Souter to retire from Supreme Court

[Balta1701]

and

 

 

 

She's perfect! Living and breathing, you know.

Here's the full quote in context, FWIW.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

 

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, 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.

 

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

 

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

 

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

 

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

 

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

 

I am delighted to have been here tonight and extend once again my deepest gratitude to all of you for listening and letting me share my reflections on being a Latina voice on the bench. Thank you.

Basically, if you actually read the speech, she's saying the exact opposite of what those opposed to her are trying to suggest she believes using the quote-mining.

Read in context, it’s clear that Sotomayor was merely saying that it’s inevitable that a judge’s personal race-based and gender-based experiences will impact judging, particularly in race and sex discrimination cases. As a result, she said, while such formative experiences can be enriching and contribute to wise decisions, a judge should also be aware of them in order to avoid being wholly dominated by them. She vowed “complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives.”

[StrangeSox]

No they don't - at least they are not supposed to. They are supposed to INTERPRET the law, and if the law is f***ed up, they (legislative branch) go back and re-write it to pass Constitutional muster. PERIOD. What is all this relativism for? Why do libs love to hang themselves on everything being relative?

 

Please explain how the idea of "objective interpretation" doesn't just eat itself in logic.

[lostfan]

Please explain how the idea of "objective interpretation" doesn't just eat itself in logic.

Yes. Thank you.

 

You look at something that doesn't have a black-and-white answer, different people will interpret it in different ways. That's why there are 9 justices FFS.

[kapkomet]

Yes. Thank you.

 

You look at something that doesn't have a black-and-white answer, different people will interpret it in different ways. That's why there are 9 justices FFS.

Go read the 14th amendment. Seriously. And I'll tell you why later if I get the chance. I have to go.

 

[StrangeSox]

Go read the 14th amendment. Seriously. And I'll tell you why later if I get the chance. I have to go.

 

the 14th cannot explain away the logical paradox of "objective interpretation." By definition, an interpretation is subjective.

[lostfan]

Go read the 14th amendment. Seriously. And I'll tell you why later if I get the chance. I have to go.

Makes freed blacks full citizens, equal protection clause, due process, one of the Reconstruction amendments, etc, I know the 14th amendment. I don't know where you're going with this though. You seem to be arguing something completely different from what I am.

[lostfan]

the 14th cannot explain away the logical paradox of "objective interpretation." By definition, an interpretation is subjective.

Also something I was trying to say. I don't think an interpretation is relative. It's subjective and therefore impossible to define as "this" or "that."

[lostfan]

Here's the full quote in context, FWIW.

Basically, if you actually read the speech, she's saying the exact opposite of what those opposed to her are trying to suggest she believes using the quote-mining.

Newt Gingrich on Sotomayor:

"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman.' new racism is no better than old racism."

 

Newt Gingrich after I've quoted him:

"My experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman." racism is better."

[BearSox]

Poor white males. Always getting s*** on.

 

I'll probably get blasted for this, but white males are the biggest group affected by racism right now, IMO. All these politicians want a world where race doesn't factor into anything, but in reality, they are doing the opposite. It is extremely tough to advance in the work place now for White Males.

 

You are hoping for that promotion to vice president of blah blah blah or hoping to become a partner? If you are white and a male, good luck.

 

Hell, we saw with that case of the firefighters which Sotomayor was on. Those firefighters got screwed out of a promotion.

 

We even saw it with the Sotomayor nomination for the Supreme Court. A white male was never even in consideration.

 

All this PC, affirmative action, hate crimes crap that is aimed at getting rid of racism and biases is complete BS, as they are racist themselves.

 

Sorry for the hijack.

[Chet Lemon]

I'll probably get blasted for this, but white males are the biggest group affected by racism right now, IMO. All these politicians want a world where race doesn't factor into anything, but in reality, they are doing the opposite. It is extremely tough to advance in the work place now for White Males.

