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Soto-may-or May Not Be a Disaster

6.5.09 @ 6:01AM

BACK TO PRINCETON WITH YOU
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Sotomayor's Flawed Reasoning:

Well done again, Mr. Tyrrell.

Machiavelli would have agreed with you: "Men not accustomed to the affairs of this world often make the greatest mistakes."

I refer you also to Max Lerner's perceptive observation: "The most destructive imperialisms of the world have been those of men who have elevated their preferences to the pinnacle of moral imperative and who have then confidently proceeded to impose those imperatives on others."
-- A. C. Santore

The logical end point to this concept of a living Constitution as put forth by supporters inside and outside the Judiciary is to make the court the sole arbiter of government. What would be the functional purpose of the other two branches if the court both defines what words in the Constitution mean by ever changing standards and creates the laws based upon what it says those words mean? The simple answer is none.  

The framers and founders of this republican form of government spent quiet a few years trying to hash out a way to keep this republic from going the same way as 3500 years of failure at self rule had before. The late unpleasantness between 1776 and 1781 with the supremacist better half in England had just a bit of bearing on their thoughts. Technically, we fought a war against what was then considered a representative government of the time with an elected parliamentary-style structure married at the hip to a divine right (supremacist) king. That we are basically the sole form of non parliamentary self-rule in the world today seems lost on the populace.

Borrowing a phrase from the movie "Patriot," "what is the difference between a tyrant 3000 miles away and 3000 tyrants one mile away?" I would ask simply this: what is the difference between 9 unelected and unaccountable life tenure justices that define what the Constitution says, make laws based upon that directing others to carry out their dictates and one tyrant with absolute powers in a fiction known as the parliamentary form of government?

The answer is eight more paychecks those that pay the tax burden have to bear.  

As a nation we are standing on a very narrow pinnacle in the midst of a very wide and deep abyss desperately looking for a place we can jump off without injuring ourselves…too much.

For Sonia's sake she should pray she never needs the assistance of the Fire Department…
-- Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

LEWIS CARROLL JURISPRUDENCE
Re: Peter Ferrara's Sonia the Player Umpire:

Sonia Through the Looking Glass.

To paraphrase Humpty Dumpty: A law means what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less. The question is...which is to be master -- that's all.
-- Gretchen L. Chellson
Alexandria, Virginia

According to Sotomayor, via Frank, the law is "uncertain, indefinite, (and) subject to incalculable changes." If the laws of the universe followed such logic, creation would not have been possible and existence would cease to be. Putting aside that nature demands stability, what Sotomayor believes and practices is hubris, not law.  When God gave man free will, He gave up an infinitesimal portion of His absolute power. He could always remove this gift from humanity, but He could not do so righteously. Case in point, when God was confronted by Lot about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, God put law and justice above His power. God could have destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah and Lot without pause, but God allowed Lot to learn a difficult lesson about human nature. Sotomayor puts herself above what God allows; with her "empathy" and Latina experience, she believes she has the right to rule arbitrarily: "The public expects the law to be static and predictable. The law, however, is uncertain and responds to changing circumstances." The expectation was given to us by God through His word and works. Sotomayor in her arrogance, if confirmed, will erode, case by case, the stability of law and justice.  The Senate may confirm Sotomayor, but if they do, they may eventually find themselves in a land without law. In the words of Hosea, "They sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind."
-- I.M. Kessel

DEFINE YOUR TERMS
Re: W. James Antle, III's Seesawing Same-Sex Marriage:

One of the clever tactics of people who want things their way is to redefine terms to suit their argument.

The "same-sex marriage" argument is one of those. It is not a civil rights question at all.

I wonder whether marriage is even a "right," civil or otherwise. It certainly doesn't qualify as one of the self-evident unalienable rights granted by the Creator. The Founding Fathers would have been shocked into stunned disbelief to see marriage so re-defined.

Perhaps, in view of the restrictions that states (and religions, although I'm not making that argument) have traditionally placed on marriage, it is really a "privilege."

For the sake of this argument, I'll assume that everyone does have a right to marry -- provided he or she meets the legal qualifications in his or her jurisdiction. No one is being denied a right when marriage to same-sex couples is denied, because marriage, by definition historical, excludes same-sex unions. Many gay persons have married persons of the opposite sex.

The redefinition comes silently in when the almost eternal definition of marriage is twisted out of recognition to suit the argument of gays.

Finally, the "civil right" to marry does not include the "civil right" to change the definition of "marriage."

In our present social/judicial/legislative environment, however, does that even matter anymore?

I'm sure the Sotomayors of our judicial system will applaud the new rule.
-- A. C. Santore

COMPARING UNFAVORABLY TO THE NAZIS IS NOT GOOD
Re: David Aikman's Tiananmen Twenty Years Later:

"Tiananmen Twenty Years Later," which testifies to Beijing's efforts to keep later generations of Chinese from learning about the history of Tiananmen Square, reminds me of a similar situation in Germany. Shortly after World War II, I was living in Heidelberg and met, through the German-American Women's Club, the wife of a university law professor. In the early 1960's, when I met the lady again, she described the shock experienced by young Germans entering the university when they learned for the first time about the Holocaust. There were no laws in Germany against revealing this horrible story -- no reprisals as has been the case in China. These truths were simply kept out of primary and secondary schools. Moreover, I knew that bringing up among my German friends any discussion of the crimes against the Jews would have been considered very poor taste indeed.
-- Nancy Ann Holtz  
Beverly, Massachusetts

THE BEST NUTS COME FROM CALIFORNIA
Re: Peter Hannaford's No More Eureka for California:

Unfortunately, the legislators in Sacramento may not be as dumbstruck as the author suggests. The new conventional wisdom, being spun by Barbara Boxer and her co-conspirators in Sacramento, is that the voters of California have been given too many chances to exercise their right to vote. They are saying -- as she did on a TV talking head show a few days after the election -- that governing by ballot proposition is making things too difficult for the legislators, who, they believe, have been sent to Sacramento to "represent" those same voters by "making the hard decisions," and furthering their interests.

