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Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor a litmus test for decency
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Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor
President Obama's decision to nominate Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court is a great opportunity for Americans to come together and put aside partisan politics and rally behind some of the principles which hold us together as a nation. Now that statement probably brought a smile to the face of you Liberals reading this and made some of my Conservative friends cringe, but it's not what you think. I am NOT advocating some kind of gutless approach to tiptoe around this nomination like so many Republicans have. Far from it. I am instead advocating that the Republican Party must take this opportunity to stand up and point out the disgraceful race-based approach to Jurisprudence that Judge Sotomayor has advocated over the course of her career.
Americans, with rare exception, believe in some basic sense of fairness. An idea that people are held accountable for their individual actions and not judged solely on the basis of their race, gender or ethnicity. We have fought actual wars and cultural wars to arrive at this point in time where a person is judged on their merit and not their skin tone or some other characteristic. The election of Barack Obama as President proves that the vast majority of this nation has embraced a color-blind society, but Judge Sotomayor has proven that she is an impediment to this progress.
By now, you are probably familiar with her racist statement that, "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 an outrage and an insult to ALL AMERICANS, not just the white men she intended to slander with her racist rhetoric.
There is NO PLACE on the highest court in the land for a person who thinks this way. Imagine if you change her statement to replace the words Latina woman with white male, and white male with non-whites! We would never tolerate a white racist to serve on the Supreme Court in the 21st Century and we should not tolerate a non-white racist out of some misplaced white guilt that makes allowances when people of color make outrageous statements like this one.
But let's get to the larger issue of why we can all rally against the Sotomayor nomination. Sotomayor, and those who think like her, are all coming from the pre-conceived notion that "White Society" owes a debt to "non-white" Minorities, and that this debt necessitates a perpetual state of Affirmative Action that allows non-whites to be held to a lower standard than whites.
While this may seem outrageous to Conservatives, I assure you that Liberals are quietly nodding their head in agreement with Sotomayor on this point. But I would say to the Liberals, when does it end? When is enough? When is the debt paid?
We can't go on that way forever. When does it all end? When have "white people" paid their debt to the extent that they are no longer subject to organized discrimination (affirmative action) and undefined double standards (political correctness) which threaten to unfairly intrude upon their daily life without warning?
With the standard Sotomayor and others advocate, we will NEVER have progress and this will be an eternal problem. And applying that standard to other similar situations would lead to absurd results which you would not tolerate.
For example, using this standard and applying it to other situations.
1. Japan could never be an ally of the United States because of Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March and other atrocities, thus Americans would feel free to call them "Japs" and other derogatory names without fear of scorn, because after all, they "owe" us.
2. People of German descent would be forced to apologize for hundreds of years and feel sorry for those of Jewish descent.
3. French people would have to thank Americans forever for saving their lives in World War I and II. And thus Americans could discriminate against the French.
4. U.S. people would have to thank the French for their help in the Revolutionary War, and thus the French could discriminate against Americans.
5. The United States and England could NEVER be allies because of the Revolutionary War.
6. No European nation, with the possible exceptions of Austria and Italy, could ever be allies with Germany.
7. Every African nation would have the absolute right to discriminate against every European citizen because of colonialism.
These are just a few examples. And you could extend this lunacy even further, for example, by saying Jewish people would have to hate Italians because after all, those Romans crucified a lot of Jews and Christians.
The bottom line is that if we allow this twisted thinking to permeate the societal structure, then our a nation is doomed over the long haul, as is any nation that allows itself to stifle potential progress by forcing its citizens to pay for a past which they had nothing to do with.
And ironically, the reason we have not overcome the racial problems in this nation is BECAUSE of insistence in creating the double standards which perpetuate the ill feeling and allow the "wronged party" to feel sorry for themselves and live in the past, blaming any or all of their own problems on others. Why can America be an ally with Japan? Because we don't constantly bust their chops about Pearl Harbor or Bataan or anything else, and in return they don't bust our chops about Hiroshima. Why can Germany and France be friends now? Because they stress what they have in common instead of their differences.
Those nations, and those people, who have moved forward and stressed common ground have flourished, as opposed to those who would rather than live in the past and stress the negative, all the while promoting diversity instead of that which we have in common.
Think about it people. What two racial/ethnic/religious groups are experiencing the most problems in the world over the latter half of the 20th Century and the early years of the 21st Century? Blacks and those of the Muslim faith. The two groups which are still allowed to freely live in the past and blame their current problems on historical grievances. The so-called "dominant culture" inadvertently uses their guilt and double standards to promote a situation where Blacks can always fall back on slavery and past racial strife as the reason why they have failed in a given endeavor. So in essence, Black culture is frozen in time as the wounds of events of the past 400 years needlessly prevent them from progressing. And it's even worse in the Muslim World where they are still talking about the damn Crusades!!! Think about that one folks because there's a major lesson there for us in the way we deal with racial problems from our past. If we continue on our current path, how would you like to think about the world in the year 3,009 where people are STILL talking about Affirmative Action and Racism.
Because that's where we are headed if we follow the path we've been following since the 1970's. We have a nice bright, shining example in the Middle East where a thousand years later, nothing has changed in the minds of many Muslims. It's SAD.
But back to the very important question of when is the societal debt paid and is compensation actually due?
In order to really get at that question, it raises a much BROADER philosophical question of what is compensation and how does one quantify it. Think back to the historical context of Tort Law. Was the purpose of Tort Law to compensate the injured at all cost OR to compensate the injured at the expense of the party who actually caused the harm? This is a monumentally important distinction that has been debated for centuries by legal scholars.
