Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Igel

(37,608 posts)
3. Our eyes only see what they see,
Sun May 3, 2026, 06:41 PM
Sunday

our brains remember some of it,

and our brains recall mostly what's convenient and 'fits' with other things we take as fact.

In other words, we're unreliable witnesses. That's been demonstrated so many times that it's amazing that everybody doesn't know it. (Oh, wait. What I said.)

Somebody did the counting not that long back. IIRC, from 2017 to present, they'd overturned 2.2 precedents per year (although that almost certainly doesn't include last week's, so maybe that's up to 2.3 now). That 2.2 was considerably on the low side of historical norms.

A lot of precedents that are overturned aren't all that important, so we don't notice them. Heck, for the most part I'm a good chunk of Americans aren't that into the overturning of the '86 case that we saw a few days back.

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»The Supreme Court keeps o...»Reply #3