Our Constitution in name only
Posted 6/05/2009 09:51:00 AM
© 2009 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.” - Lewis Carroll
Our Constitution no longer rules our land. I do not know exactly when that document kicked the bucket, but today it is our Constitution in name only. The ink had hardly dried on our Constitution when politicians first started dismantling it “for a good cause.” Today the watchwords are: You should follow the laws of this nation, unless you want to ignore them, which you can if you are of a privileged group.
Over the decades, judges have found reasons to reject what the founders wrote so they can interpret a new meaning. We do not have equal justice for all. Many people want this unequal judicial system. Years ago people of color were abused, so there are people today saying people of color are owed a turn at being an abuser. Judges, under the guise of giving “extra-equal” justice to some, take the words of the Constitution to mean what they mean them to mean.
President Obama sent his choice for the next Supreme Court justice to the Senate for confirmation. I was neither happy nor sad about the gender and ethnicity of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, because those descriptors are not important. We need the best legal minds on the Supreme Court regardless of ethnicity and gender. One would hope she is the nominee because she has the best legal mind.
At one time we were a nation of laws, a nation founded upon a written document that had very specific rules for changing that document. The judiciary interpreted the Constitution given new situations that the founding leaders could not have imagined.
This no longer is true. Now, when the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no laws…” that statement is interpreted by an activist judiciary to mean “Congress shall make laws...”
Madness
Judge Sotomayor is of that cloth. A news report stated: “In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge ‘may and will make a difference in our judging.’”
She says because she is a woman and a Hispanic she will rule differently. So the justice I seek in a court of law could be different from others contingent on the gender or ethnicity of the judge or my ethnicity and gender. That is madness.
At one time something similar to Sotomayor’s racial prejudice was rampant in our nation, only in reverse. Our nation should never again have a Supreme Court ruling such as the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson establishing, for 58 interminable years, the socially engineered segregation doctrine, “separate but equal.” Thankfully, in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ended that horrible chapter in our country.
The 1896 ruling came from activist judges who wanted social engineering, so racial prejudice reigned. That is the danger we now face if gender and ethnicity can change legal rulings. Justice in our country is back to being color sensitive, with one type of justice for special groups. There is no “good” racial prejudice. Our Constitution does not support prejudice.
In fact, we can argue that there is no Constitution in effect. When adopted, the rule for government was, if it was not in the Constitution, then our leaders could not do it. Now, most of what we do as a nation is not covered in the Constitution.
Sotomayor indicates that the Supreme Court should make its rulings based on ethnicity and gender. It was heinous when racist white judges voted segregation in 1896. It is ever so much more egregious in the 21st century when someone who should know better applies that same racial argument, but in reverse. What was Martin Luther King’s message? Lose the race card, we are all one people. King envisioned a nation of laws that has justice for all equally.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
Labels: Courts, Swickard columns, Washington
5 Comments:
True Dr. Swickard. Ms. Sotomayor's ruling in several cases make a clear point about her using "empathy" and her "background and life experience" instead of the law and Constitution as a guide. Ironic that Obama voted against Roberts because of Roberts allegedly using his "empathy" in cases, guess there is good and bad empathy as well as right and wrong ethnicity or backgroud and life experiences to be used.
However, one of the more scary ruling by Sotomayor is about eminent domain. In Didden v. Village of Port Chester, she ruled against property owners. There, in an unsigned judgment, Sotomayor's court ultimately allowed the Westchester developer to condemn the land belonging to plaintiff Didden and build a competing pharmacy (CVS), despite the questionable public-use benefit that would result from that taking. This a a frightening reading and expansion of eminent domain into areas the writers of the Constitution would surely object to.
None of this should be surprising. Before the election Obama said that what is important is "what is in the judges heart" and that the judge should have "empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenaged mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
It is this kind of ideology that he has stood for his whole life and what we all knew he would push as President.
It is amazing to me how most of the people who want judges to use the "rule of law" and abide by strict Constitutionalism are white males -- the race and gender that wrote the Constitution and rules of law. These rules were written to protect the privileged dominance, and anyone who empathizes with the "other" is somehow suspect. Don't forget the Constitution was a compromise of many interests, incorporated slavery and prohibited women from voting -- in fact women are still not explicitly provided equal rights in the Constitution.
If you can not recognize structural inequality in this society, you probably should discuss something else.
Many are in harms way tonight because they swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and that they would bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
It is insulting to say they are too stupid to know the Constitution is just a damn piece of paper.
Many people want this unequal judicial system. Years ago people of color were abused, so there are people today saying people of color are owed a turn at being an abuser.
Who?
Hyperbole?
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