Politics as usual - or, Sonia Sotomayor and the SCOTUS

[ravyn440]

Hey kids... Bet you didn't think I'd ever write anything of substance in this journal ever again. Come to think of it, I didn't either. But now that the great messiah has picked a SCOTUS nominee, I would probably be remiss in my duties if I didn't take some time to say what I think about Sonia Sotomayor as nominee

Comments

[daniegirl]

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."

Do you know what she was referring to when she made that statement? I think, in some situations, I would be better able to judge a situations because of my experience than another would be who hadn't had that experience. When concerning her community she probably is better able to make a wise decision than a white male. And she says "I would hope". I think that changes the context as well.

And not that I am completely happy with everything Obama has done thus far but I can understand his decisions - which makes me feel better than being like WTF???? all the time like I was with GB. Plus the man just walked into the biggest mess. I don't think I am ready to judge whether or not I am going to vote for him in the next four quite yet. I am at least going to give it a couple years to see how things start to pan out.

I also think he was an idealist....and has come up against reality. Something that can be sobering. At that point you have to weigh it all out and decide what's best and sometimes it isn't what you first wanted or intended - thats just life- or politics.

[ravyn440]

Do you know what she was referring to when she made that statement?

Yeah. This is the full paragraph that contains that quote:

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

I agree with her statement that gender and national origin may make a difference in how one views a court case. I think that is an obvious truth, and I don't really have any problem with that part of it, because it's our experiences that shape who we are and how we see the world - but I do NOT think that these things should influence the decision that one comes to. The *law* should influence the verdict.

And if there's no universal definition of wise, then there can be no universal definition of better, and why would she not hope that a white male, a black female, or anyone else sufficiently qualified would reach just as good of a conclusion as a Latina woman? Do we not want the best (whatever that means) people we can get on the SCOTUS, regardless of color, gender, and all that stuff which continues to artificially divide us? Personally, I don't particularly care whether or not those people are straight white men or multiracial gays and lesbians - but I don't want any of them thinking that somehow their life experience as whatever they think they are is going to make them more likely to reach a "better" decision than someone else who isn't "one of them."

Judges are supposed to be as impartial as possible - that's why they're judges - and on this point I find myself reluctantly agreeing with Chief Justice Roberts, who said that in his court, if the law says the little guy should win, then the little guy wins, but if the law says that the big guy wins, the big guy wins. One's personal feelings about the matter should have nothing to do with it.

If you'd like to read the whole speech, the NY Times has it online (this stuff is all from page 5, with some carryover in context from page 4):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html

As for Obama... I guess it depends on what you think are the most important issues. For me, it's civil liberties and the economy. I think his decision to close Guantanamo sounded great, except that he has no actual plan for doing it, he's keeping open the detention facility in Afghanistan (which is even more removed from potential judicial oversight than Gitmo), and, most importantly, his administration, just like GWB's, seems to think that it's OK to detain people indefinitely without trial even if they've never committed a crime - just because the government thinks they're dangerous. If that doesn't scare the piss right out of you, I don't know what would. Maybe Obama's a good guy and he won't use this on anyone except the "bad people" - but a) even rat-bastards deserve due process, and b) what about the next President - will he or she be so benevolent?

I'm also not at all happy with his handling of the economic crisis; I see Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as a puppet for the banking industry, and that's a situation we're going to be paying for for a long time to come - because Obama and friends aren't willing to stand up to the mega-banks. Too big to fail? Try too big to exist. Clinton and GWB created much of this mess, but I just don't think Obama's been doing the right things to get us out. Over $1 TRILLION in taxpayer money has been flushed down the toilet in support of zombie banks and failing automakers.

..continued..

[ravyn440]

Anyway, on your last point - I argued (not sure if it was ever on LJ) last fall that no matter what Obama does, he's doomed to failure; the message of hope and change that brought thousands of previously-disenchanted people back into the political process (or into it for the first time) sounded fantastic and was certainly inspiring, but it also set unreasonably high expectations he cannot possibly hope to meet. So you might be right on that one - idealism and reality don't often go well together - and it's certainly possible that I will have a higher opinion of Obama the President four years from now than I do today, but on the issues that matter to me I'm not impressed so far.

