@Benkai

You make a bold claim that facts simply establish that my opinion is simply not true (which was simply independent systems are more vulnerable to corruption than direct/indirect elected system).

As a lawyer in the Netherlands, your opinion that the system works great maybe an example of the exact systemic bias in this sort of system that I'm referring too. But let's ignore this.

Also note, my view is not that that full independence of judges choosing their successors can't work. Just like an aristocracy or perhaps more apt any craftsmen gild: a good starting point, good traditions and supporting cultural norms can result in good performance of these systems for even very extended periods of time. So, I am not saying independent courts totally fail immediately.

I qualified my statement that it is my opinion because I know these systems exist and have performed well; my view is they are not better than democratic systems and not the pathway to reduce corruption.

Perhaps a better presentation of my point is, what you would advise for improving the US system (or an even more corrupt system for that matter): more or less democracy in selecting judges. My conclusion is that if corruption is a problem, historically established or culturally supported, then independent courts of judges selecting replacements isn't going to reduce corruption. If judicial corruption is already a problem how is giving them more insulation from accountability and more power going to help? However, electing judges (of which many, many systems to do so are available) can act as a counter force to corruption.

So, as far as the facts are concerned, why did electing judges (directly or by representatives) arise in the first place? To solve corruption and class-bias problems. If a society doesn't encounter judicial corruption due to strong anti-corruption cultural norms or then lawyers and judges manage to self-discipline their judge-guild to keep it going, independence can work. In other-words, low-corruption cultures have low-corruption judicial systems whether independent or democratically appointed in some way, whereas cultures where judicial corruption became a problem, more democracy rather than more judicial independence has been the historic go to for increasing faith in the judiciary. Do you agree with this? or are you saying that in a country where corruption is a problem applying full independence of the judiciary and judges being life-time appointed and then selecting their successors would be the way forward in tackling judicial and government corruption?

I would also add that elections of judges also serves as accelerating society's learning about what makes a good judge and why impartial judges and fighting corruption benefits everyone.

@Benkei

Do some basic research.

Supreme Court of the Netherlands wikipedia page: "Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by royal decree, chosen from a list of three, advised by the House of Representatives on the advice of the Court itself. "

Politicians are involved.

I agree it's a mix, but a mix is not fully independent.

I also agree that a fully independent court (such as selection entirely from existing judges) can work for a period of time.

My argument is that I think it is more likely to lead to corruption, either blackmail / bribe corruption or systemic bias in the judge selection process, than democratic processes (just as kings can work out for a period of time).

There's a lot of countries out there with an independent justice system that have no problem keeping corruption out of their system, so this doesn't hold true. In fact, from a Dutch perspective, the political identity of judges is in a sense corrupting the practice of applying the law when their political beliefs influence their method of interpretation. "Political views" is not an acceptable interpretative technique when applying the law.

You talk about facts but don't mention any facts. Which countries?

You mention the dutch: literally first hit on searching results in "Judges are appointed by the Crown, under the aegis of the Minister for Security and Justice [...] Individuals can be nominated for appointment to the judiciary only on recommendation by a national selection committee, made up of members from the various courts, the public prosecutor’s office and individuals active in society."

In other words, it's a political process that selects judges. It just so happens that the Dutch value objectivity and impartial judges. However, if these selection committees fell prey to partisan forces they could nominate partisan judges to advance their cause through rulings. It is simply not true to say the Dutch judiciary is independent. Just as 60 vote threshold in the US senate perhaps resulted in less partisan judges, but the process fell prey to partisan forces who lowered the bar.

I mention in my post that indirect voting for judges can nevertheless work better than what we are seeing in the US right now.

To be clear, what full independence would mean would be along the lines of A. that judges simply select their successors without any possible intervention (dependence) from elections or elected representatives (basically how cardinals and popes get selected, B. judges are selected at complete random from the population C. a computer algorithm selects judges (by coders in turn selected by the previous A or B methods).

In the context of the exchange, independent meant complete independence from politics (not a unbiased characteristic voters might wish for judges to have); i.e. no voting for judges directly nor indirectly nor any ability to impeach them.

