Immunity

TNHarley

Diamond Member
Sep 27, 2012
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Lets talk about the Constitutionality of immunity.
First, lets start from the bottom. A person in the private sector, lets say a construction company, can build something, and it fails for whatever reason, he gets sued all the way to the poorhouse. These guys can do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
Lets go up to judges and lawyers. They have immunity. They can get a guy off, and he go and kill 100 people, and nothing will happen to them. These guys cant do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
Lets go all the way to the top of the President. People claim they have immunity from their decisions. Like invading a country over lies. These guys cant do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
So back to the Constitution; where does it give the govt immunity? Where does it give the president immunity? It doesnt. That was made up by the SC based on common law. Same with judicial immunity. This should come from Congress. Not a judge.
Why do we sit by and just let the govt make up shit to protect itself, when we cant get those same protections? The govt is supposed to WORK FOR US, not the other way around. But alas.
The collectivists and statists have given our power away.
Dont get me wrong, I dont think that construction company should get away with not doing their jobs correctly, but neither should the govt.
 
“Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator .” - James Madison
 
All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. - Thomas Jefferson
 
Lets talk about the Constitutionality of immunity.
First, lets start from the bottom. A person in the private sector, lets say a construction company, can build something, and it fails for whatever reason, he gets sued all the way to the poorhouse. These guys can do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
Lets go up to judges and lawyers. They have immunity. They can get a guy off, and he go and kill 100 people, and nothing will happen to them. These guys cant do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
Lets go all the way to the top of the President. People claim they have immunity from their decisions. Like invading a country over lies. These guys cant do their jobs properly worrying about repercussions.
So back to the Constitution; where does it give the govt immunity? Where does it give the president immunity? It doesnt. That was made up by the SC based on common law. Same with judicial immunity. This should come from Congress. Not a judge.
Why do we sit by and just let the govt make up shit to protect itself, when we cant get those same protections? The govt is supposed to WORK FOR US, not the other way around. But alas.
The collectivists and statists have given our power away.
Dont get me wrong, I dont think that construction company should get away with not doing their jobs correctly, but neither should the govt.
It would have to come by amendment. Congress determining the limitations of the other branches and possibly themselves would infringe upon the separation of powers.

If you think politicians suck now, imagine who we'd get if the great reward for serving as president was a prison term and going broke from civil suits. The other option is wishy washy cowards unable to make a decision. That's no way to lead a country.
 
The U.S. enjoyed sovereign immunity for a long time. (Many nations are equally immune from civil suits.) However, under certain terms and conditions, the United States chose to give up a great deal of its immunity under

28 U.S. Code Part I, chapter 7, section 171, et. seq.​

it was not created by the courts. It was an act of Congress in the mid to late 1940’s.

The rational for general sovereign immunity still carries over today. Judges remain immune from liability for their judicial acts. Prosecutors are immune for their official acts (except in certain specific and well defined matters, such as engaging in racist prosecutorial misbehavior against a defendant, under the “color” of law). The Constitution, itself, grants legislators legislative immunity for their speeches in Congress. And a SCOTUS decision in 1982 determined that for official Presidential acts within the scope of the President’s authorities and Constitutional duties, a President enjoys immunity from civil liability.

(What Trump has now asked the SCOTUS to do is extend that Presidential immunity to criminal prosecutions under the same conditions and on the same rational.)

The argument that being sued can be ruinous to a company or a sole proprietor is the subject matter of tort reform in general. But to the extent some of these immunities exist, they do so to avoid the perils of the excesses of litigious behaviors and the impact those perils could have on how our officials perform their duties.
 

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