The Supreme Court

I have very little previous experience or knowledge of the Supreme Court and what they do before watching this video. I have learned about the basics of the Government overtime throughout my history classes, yet this was one of the first direct videos that I have watched that focused on the Supreme Court. I found this video moderately interesting and it was not only a good review but a great new learning experience.

 The Supreme Court works to interpret and amend the Constitution, and I believe this is an extremely important job due to the age of the document. Over time society and ethics change and our rules need to change with them, and the Supreme Court makes this possible. The Supreme Court takes the Constitution and interprets it so that we can relate to it today and keep our history. The Supreme Court tries to keep our rules progressive and relevant while trying to keep our history. It is important to keep our history, but there are many situations where our morals and ethics no longer agree with the past.

Some details of the Supreme Court I was unaware of such as that a term can be around sixteen years or longer. This was alarming to me because I feel that this is too long of a time for someone to have that type of power, and that their work ethics or their opinions may change drastically in that amount of time. Society is changing at an exceptional rate and I believe that we need individuals who are fresher and more representative of the people. This can be done by making shorter terms to allow newer opinions and ideas to be brought into the Government.

 It also raised questions when they said that it takes about three to five years to get used to working at such a stressful job. When he said that you need a few years to forget that you are working there so that you can get work accomplished. This was extremely worrisome because those few years that they are apparently not prepared for the work they still have that power even though they do not know yet how to use it correctly. A few years is not a small amount of time and having someone that is seemingly unqualified for said job for a couple years can do a great deal of damage. When a job has so much power and responsibility having someone, who does not know what they are doing can be extremely dangerous even in increment of three years. I also learned about the history of John Marshall, and the amending of the Constitution to allow for the freedom of slaves. The history of the Supreme Court and the Constitution is vital to understanding how it got to what it is today.

The fact that the justices all disagree with fundamental issues but try their best to cooperate with each other was pleasant to see. I would think that they would all be arguing or talking over each other, so I appreciated the friendliness and cooperation. The amount of work that each justice does is also impressive but worrisome because some things could get overlooked if the person is overworked. I enjoyed that the justices must be public and open with their opinions and actions because they should be due their job is based on the people’s issues. I learned a great amount about the history and the present functioning of the Supreme Court through this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qSuWxcG8&feature=youtu.be