House of Eratosthenes

Somewhere out there is a delicious quote from Sen. Feinstein or Schumer — I think it’s the latter — about the new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It’s yet another one of these liberal daydreams that are given voice as if they are observations about what has taken place in the past…as I noted a day or two ago, it has become a trait of modern liberalism to conflate what has really taken place, with what one wishes to see take place. This fell into that. The quote was something about how Justice Sotomayor will not be just another Justice on equal footing with all the others, but rather, that she will lead the country’s judicial branch back to the “mainstream.” Mainstream as left-wingers define it. You know the drill. You have a right to stay alive if you have deprived others of their right to stay alive, but not if you’re an unborn baby who has yet to deprive anyone of anything, except your mother of her flat stomach and her lifestyle. Yeah, that.

Justice Sotomayor has been held aloft as someone deserving of support because her confirmation has always been inevitable. I have no objections to that. But another point has been that she rolls up her sleeves and digs into the facts of the cases. This one, I must say, causes me a bit of indigestion. Look up her “verdict” on the Ricci case and get back to me on that if you will.

I just don’t see her as a leader of much of anything. If she’s pressed to lead the Supreme Court in a certain direction, she’ll need some instructions, because rightly or wrongly she’s given me the impression she’s one of those who need instructions for things.

This responsible citizen is here to serve.

1. Do not cite law from other nations to justify a verdict. This suggests, and in facts provides some damn solid evidence, that a majority on the Court just voted the way they wanted to vote. Then they went out shopping across the globe for little bits of paper that would make the pre-determined decision look alright. That, obviously, is not a good thing for American justice or for the Court’s reputation.

2. Do not cite statistics about what state legislatures are doing. Do not use “prevailing viewpoint” or “evolving standards” or…or…or. Culture is a matter for the states, or something geographically smaller than them, to decide. This country was founded on that simple concept.

3. Stick your empathy where the sun don’t shine. We saw in the Ricci case you’ve got what it takes to do this, Justice Sotomayor — no empathy at all there, huh? The litmus test should be, when my case comes to the Supreme Court, do I have a shot at winning even though I’m a miserable awful horrible stinker guy who happens to have a sound case? And can I lose my case if my case is weak, even though I’m a pillar of the community, represent all the esteemed historically-oppressed ethnic groups, rich, poor, lovable, smell good, suave, handsome? Our society loves to talk a good game about the law applying equally to everyone. It’s high time we did something to get back to that, for reals.

4. Don’t worry about consequences, except with regard to jurisprudence. That is the only thing you need to worry about molding, shaping, refining. It is improper to decide cases based on the dreaded consequence of: Angry white males getting out of line, buildings getting blown up, race riots, women getting “back alley” abortions, illegal aliens not finding their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Social Security running out of money…any of that stuff. Handing down verdicts out of concern for positive and/or negative consequences, is the very definition of judicial activism. You’ll notice nobody’s championing that cause anymore. Everyone who’s trying to promote it is disguising their agenda as something else. You could be one of them, Justice Sotomayor, or you could do what’s right. Leaders do what they know is right.

5. Know your damn place. There is no evidence that the judicial branch was intended to reign supreme over the other two branches of government; quite to the contrary, the original articles of the Constitution make it quite clear that Congress is there to regulate it. As the high court has been spending the last five decades spiraling outside of the perimeter defined by my four recommendations above, Congress’ failure to act represents a dereliction of leadership, nothing more, nothing less. Put your house in order before someone else does it for you. And I’d love to see Congress do it for you.

That goes for your eight peers on the Supreme Court as well. That is what I call mainstream, and you’ll notice there’s not a single word about right-wing or left-wing in any of it.

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Leading the Supreme Court Back to the MainstreamSaturday, August 8th, 2009

Leading the Supreme Court Back to the Mainstream
Saturday, August 8th, 2009