nin137

Nick's Journal
2009-07-14 19:55:32 (UTC)

Supreme Court & Sottomayor

i suppose that, as a soon-to be (hopefully) lawyer, i should
filed dutifully within the ranks of those syncophants who
duly acknowledge the supreme court and the justices serving
on it as the crowning achievement of human intellect,
inspiration, and intrigue. but i just can't. i never
understood the reverence people pay to supreme court
justices. certainly, they are highly educated and
thoughtful people, but on a whole, they also come up with
some poorly reasoned decisions.

what you have to remember about the supreme court is that
they are picked not for their prowess (which is incidental)
but for waht they represent. sottomayor is of course the
prime example of this. you can't hear anything about her
without the mention that she is a latino woman. so much for
racial equality.

but it's not just her. remember harriet meiers? remember
how rabid the republican base became when bush had the
tenacity to nominate someone who wasn't 110% behind banning
abortion? someone who people didn't know every little
tidbit about? dear god.

you see qualifications for the supreme court aren't anything
more than making sure that you fit the mold of the type of
image you wish to cultivate. now don't get me wrong. i am
actually a fan of putting a person on the supreme court due
to her race or gender or whatever. now i know, i know that
is stupid but hear me out.

nowhere more than the supreme court do i feel people have to
be given the impressoin that they are represented. whether
they see someone of their gender or race or ideological
view, i believe it is absolutely essential people feel that
they have a proxy on the court.

qualifications as to intellect or so are really not as great
as people make it out to be, they are minimal truly. but
that's what drives me crazy about sottomayor. she doesn't
even have what i would call the minimal intellect necessary
to get onto the court.

i would be all for a latino woman, but not this one. not
someone who so unabashedly will discard the rule of law.
the impartial decision-making necessary. one who believes
that a latino woman with her rich cultural heritage woudl
make better decisions than a white male.

no case was the falsity of such a statement exposed than the
firefighter case that was just recently overturned by the
supreme court. justice is supposed to be blind to race,
creed, religioin, ideology, gender, you name it! that is
what makes our justice system so beautiful, so fascinating.

the law is not some malleable piece of chewing gum that you
can stretch as far as you can just to the point of breaking
all logical reasoning. rather, it is an iron bar. used to
beat those with the bad sense to wreck our constitutional
rights and privileges back in line with the clang of solid
logical reasoning.

my brother-in-law just recently asked me who my "favorite"
justice was. i cringe at that. not only am i not entirely
sure who the 9 are on the court right now (cos really, who
gives a shit, lets be honest), but choosing a favorite
sounds disingenuine to me. to do so i would have to agree
at least 90% with them.

as none of them are atheist i can already throw all of them
out. but if i had to look at those then floating in the
discard of useless vestigials representing mere ideological
expressions i woudl choose the chief justice.

i love his impartial rulings. i love his brilliant legal
analysis and i love how clear and cogent yet utterly
indecipherable his opinions are. that's the beauty of a
true genius legal mind. in my opinion noone has served on
the court with a better legal mind than he. he is not
occluded by odd ideological preferences other than that the
court's role in human life should be minimal.

and that is what i love the supreme court for more than
anything else. they are the conservative check currently on
a liberal executive and legislative branch. although i
disagree wholeheartedly with most of their social rulings
(except of course the latest with the firefighters) i love
that we have that ironclad check.

as much as i hate sottomayor for her stupidity, lack of
cogent reasoning, and obvious bias to the point that she is
willing to destroy the rule of law just to brutally force
her disheveled world-view upon all those surrounding her,
she won't make a difference for at least a while.

if i ever get to the supreme court one day on some case, i
will be sure to let her know that i think my experiences as
an austrian has provided great enrichment to my forthcoming
legal argument.




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