What impact does the Supreme Court have in American society in your opinion?

Answer 1

Way Too Much

The Supreme Court has been exceeding its constitutional authority nearly since its creation. The duty of the Supreme Court is to determine whether a law is constitutional. Somewhere along the line, they interpreted this to mean that they have the authority to interpret the Constitution. You see, the word "interpret" is not used in the Constitution, so in order to give themselves the power to interpret the Constitution, they had to, well, interpret the Constitution. But this was very, very wrong. Because they didn't have the power to interpret the Constitution, until they gave themselves this power. Therefore, the original interpretation was unconstitutional. And therefore, they do not have the power to interpret the Constitution. And therefore, every interpretation since then was also unconstitutional.

Think about this. The power to tell the rest of us what the Constitution means is, in fact, the ultimate power. They can say it means anything they want it to mean, even in direct contradiction to the text of the Constitution, and there is no one to contradict them. Oh sure, there's Congress's power of impeachment. It's been used what? 16 times in the history of the US? And only once, over 200 years ago, was it for a Supreme Court Justice, and he was not removed.

What is wrong with this country? Would we give 9 farmers this much power? 9 teachers? 9 doctors? 9 janitors? It is ridiculous to give 9 members of any profession this much power. Yet we have turned over the ultimate power in our government to 9 lawyers! The single most hated profession on the planet. That's what a judge is - a lawyer that was really good at being a lawyer, which makes him really bad at being a human being. Why don't we just give that power to 9 serial killers?

They decide what is a fair reasoning to controversial issues. Even though it seems like these people we didnt decide these people they are chosen by the president, who we elected. The justices are incredible lawyers who decide our regular life.

"Decide our regular life"? You don't get it, do you? That's exactly the problem. Noone should have that much power over our daily lives. (And, to be fair, they don't really have quite that much power, not yet anyway.) If they "decide our regular life", then we have no freedom to make those decisions ourselves. You, apparently, think that's a good thing. Makes me wonder what kind of crap they're teaching our kids in Civics classes today.

Answer 2

Yes, because the decisions affect public policy and the interpretation and application of laws. Some laws are nullified and rendered unenforceable. Some cases extend the reach the Constitution, providing greater protection to different classes of people. Each decision affects society in a different way.