What she opted not to say was that the voters are now holding her and her venal partners in crime responsible for doing the job of representing California voters in a totally corrupt and self-interest-oriented way. If only she and they had been doing their job of representation as it should have been, instead of stealing, spending and taxing in secret, the voters might not have to step in with guidance. Typically she and they don't see it that way; the voters now need to be disenfranchised so she and the other perps can return to the old ways. They need to be careful.
-- D.D.
California

Since Governor Schwarzenegger has been calling for new thinking and "blowing up the boxes," allow me to suggest an untried approach: outsourcing. Outsource California, together with all of its problems.

That's right, EXPEL California from the Union. The advantages are obvious.

Leaving California outside the USA would improve America's social health. It would mean immediate and substantial reductions in the national rates of drug abuse, drug smuggling, illegal immigration and violent crime, to name just a few. The state of national public education will immediately improve, as average test scores would soar once divorced from California's edu-politics racket. Wonder how important gay marriage will be to California, once there's no chance of forcing it on America at large?

Forced separation will mean fewer demands on the U.S. economy. California is forever gassing about being the world's sixth or seventh largest economic entity -- OK, take them at their word. Let them make it on their own. It will be interesting to see how golden the Golden State remains without one lifeline to the Federal Treasury and another to Wall Street. Federal welfare payments to California -- personal, governmental, agricultural and corporate -- are well into the hundreds of billions every year, and over half the toxic mortgages were written here. Eliminating California would halve the cost of the national bailout, right off the bat.

And let's not forget the environment. Kicking California loose will save Uncle Sam the tremendous bill that must come due the day this state splits in half along the San Andreas fault. If L.A. is geologically fated to become part of Tahiti, who are we, in this earth-friendly age, to oppose it? And why should ratepayers in Peoria bear the burden for millionaires who build trophy homes amid dry brush piles in Santa Barbara and Topanga Canyon? Once California is free to chart its own course, Those That Know Best can save the whales, save the wolves, taboo every tree -- but it'll be on their own dime for once.

Finally, expulsion would finally make honest women (so to speak) out of our ruling class. Anti-Americanism is such a conditioned reflex  among the activists, academics and actors who decide our fate here, it is clear that the poor dears would be much happier under a system like Cuba's or Nicaragua's. They say so themselves, after all. They speak for everyone -- just ask 'em.

I've even got a catchy slogan for showing California the door: "Forty-nine? Mighty fine!"
-- Martin Owens
Sacramento, California

Gosh, it looks like the golden goose has no more eggs to lay. And the state seems to be facing problems similar to the car companies who gave the unions everything they wanted in years past. Well, it looks like payback time has finally arrived, but what are all those getting their entitlement checks to do?

What are the politicians who haven't a brain cell in their heads to do? I really can't believe the voters voted to cut themselves off from the entitlements spigot.

I guess it was that or watch the state go bankrupt, then who would buy the state's bonds? Answer no one. The fact is there is no money; not in California nor in many states such as Washington state that is over its eyeballs in red ink. There is no money from the feds either because they are teetering on near bankruptcy as well, except they can print more paper; something the states can not do.

This is really a turning point in U.S. history: we are no longer the great wealthy country of years past and our standard of living is eroding right before our eyes.
-- Karl E. Wahl
Bellevue, Washington  

PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS TOO
Re: Ken Blackwell's The Blood Libel of the New York Times:

I had a epiphany reading this article. Suppose a veterinarian were to open a clinic to provide abortions on dogs and cats? Video streamed live on the Internet as puppies and kittens were pulled from the womb squirming and killed, then put in a plastic bag and disposed of? While
humans don't seem to have a problem with killing 48 million Americans, they would scream like crazy about aborting pets. The idea would eventually sink in that killing unborn children is just as horrible and even worse.
-- Davis Johnn
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Dear Sir: You and the people that are reporters are responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller whether you admit it or not. It's all going to come out when the guy who murdered the doctor is questioned by the police.
-- Barbara Neely

HIT THE BOTTOM AND ESCAPE
Re: Joseph Lawler's The Salvaging of Notre Dame:

This dilemma of choosing correctly is as old as Adam and Eve. Notre Dame' Catholicism stands on the nexus between worldly adoration and the word of God. It has to make as choice, for as the good book teaches, "No one can serve two masters, because either he will hate one and love the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other." The administration of Notre Dame has a long and inglorious history of choosing the temporal over the eternal, but as long as one lives, be the one an institution, state or man, a chance of redemption exists. Honoring President Obama may have been Notre Dame hitting the bottom (or so a good Catholics can hope) but many debauched have found their way to glory only after bottoming out. Notre Dame may have time to make new choices, but it would be wise for it to remember that none knows the hour or the day when a choice will be the last one.
-- I.M. Kessel

REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Answering Peggy Noonan: Why Sotomayor Should Withdraw:

There is one very reliable test for racism that I suggest -- take quotes by Adolf Hitler on race, nationality, soil and blood and compare them to what the test subject is saying. The fewer the differences, the more likely that you can safely describe them as a racist. Sonia Sotomayor does not pass this test, there are differences of degree, but too many similarities to be excused -- and certainly not for somebody aspiring to sit on the highest court in the land. It is an appalling indictment of liberalism that somebody so intellectually shallow can be considered for such a position.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

Letter to the Editor