Living in the Courtroom
Judge Garrett: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation.
Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don't live in this courtroom, do we?
- Philadelphia
Joe Biden, a man I would vote for, began his statement during the Alito hearings yesterday with something that troubled me greatly...until I thought about it. He spent significant time discussing the great Sandra Day O'Connor. That didn't bother me. But he discussed the confiormation hearings for Alito as an extension of that. There is no "swing seat" on the Court. No O'Connor seat. No "female" seat. Yet Biden discussed greater scrutiny for Alito because he was replacing O'Connor and because he was replacing a woman, dropping the number of woman on the SC to ONE. I thought to myself...that's not fair. That's un-Constitutional. The same standard should be applied to all nominees, male, female, conservative, liberal, progressive, straight, gay, old, young. And I believe that.
Sort of. I kept being reminded of something I tell everyone about my wife being pregnant. The greatest thing for pregnancy were the first female doctors. They brought a perspective males just DON'T HAVE. When I talk about my love for Peter Jackson films, I always have to remember both of his co-writers are women...and they bring significant heart and compassion to his work. When are we unfair to be more fair? Why is there only one woman on the SC? They make up 50-51% of our population. Contrary to PC beliefs, men and women are NOT the same, and can often be very complimentary. Losing a female voice on the SC does matter. My initial gut, while noble, also ignored human nature and one of the truths of America. We don't live in the Constitution. We live in a country where it is filtered through our own weaknesses.
I joked with Beth that I was a humanist. I believe in equality as best as it can be...never balanced, because we aren't, but as close as we can get it. My dislike of minority watchdog groups is that very often, it seems they don't want that at all...just for rules that favor them. Which is easy to say on my side of the fence as a white male. I take no notice of original sin, or white male guilt. I care little for the past, but the present. Do we have to be unfair (as affirmative action and Joe Biden's comments are, in my opinion) to be fair? As long as we are flawed, I think we do have to play a few favorites. The deck is stacked, like it or not. I may hate that reality, but pretending it isn't stacked is lying to myself.
So I feel a bit less contempt for many of those groups. In going uphill, they may overshoot sometimes, but can I really blame them? Not at all.
BREAK
As for SC hearings, as a sarcastic note, I think you actually hear Alito's voice less than a quarter of the time. Just long-winded policy speeches by tired warhorses (more Republicans than Democrats, if you can believe it). STFU already...find out what the guy thinks. His prospective job is way more important than yours. I do love the hearings though. Honest debate over the meaning and direction of our country is outstanding. I'll take it any way I can get it.
Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don't live in this courtroom, do we?
- Philadelphia
Joe Biden, a man I would vote for, began his statement during the Alito hearings yesterday with something that troubled me greatly...until I thought about it. He spent significant time discussing the great Sandra Day O'Connor. That didn't bother me. But he discussed the confiormation hearings for Alito as an extension of that. There is no "swing seat" on the Court. No O'Connor seat. No "female" seat. Yet Biden discussed greater scrutiny for Alito because he was replacing O'Connor and because he was replacing a woman, dropping the number of woman on the SC to ONE. I thought to myself...that's not fair. That's un-Constitutional. The same standard should be applied to all nominees, male, female, conservative, liberal, progressive, straight, gay, old, young. And I believe that.
Sort of. I kept being reminded of something I tell everyone about my wife being pregnant. The greatest thing for pregnancy were the first female doctors. They brought a perspective males just DON'T HAVE. When I talk about my love for Peter Jackson films, I always have to remember both of his co-writers are women...and they bring significant heart and compassion to his work. When are we unfair to be more fair? Why is there only one woman on the SC? They make up 50-51% of our population. Contrary to PC beliefs, men and women are NOT the same, and can often be very complimentary. Losing a female voice on the SC does matter. My initial gut, while noble, also ignored human nature and one of the truths of America. We don't live in the Constitution. We live in a country where it is filtered through our own weaknesses.
I joked with Beth that I was a humanist. I believe in equality as best as it can be...never balanced, because we aren't, but as close as we can get it. My dislike of minority watchdog groups is that very often, it seems they don't want that at all...just for rules that favor them. Which is easy to say on my side of the fence as a white male. I take no notice of original sin, or white male guilt. I care little for the past, but the present. Do we have to be unfair (as affirmative action and Joe Biden's comments are, in my opinion) to be fair? As long as we are flawed, I think we do have to play a few favorites. The deck is stacked, like it or not. I may hate that reality, but pretending it isn't stacked is lying to myself.
So I feel a bit less contempt for many of those groups. In going uphill, they may overshoot sometimes, but can I really blame them? Not at all.
BREAK
As for SC hearings, as a sarcastic note, I think you actually hear Alito's voice less than a quarter of the time. Just long-winded policy speeches by tired warhorses (more Republicans than Democrats, if you can believe it). STFU already...find out what the guy thinks. His prospective job is way more important than yours. I do love the hearings though. Honest debate over the meaning and direction of our country is outstanding. I'll take it any way I can get it.
posted by Chuck | 1:21 PM
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