 was written for. Allowing for punishments up to the death penalty for depravation of rights under the color of law. You’d need a federal government who would be willing to prosecute such a case however, but it’s possible.

[somenameforme]

Imagine, for a minute, that it was a crime for a politician to try to pass unlawful laws. That would, sooner or later, be abused by the group with political control to effectively criminalize opposition. Declare their opponents' efforts unlawful, convict them, and they're out of the way.

You have to consider not only the effects of nominal usage, but also the effects of abuse. In this case, they're extreme.

[widowlark]

it's important to note that this is not the top court in new york, rather the beginning of the process of retrial and appeals. So, in effect, nothing will happen as a result of this ruling other than more appeals

[seanmcdirmid]

> How do courts declare certain executive orders unconstitutional, and yet the perpetrators, who took an oath to uphold and defend said rights and values, face no consequences?

Isn't this like saying developers should suffer consequences if they allow bugs to get into their code? Because we are perpetrators of flawed code, like law makers are perpetrators of flawed laws?

> Regardless of one's opinion of said rights, how do courts blatantly ignore rulings and orders from higher courts with no repercussions?

Because to do otherwise is to abandon civil process (where people get to argue about laws, and they have the right to be wrong without further consequence than being wrong) and enters into what would effectively devolve into mob rule.

[hammock]

More like saying engineers - who, like elected officials, take an oath - ought to suffer consequences if say a bridge, whose plans they signed, collapses.

Not agreeing or disagreeing. Merely adjusting the analogy

[muaytimbo]

Don’t developers face consequences over bugs in their code? Too many and you might get shown the door.

[seanmcdirmid]

> Don’t developers face consequences over bugs in their code?

If face significant consequences, there would be no developers left.

> Too many and you might get shown the door.

You are much more likely to get shown the door for being hard to work with, being crass, not showing up to work, not following process (that doesn't eliminate bugs but mitigates consequences), etc...

[ClumsyPilot]

> If face significant consequences, there would be no developers left.

Complete ass pull, many proffesions face consequences

> You are much more likely to get shown the door for being hard to work with

Because the entire industry is full of chancers, startibg with folks who hold the purse strings.

Responsibility for safety only ever came through government regulation. Before that, construction industry made fire escape ladders out of wood.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Isn't this like saying developers should suffer consequences if they allow bugs to get into their code?

If your code kills someone in a foreceeable and predictable manner, then you should.

Other branches of engineering have to do their work properly

[llanowarelves]

It's about warranty.

If you can't warranty something, it's worth less than if you can.

And if you do warranty it, but don't back it up, that's fraud.

People are tired of false promise and baiting into hazard.

[collegeburner]

because its not always accidental. look at abortion laws before there was reason to challenge them, or many blue state gun laws. they're giant "fuck you"s to getting told to stop doing smth stupid. like NY gets its gun law overturned so its like "fuck you we're gonna make super invasive requirements for testing (which you cant even do in state) and turning over social media handles (hella chilling effect)." or almost all the lockdown orders that got overturned, but after 1-2 years of being in effect.

really grinds my gears cuz they KNOW these laws will get killed in court but it will take 3-4 years so in the mean time stfu and deal with it.

[shadowgovt]

That's actually an old and effective political strategy. Perhaps distasteful, but part of the game in the same sense that icing the kicker in football is part of the game (as consequence of the rules of time-outs).

I've even seen it used to good effect to strong-arm otherwise unreachable organizations when they choose to be anti-social. During the housing crash, one of the major non-profit universities a city panicked about its investments going shaky and abruptly decided to stop paying into some multi-decades-long standing donations that back-stopped some city services. The non-profit was paying into that donation pool because state law that had made sense in the 1900s and a lot less sense in 2000 made those non-profits non-taxable (but they had eaten up a significant percent of available real estate in the city center, none of which could generate tax revenue to pay for city services).

The city responded by preparing an ordnance that would tax out-of-town students directly.

The uni responded that this would be obviously illegal on its face as per state law.

The city responded that they believed the uni was presenting a reasonable legal theory that they were happy to debate back-and-forth in county, circuit, state, and appeals court for the next five years.

The university returned to the negotiating table and hammered out a new plan to pay a percentage of their former amount into the donation pool, preventing what would have otherwise been a heavy disruption in city services at a time when everyone was hurting from the housing crash.

Messy, but this kind of creation of leverage is what makes political systems operate at all at multiple scales of governance.

[googlryas]

The separate branches of government limit each other, but they can't impose punishments on the other. That's up to the electorate.

[colechristensen]

They can, if the laws are written with criminal consequences. Most are not, with good reason. So many things which end up in courts just aren’t clear enough for the outcome to be obvious.

[ss108]

The remedy in American law is supposed to be electoral, not legal.

[KennyBlanken]

It's a little weird to be concerned about this now around COVID policies, and not during the last fifty years of laws passed by republican state legislatures that barely last past the ink drying on the law before getting slapped with an injunction and ultimately struck down by the courts, but not after the state AG wastes millions of dollars in taxpayer funds fighting it as high up the federal court system as possible.

Just to name a few: Book bans, anti-LGBTQ bills (bathroom bills and more), edicts on what doctor can or cannot say to patients (or must say to patients), ag-gag, voting restrictions, and anti-abortion-choice laws.

All passed with the full knowledge they'll be struck down almost immediately, with the express purpose of tying up funds of progressive non-profits and getting to brag to their base about how they're trying to further 'The Cause' (you know how conservatives are always going on about "liberal virtue-signaling? As always, they're great at projection.)

[jakogut]

I'm not concerned about COVID policies. I'm concerned about policies and laws in general that are passed with the knowledge of their supporters that they're unconstitutional, and are later determined in the courts to indeed be unconstitutional.

Nothing about this is partisan to me. People who knowingly and intentionally violate their oaths should see consequences for their actions.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Hot take to look at the oversteps of authority around covid response… and start blaming Republicans.

[calvinmorrison]

Unless the government actually about faces and holds the elected officials responsible, it devolves into unsanctioned violence, be it domestic terrorism, civil war, unrest, whatever the game of the week. That's what happens.

[club_tropical]

Penalties are generally meted out using the press (smear reputations through excessive focus on one person, show kompromat) and economic actors (withdraw sponsors, withdraw funding, etc). In the rare case that someone fails to be adequately railroaded using press and economics, yes, judges do mete out hefty fines and jail sentences, as a punishment of last resort against regime opponents, or give slaps on the wrist to regime allies (in this case, slap on the wrist). All justified with a 20-page verbal "explanation", of course, but those are just meaningless words for ultimately political decisions.

[systemvoltage]

The Bonta team in California has been eggregiously playing the circuit-to-district football, violating fundamental rights of citizens. The 13th circuit is in bed with California state district attorney and the state legislator (both the husband and wife, "Bontas"). Wife is a legislator and the husband is the CA District attorney.

Lawyers are totally baffled at what is going on.