My comment was in the response to Bitter crank's observation of "I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know." I.e. a completely independent judiciary from all "politics" to which my point is that the justice system is inherently political, so may as well make the best democratic selection process feasible (which may very well be the dutch system of selecting selection committees).

@Bitter Crank

I don't know if there is a way to structurally protect SCOTUS from political sturm and drang. Packing, enlarging, establishing term limits for justices... replacing them with Martians... Just don't know. Anyway, it isn't the Court so much as it is one group of the The People vs. several major players -- like religious organizations in Roe Wade or rich individuals and corporations in Citizens United.

The People really have to have a broader strategy than depending on the court.

The idea of an independent court (like an "independent federal reserve") is mainly to protect the rich from a populist government that wants to redistribute wealth (hence Roosevelt needing to pack the court for the new deal). It's a nice thought that an independent court could reign in a corrupt government, but it's actually more likely, in my view, that an independent justice system is corrupted (bribery, blackmail, or then the slow work of filtering out the non-wealthy from going to top law schools, becoming top lawyers and judges in the first place etc.). Justice is fundamentally a political thing, and so voting for key positions, like Surpeme justices, is in my opinion the best option. Which is the current system just indirectly voting for the president and then senators. Of course, first past the post system for electing supreme court justices would be terrible, but there are other systems in my opinion that are better than first past the post direct voting as well as elect a president and senators (in first past the post and not even counting votes equally, so a mix of two bad systems). Of course, even indirect voting can be improved on too (like a 60 vote threshold maybe). If the argument against direct voting for supreme court justices is that people can't recognize the benefits of impartial judges ... well what benefits can they recognize and so why should they vote on anything at all?

Trying to make any part of government independent of politics, is just an unsolvable problem.

However, I completely agree that judicial activism is terrible even when your own side wins. By short-circuiting the political process of social debate, activity of citizens for what they believe and crafting and passing new laws, the result is a schism and polarization of society (and each side focusing on pushing through their judges rather than needing to engage in public debate). For instance, Ireland only passed a law allowing abortion recently, but this reflects the real changes of the attitudes of Irish society; if one supports abortion rights then this delay caused unneeded suffering, but the alternative to democracy is tyranny and society learning new things by definition takes time.

Why this seems an impossible position for pro-choice people in the case of Roe v Wade, is because there is an assumption in the Anglo style court system that a judge must rule on every case, ultimately the Suprme court being the last arbitrator. Therefore, in this system Judges are faced with needing to invent new laws or applying incomplete laws in irrational ways; i.e. they must either serve injustice or create new standards of justice. This is a false dichotomy. The solution is that, as exists in other systems, justices can request clarification of the laws; basically throwing the ball into the legislature who can then make a new standard (with application of the the standard retroactively being an option), the standard goes back to the courts who then apply it based on the evidence.

Edit: To complete my last point, making politicians clarify the law means people can vote them out if they don't like how they vote. Again with alternatives to geographic and first past the post representation being possible also, including the politicians throwing the ball directly to the people in a referendum (again with higher than 50.1 % threshold being an option as well) and improvements on confusing, badly worded, false dichotomy referendums likewise being a possibility.

@Proto

Haven't read the whole thread, so not sure what problems people haven't responded.

As for the points you list:

Fear of flying

This question came up in the hearing.

Mitchell: I ask that because it’s been reported by the press that you would not submit to an interview with the committee because of your fear of flying. Is that true?

Ford: Well, I was willing—I was hoping that they would come to me. But then realized that was an unrealistic request.

Mitchell: It would have been a quicker trip for me.

[Both laugh.]

Ford: Yes. So, that was certainly what I was hoping, was to avoid having to get on an airplane. But I eventually was able to get up the gumption with the help of some friends, and get on the plane.

It's pretty clear she's afraid of flying, tries to avoid it, but if it's not avoidable she can fly. This is how people with fears behave; their first reaction is to avoid what they fear and then if they can't they try to overcome it (to achieve other goals). It's also clear she didn't use flying to avoid going to the hearing but thought the hearing could come to her, which she quickly realized wasn't possible resulting in her flying to and speaking at the hearing.

