The Importance of SCOTUS

 One of the most powerful positions in the world and yet widely forgotten, the Supreme Court of the United States is one of the hardest jobs to obtain and hold. In class, we watched a video on the Supreme Court that explained their challenges and every day life. I find it weird that everyone looks to the President when pointing out powerful roles in the government when the Supreme Court sets the laws and precedents that affect and have affected our everyday lives. Anyone can run for president, but to be nominated as a Justice for the Supreme Court would be extremely rare. When looking at the United States's history, it is hard to ignore the courts, as they are the ones who set the laws. Still, I sat here watching this video in class and began to recognize the complexities I forgot this job held.

One main thing I learned from the video, was the fact that the Supreme Court only accepts about 100 cases a year. In my mind, I originally thought that they did way more than that. After I took a step back to make sense of it, 100 makes more sense. each case takes multiple days and there are only 365 days in a year. So 100 is actually pretty impressive. I also found it really cool that before there is any voting or conversation, the justices all shake hands as to discourage hard feelings toward each other. I always thought that because it was such a controversial job, the justices would be rude and petty to each other. I like that they can be civil in a job like this. To be fair, they could still be rude and petty, but they're at least good at hiding it. I think that one of the most important take aways from the video was that the power rests in the trust and faith of the people. The Court doesn't just have power from no where. The people give them power and trust them to be impartial and fair. Something that was very surprising from the video was the overwhelming number of cases that are denied every year. It is totally up to the Court on which cases they take. Like I mentioned earlier, they only accept about 100 cases a year. That is out of the almost 7,000 proposed to the court each year. The video definitely brought much more perspective to their job. I have much more respect for the Justices and the work that they put in.