Blog 3: The Supreme Court

     The Supreme Court has been around since 1789. One power consists of checking the executive and legislative branches. When a case is sent, the job of the supreme court is to see if the lower court applied the law properly and if the law is constitutional. 

    Many things surprised me about the Supreme Court because I have not learned about it in detail prior. I knew the functions of the Supreme Court and the basics of what the powers are from classes I have taken on history and politics. However, I had no idea that the Supreme Court was the most powerful judicial body on earth. I always assumed that there had to be a better judicial body somewhere else. I also thought that the Supreme Court Justices were confident and did not fear anything since they are elected by the president. The video portrayed otherwise because the people in the Supreme Court described joining as overwhelming and like a lightning strike. They also described how it took years to get used to being a Supreme Court justice.

    The part 1 video provided many interesting points about the constitution. The video stated that when the Constitution was written the "we the people" line only consisted of white men when they wrote it. I had never really taken the time to think about this until now. Back in the 1700s, only white men had political power and African Americans were not even considered people. It was also brought up that the Constitution is still used to problem-solve 200 years later. This was mind-blowing for me to think about because so much has changed over the last 200 years. I understand that the Constitution is the foundation of America but I feel like since so much has changed that at some point we might need a new one. 

    The part 2 video mentioned how scary it can be to talk in front of the Supreme Court Justices. That is very understandable because it can be a big deal and can even lead to new laws. The Supreme Court has to draft their opinions and compromise. After they compromise they print the decisions and sometimes the decisions affect America greatly and can cause uproar and/or agreement. I remember that the Roe v Wade case being overturned caused a lot of controversy because abortion is a sensitive topic and it made it so that abortion is not a constitutional right.

I learned a lot about the Supreme Court that I did not know before.