This thing about flying is a small irrelevant detail that the conservative media tried to use to undermine her credibility. But she obviously flew to the hearing, despite her fear of flying, which is consistent with flying for other reasons too and inconsistent with the idea of having a contrived excuse to avoid speaking.

Payment for polygraph

It's a super high profile committee hearing. She's asked by high profile people to do a polygraph, directly or indirectly by the democrat senators: she does the polygraph. It's completely reasonable to not ask who's paying for it and not even realize it could be paid by a party other than the government.

It's also not clear what the motivation would be to know who paid for the polygraph but then lie and deny knowledge of who paid. It's clearly information the R members of the committee can easily find out. Ergo: totally irrational to jump to the conclusion that this is yet more lies.

Ford failing to document Kavanaug's name

The pattern of behaviour established so far (according to Ford's testimony and what a few others connected to Ford have so far said) is that Ford tried to rationalize and trivialize the assault (that she claims occurred, and claims committed by Kavanaug) as she managed to escape the rape. So she didn't tell anyone. However, the experience had long term psychological affects that she decided to deal with later. Clearly it did not bother her too much that Kavanaug was a federal judge but the prospect of him being a SCOTUS judge was a threshold for her to do something; it's also a situation where the testimony has a real affect as trying to bring a decades old charge to trial in order to unseat a a sitting judge is very unlikely to succeed nor simply the accusations likely to "ruin his career", but such testimony is much more relevant in a SCOTUS hearing where the standard of evidence is much lower (it is reasonable for senators to consider an accusation of attempted rape by a credible witness, even without corroborating evidence, for a SCOTUS position). Of note, ford sent her letter before Kavanaug was nominated in the hopes that it would sway Trump's nomination choice to avoid a scandal.

Considering Ford's claims, her pattern of behaviour is consistent with them. It is still in the realm of possibility that she is lying, or imagined things, or miss-identified Kavanaug.

The whole point of an FBI investigation is to see if there is corroborating evidence somewhere.

Russian agency

You follow your conclusion that not only is Ford lying on the points you bring up but these lies are reasonable basis to further conclude she's a Russian agent, and then go on to accuse other forum members that they are "failing to think logically" or are "biased".

This is really an incredible level of irrationality. Jumping to conclusions without evidence, just stating you conclude she is lying, is not how rationality works: it's exactly how bias works.

Though it is possible Ford is lying or has missremembered or misidentified Kavanaug, there is so far no evidence to support that as the plausible explanation. A pattern of Ford making up traumatic events or seeking celebrity status (to further her value to Russian?) has not emerged. So simply making a conclusion anyway is not how reasoning from evidence works.

What has emerged is a pattern of Kavanaug drinking to excess, which he already testified to, as even a "weak stomach" does not start vomiting after half a beer without serious medical problem which would be well documented by doctors throughout his life with a strong recommendation to avoid drinking altogether (in other words it's simply not plausible to conclude Kavanaug could drink to vomiting regularly yet somehow not get drunk enough to loose memory regularly; it's conceivable but not plausible).

This in itself is a fatal blow to Kavanaug's candidacy. Past drinking habits are relevant to SCOTUS position. First it's an indication of character that might be outweighed by other indications of character, but relevant nonetheless. Second, even if excessive drinking was long ago, it creates the possibility that hard evidence does exists of crimes or scandalous behaviour (a photo sitting in a box somewhere) and this has the potential to create either a large scandal in the future that undermines the credibility of the SCOTUS or, worse, falls into the wrong hands and is used to blackmail Kavanaug. These are completely reasonable considerations for Senators to consider when considering a SCOTUS candidacy. Even small potential for blackmail based on hearsay (i.e. reputation) about a candidate's past is regularly used to deny promotions to a particularly sensitive positions (keeping nuke codes, access to foreign agent identities, Supreme Court Justice, that sort of thing) even if the candidate is otherwise fully competent and such considerations were not sufficient to block previous career advancements.

edit:spelling and clarity

edit2: and there is actual testimony, not just hearsay, of Kavanaug's drinking habits.