Post #2: U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court

Before this video I knew only the surface details of what the Supreme Court was and a small base on how they operated. After watching the two parts of the video however I was surprised by many aspects of how the Supreme Court operates and the powers they hold. 

Firstly I learned the process in which a potential law or petition must go through in order to first reach the Supreme Court and then the process it goes through within the Supreme Court to either be accepted or denied. Learning the steps in how this bureaucracy works was very interesting to learn and comforting as knowing the steps that our government has to go through in order to make something into law helps me feel more at ease knowing that there is an effective balance of power in place.

Secondly, I feel that the most important takeaway from the videos is that the Supreme Court needs the trust of the people in order for their acts to be respected and upheld. Due to the vague circumstances around the article describing how the Supreme Court functioned, it had to work very hard to establish itself in equal standing to the other powers of the United States government. One of the main reasons it managed to do this was by challenging congress and ruling that certain laws they were trying to pass were unconstitutional which helped the people gain trust with them as power to counterbalance the U.S. It is because of this trust that lets the Supreme Court be seen as a final say and if that trust is lost they could lose a large amount of their power.

The most surprising thing to me while watching the video was how the Supreme Court must treat any petition that manages to reach them with equal standing. So no matter if the petition comes from a convict or the president they must be treated with equal standing. AT first glance this feels weird but thinking more about this it helps to let every voice that can be heard if the country has deemed it important enough to let it reach the Supreme Court.

After watching this view I view the Supreme Court as a large stabilizing factor within our way of life that acts as a balance to the other branches of power. Through the process of looking at the constitution to see if upcoming laws are constitutional or not they help the United States evolve to a better nation while also upholding the freedoms we have been given.