[daniegirl]

Gbay was one of my issues as well. So are civil rights. Ideally you close it down and let everyone who can't be tried go. And he is letting most of them go, regardless of the fact that 17% are going back to being "evil doers" (lol) according to the NYT article I read. However, there are some (a small %) that they feel are going to hurt the american public in a big way but they don't have enough evidence to try them or the evidence they do have was obtained illegally (which has to do with the previous admin). I feel like he was given this already fucked up system where people were treated like crap (understatement) under the previous admin and now they probably want revenge even if they didn't before. That isn't his fault is GW's fault. I do see that he is continuing this mess in a way but then I consider the following...

So, lets say he does let them go and they DO something - like attack the American people. Then what? He stood up for his ideals but failed to protect the American people. I can only imagine what people would do to him, seriously. They would crucify him. Not only that he would have to live with the fact that he had the power to stop an attack and he didn't.

I honestly don't know what I would do in his situation. It seems to me he is trying to find a balance of is ideals and reality (freedom and safety) and that is making no one happy. But I don't know how much we can actually BE happy with what he is going to do because of what he is dealing with. I mean he has like two major wars plus whatever else is lurking around. A failing economy. A divided county.

I was hoping he would go in their and make a change but I never expected it to happen right away - not with him in there - I mean if it was Dennis J. Kucinich I would expect him to go in there and do a lot more because he is a man who really is different. I don't think I ever really saw Obama as exceedingly different - I just saw him as better. As someone more in touch with my reality. So, I guess I am being more patient than most. I also don't think the American people are ready for different even though they say they are (not talking about you just most people). Most people are scared to death of real change. I don't think they want different they just want the way it used to be. But they way it used to be is what got us into this mess in the first place. Which leads me to the banks. I never thought Obama was going to take on our corrupt system of money (fed reserve, banks, investors blah blah blah) We want that job done and we need a revolutionary. Obama is not that - he is someone who wants to change things from within the system - not create a new system.

I'll read that speech and have more to say later when I am more awake.

Anyways, I miss talking to you Ravyn. Most people don't have the ability to discuss - they just argue - which is purposeless IMO. It's nice to talk to someone who is actually interested in real discussion. :D

[ravyn440]

So, lets say he does let them go and they DO something - like attack the American people. Then what?

Then that's the chance you take, I guess. The Constitution is fundamentally at odds with the position that it is acceptable hold someone in prison indefinitely, without the right to challenge his detention, on a suspicion that he is going to do something evil. Remember the Fifth Amendment? "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Innocent until proven guilty? Yes, it would certainly be a catastrophe for America and for Obama as President if he were to release the Gitmo folks that he can't put on trial and they were to come back and blow up some buildings - but when you start accepting that the government has the legal authority to make people disappear without recourse, you're tearing down some of the most central points of what it supposedly means to be an American. George Washington will rise from his grave - We simply DON'T DO THAT here. And if by some horrible twist of fate we start doing it, then what else starts to become acceptable in time? How "bad" does someone have to be in order to get scooped up and locked away like this? Where is the oversight? I know it runs the risk of turning into a slippery slope argument, but is it really that hard to imagine past or future Presidents finding ways to eliminate people that they perceive to be threats to the social order? We don't have to look very far back in our own history to see government meddling in the affairs of private citizens' political and religious groups.

The "war on terror" will NEVER be over. It will continue to be used as a means to ramrod policies down the throat of America that would have been absolutely unthinkable pre-9/11. And you know, really, what that means? It means that even if there is never another terrorist attack on US soil, they've already won. We're allowing our government to run roughshod over the Constitution in the name of some promised level of security that it can't possibly provide (it's not like there aren't plenty of other rat-bastards out there waiting to blow us up). We aren't an open, free society any longer (whether or not you want to argue that we never were is another matter) - we're a nation of xenophobic little children cowering under our beds in fear of the boogeyman - and our government is complicit in the whole thing because they know we're easier to control when we're worried about getting blown up and not focusing on the more relevant issues at hand.

Sometimes when you try to balance conflicting ideals you end up losing them both, and that's what I see here. Compromise is not always the right answer -- you can compromise on a tax increase, or on environmental standards for the spotted owl, or whatever -- but when the Constitution says, plain as day, THOU SHALT NOT - well, I don't think you need to be a wise Latina woman to figure out what to do next. =/