And the reason it's applicable in this discussion is because virtually ALL of the victims and defendants in the racial debate are DEAD. In tort law, a plaintiff cannot collect a legitimate debt from the heirs of a defendant. He may collect it from the ESTATE of the defendant, but NOT the heirs of the defendant, which is a critical distinction.
So in essence, what the Sotomayors of the world are asking people to accept is that the heirs of people who were wronged are owed a debt by the heirs of people who committed these wrongs, AND (this is critical) she would also hold liable ALL white people, even those who did not have heirs who participated in slavery or Jim Crow or any of that disgraceful behavior. In essence, the Sotomayors of the world would allow all Minorities to file a Class Action suit against ALL WHITES, even though the vast majority of those whites had nothing to do with the original harm.
That's a pretty incoherent position. And it's really funny when you consider the following:
LEFT WINGERS BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT OF INHERITANCE TAXES BECAUSE THE HEIRS OF THOSE WHO EARNED THE MONEY DON'T DESERVE IT, BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T WORK FOR IT, YET YOU WOULD ASK THOSE SAME HEIRS TO ASSUME THE SOCIETAL DEBTS OF THEIR ANCESTORS. SO THEY WOULD PAY THE DEBTS, BUT NOT RECEIVE THE BENEFITS IN THE THEORETICAL WORLD OF THE LEFT WING!
So traditional Tort Law demonstrates the logical incoherence of her position IF you believe in the traditional view of Tort Law that a Tort is a two-way street, where the victim's compensation is inherently tied to the fault of the defendant. But Radical Tort reformers have introduced the idea that the REAL purpose of Tort Law should be wholly compensatory regardless of fault, and that seems to be where Leftists are heading with this talk of "debts owed" from past wrongs.
But even if we buy into this radical departure from traditional intellectual coherence, the theory still falls apart unless a "value" can be placed on the compensation, and what the Sotomayors of the world are asking for is an open-ended "judgment" that is not only in favor of the plaintiff, but one where the plaintiff gets to determine the value and duration of the judgment, and indeed change those terms at will without regard to reason or traditional standards of equity and justice. So in this bizarre world, the defendant has to keep paying over and over again, an undetermined and open-ended amount, until such time that the plaintiff whimsically decides that his appetite for compensation has been sated. Surely, any rational person can see the inherent LUNACY of such a verdict?
So in summary, here is a brief synopsis of what I think of Sotomayor's view of race relations in America.
1. Yes, I do believe in compensation when a party has been wronged and the defendants can be identified.
2. Yes, I do believe that Black Americans were "owed" a debt. That's why I would have supported some form of limited affirmative action when it was first introduced, however, like the politicians and legitimate academics of the time, I would have qualified my support by stating that these remedial actions were designed to provide compensation for the community so that the NEXT generation only would be in a better position than their parents.
3. Scholars and politicians "sold" affirmative action to the public on the theory that it would be a short term remedy with a limited duration, not that it would be a perpetual concept that became an intricate fabric in our society.
4. And while I would have supported affirmative action on the grounds of "doing the right thing" by the Minority community, I also would have been 1000% wrong. In theory it was a great idea, but the obvious truth 40-plus years after its inception is that affirmative action and other politically correct policies have been a DISASTER for the majority of the Minority community. Sure, it's provided a helping hand to a small percentage of the community, but the Great Society and Culture of Entitlement have destroyed black culture and the black family. It has allowed a small percentage of blacks and other Minorities to thrive in ways they might not have otherwise done, and in some cases, it has been an unjust enrichment for middle and upper class blacks, but look what's happened to lower class and poor Minorities over the past 40 years!!! And the lowering of standards, and infliction of overt double standards, has also taken its toll on aspects of the white community as well.
So in essence, it's not as easy as "compensating" victims or "owing" debts, and it never was despite our best intentions. Good intentions which have gone badly off course and inflicted serious HARM on the people we were supposed to be helping.
And what keeps this insane system going even though it's been a colossal failure? A sick combination of white guilt and cynical racial arson stoked by people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, because if they were truly successful, they would cease to be relevant, and that would mean no money and no fame!
In terms of educational background, I followed pretty much the same path as Sotomayor, so I know where she learned her warped view of the United States and American culture. She and I went to the same University (Princeton) and I too was subject to the relentless brainwashing that Left Wing professors utilize on the impressionable youngsters entrusted to their educational care. Unlike Sotomayor, I rose above the hate and lies that spewed forth from these so-called academicians, and I was able to reach my own conclusions about these issues. She should have done the same, but at some point, she realized that she could use this "racial victimology" to her advantage, and she has now carried it all the way to the Supreme Court!
In closing, the Democrats have too many votes in the Senate to prevent this nomination from being successful. The bottom line is that much to the utter shame of our nation, Sonia Sotomayor will soon be Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. We cannot reasonably prevent this with the current composition of the U.S. Senate. However, Republicans CAN and SHOULD present their case to the American people in the strongest possible fashion so that the average person can see the Radicalism that passes for mainstream in the Cult of Obama.
We may not be able to stop Sotomayor, but we can lay the groundwork for preventing future tragedies like the elevation of an overt racist to the highest court in the land. If we do not stop the next Sotomayor, we may end up looking at the 21st Century version of a "Dred Scott Decision" in the years to come, only this time, Dred Scott will be named Bob Smith and he'll probably be the guy you played Golf with last weekend!
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