Troublesome...

I always try to see both sides of an issue, but the potential appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the supreme court scares the hell out of me. Before I even get to the woman's credentials, I hear a comment like this:

"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."

This statement is blatantly racist. It's logic rests solely on the arbitrary characteristic that is the color of a person's skin. More to the point, It's just plain stupid. Downright idiotic. And our President wants this lady to have a say in interpreting the Constitution of the United States of America?

Everyone is doing this, but it is a useful excersize. What if I said, "A wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black man who hasn't lived that life."

Game over. Nite Nite. Black listed (excuse the pun).

It's point blank ignorant. And we haven't even touched upon her legal perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfC99LrrM2Q

Maybe you didn't mean to say it, but you did, lady.

The Founding Fathers that you claim, Sonia, are heroes of yours would turn over in their graves if they could hear you make such flippant remarks about the system they set in motion so many years ago.

Congress makes the law. The judicial system interprets it. It's pretty cut and dry and something we all learn in middle school (or maybe the second time around in high school).

Sam Stein from the huffingtonpost.com says it's not that simple these days:

"But for legal experts, there is nothing actually controversial to what Sotomayor said. Her political crime, if there were one in this case, was speaking the truth.

'She's not wrong,' said Jeffrey Segal, a professor of law at Stony Brook University. 'Of course they make policy... You can, on one hand, say Congress makes the law and the court interprets it. But on the other hand the law is not always clear. And in clarifying those laws, the courts make policy.'"

At this point, we run into a divide. Your position on this topic depends on your stance regarding the Supreme Court's role in the process. How far does determining the laws set forth in our Constitution go? Past mere interpretation? Sonia think so. So does Mr. Segal.

By clarifying the law, they are interpreting it. It may sound like semantics, but that is not making it. There's one guy who would stand next to me:

"One single object ... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825

You may disagree with me, but one thing that should abhor anyone of any background is that a Supreme Court Justice, with the ultimate power of interpreting our most sacred document, would let personal experiences enter into their decision making process. That is NOT acceptable.

What scares me even more is that someone nominated this lady. But then again, should it surprise anyone?

http://www.reuters.com/article/ObamaEconomy/idUSTRE5520GX20090603?feedType=RSS&feedName=ObamaEconomy&virtualBrandChannel=10441

NOPE.

One last thing. Check out this court decision:

In New York Times Co. v. Tasini (1997), freelance journalists sued the New York Times Company for copyright infringement for the New York Times' inclusion in an electronic archival database (LexisNexis) the work of freelancers it had published. Sotomayor ruled that the publisher had the right to license the freelancer's work. This decision was reversed on appeal, and the Supreme Court upheld the reversal; two dissenters (John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer) took Sotomayor's position.

Sotomayor thinks that someone's hard work belongs to someone else, and not solely to the creator of that article. Sound like socialism to anyone else? Too far? I'm on the fence.

I'm not on the fence about keeping this lady out of that chair.