 

You are hoping for that promotion to vice president of blah blah blah or hoping to become a partner? If you are white and a male, good luck.

 

Hell, we saw with that case of the firefighters which Sotomayor was on. Those firefighters got screwed out of a promotion.

 

We even saw it with the Sotomayor nomination for the Supreme Court. A white male was never even in consideration.

 

All this PC, affirmative action, hate crimes crap that is aimed at getting rid of racism and biases is complete BS, as they are racist themselves.

 

Sorry for the hijack.

 

I agree with you about those firefighters. Many of those programs are problematic and need to be addressed. There was nobody more qualified than Sotomayor for the job though. She has already been appointed, confirmed, promoted, and confirmed over a 17 year span on the federal bench. I don't think any more qualified white males got screwed over by her nomination.

 

[kapkomet]

I agree with you about those firefighters. Many of those programs are problematic and need to be addressed. There was nobody more qualified than Sotomayor for the job though. She has already been appointed, confirmed, promoted, and confirmed over a 17 year span on the federal bench. I don't think any more qualified white males got screwed over by her nomination.

But we'll never know because they weren't even considered for the job.

 

[kapkomet]

Makes freed blacks full citizens, equal protection clause, due process, one of the Reconstruction amendments, etc, I know the 14th amendment. I don't know where you're going with this though. You seem to be arguing something completely different from what I am.

It explains why liberal judicial folks think that they can interpret laws by "living and breathing" versus what the constitution really says. They bastardize that amendment, among others. I'll try to explain - but I'm going out of town so I may not get the chance.

 

[lostfan]

It explains why liberal judicial folks think that they can interpret laws by "living and breathing" versus what the constitution really says. They bastardize that amendment, among others. I'll try to explain - but I'm going out of town so I may not get the chance.

M2M accounting?

[Chet Lemon]

But we'll never know because they weren't even considered for the job.

 

No, we do know that she is the most qualified person regardless of race and gender for the reasons I already gave on the previous page. Bush and Clinton never considered black judges for their Supreme Court appointments. Does that mean their nominees were not qualified? Of course not.

 

[BearSox]

I'm sorry if I don't find an "empathic", racist, and socialist, judge who had to "struggle" to where she is now as qualified.

 

This is nice, she quoted a socialist in her college yearbook:

 

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/20...t-yearbook.html

 

"I am not a champion of lost causes, but of causes not yet won." Yeah, do you know the cause Norman Thomas was fighting for? Yeah, it was for America to be be socialist!

 

I highly recommend reading this article I am posting. You can't really say it any better than this:

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowel...pathy_in_action

[StrangeSox]

Clearly, quoting Norman Thomas means she's a full-blown Socialist and supports his aims and objectives and not just the general idea of the quote.

[Balta1701]

LOL, she's DQ'd because of a freaking college yearbook?

[BearSox]

Clearly, quoting Norman Thomas means she's a full-blown Socialist and supports his aims and objectives and not just the general idea of the quote.

 

If my toilet paper had a quote by Norman Thomas on every sheet, I wouldn't use it.

 

But then again, I'm a little crazy and support capitalism.

[Balta1701]

Where's that smiley again?

[lostfan]

If my toilet paper had a quote by Norman Thomas on every sheet, I wouldn't use it.

 

But then again, I'm a little crazy and support capitalism.

[Balta1701]

And you were worried about over-using it...

[lostfan]

If I use it in the Filibuster I might not be able to use it enough.

[mr_genius]

If I use it in the Filibuster I might not be able to use it enough.

 

[Balta1701]

That was completely the appropriate response, Genius.

[kapkomet]

It explains why liberal judicial folks think that they can interpret laws by "living and breathing" versus what the constitution really says. They bastardize that amendment, among others. I'll try to explain - but I'm going out of town so I may not get the chance.

I didn't explain myself very well, lf. This is actually something I would like to expand on so that I can tie the point together. Maybe when I get back, unless I get some time while in Houston, but somehow I doubt it.