I'm still a bit iffy on the whole "appoint judges by the President" thing the US has.

Justice and politics (and religion) should remain seperate.
Don't exactly now how it is done in my own country.

The problem is there are little checks and balances of the court system.

Having the President (Executive branch) nominate a judge and congress (Legislative branch) confirm them is not even a semi-check and balance.

One way to add a check/balance to the power of the Judicial branch is the ability of congress to override a court decision with a supermajority vote.

Well that's a bit of a problem isn't it? Citizens need to know how their gov't works eh?

Are you crazy?!? There HAS to be some sort of "The Buck Stops Here" otherwise things will go back and forth for YEARS. Imagine what would have happened to Roe v. Wade if this were the case. Abortion legality would have been bouncing back and forth between "crime" and "right" for the last 30 years!

What we have now is not perfect by any means, but I think it tends to work well compared to anyone else.

Now if they would just wear the British wigs while giving opinions...that would truly kick ass.

But Judicial Rulings (at the appellate and Supreme Court levels) come with narrative opinions that explain why a specific law is upheld or rejected. This gives the federal and state legislatures an opportunity to fine tune the laws they wish to preserve. Though that specific decision isn't reversed by the legislature, they CAN over-rule the judiciary without even passing the hurdle of a Super Majority.

The aspect of the system that bothers me is that the appointed judiciary will continue to be influenced by the political feelings of the Executive that appointed them, (and the legislature that approved them) looonng after those "appointers" have been voted out of office by The People. I think this causes worn out and discarded policies to remain with us longer than we would like them to.

I think that they are not meant to be "worn out and discarded policies". Policies are for the Legislative Branch to create, and the Executive Branch to enforce. The Judicial Branch is supposed to interpret how the laws that have been created are supposed to be applied.

The musings of the Supreme Court are meant to be long term. That is the entire concept of a Supreme Court IMO.

So it is better that one unelected person or maybe a handful of people can stipulate the law of the land? People who do not answer to anyone; who are employed for life?

No. Remember a supermajority is not an easy thing to obtain. It is unlikely that there would be that many times that congress over override a court decision.

There actually does exist this ability. It's called a constitutional amendment and the congress can act whatever it wants to the aim of that amendment provided it passes 2/3rd's state ratification. Amendments these days are next to impossible, for basically the reasons you stated.

I must say that in reading the history of SCOTUS, i'm actually impressed with its history as compared to the other branches. Though they've had a myriad of bizarre rulings, they made quite coherent arguments most of the time that generally had a positive effect. And that goes for even the most racist and bigoted justices on the court. Even McReynolds, who refused to have his picture taken with the justices that year because of the "Hebrew" being in the room (referring to the other two Jewish justices, actually made really nice and coherent arguments.

The role of our Justices is not to stipulate law, but to interpret it, though they do set precedent for the courts.

And to address Bugsy's comment that "the appointed judiciary will continue to be influenced by the political feelings of the Executive that appointed them," I think you'll find there have been an abundance of cases of Supreme Court Justices committing surprising breaks with the party line of those who appointed them.

Just like the Senate was designed to be a slower-moving, more deliberate body than the House of Representatives, the Judicial branch was designed to be all the more deliberate. And ideally loyal to no party, though that's obviously fluctuated.

That is the Judiciary's de facto check in cases where a sudden groundswell of public opinion might influence lawmakers to pass unwise legislation in the heat of a crisis.

It may not be the best system, but it's gone fairly-well so far.