Comment Re:I'm going to go out on a limb... (Score 1) 190
I think you're ignoring part of the parent's point (which may not have been explicit). It's not just that the Supreme Court's decisions can be predicted beforehand, it's that the specific Justices' -votes- can be predicted beforehand.
If the law were really like a computer code, and the Supreme Court Justices were all rational, knowledgeable and honest, we would them to render identical opinions on every question; in fact, there would only have to be -one- judge. Since we may not trust one judge to be sufficiently knowledgeable, we have nine instead, and take a majority opinion.
But if you know that certain issues are going to split 5:4 or 6:3, with the -same- justices on the majority side each time, then there's a real problem. At least one of the sides is pushing a bias that has nothing to do with the law. At least one of the sides is failing in rationality, knowledge, or honesty; I suspect both are.