Refuses to Wear Her Blindfold

There's Nothing Wise About a Supreme Court Justice Who Refuses to Wear Her Blindfold

by Mark Luedtke

 

Justice is supposed to be blind. That's why Lady Justice wears a blindfold. The Supreme Court justice oath of office is unambiguous: “I [NAME] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.” It doesn't get any more clear than that.

Leftists hate the rule of law and none more than President Obama. Because they hate it, they ignore it whenever they can get away with it. In a rare honest moment that I'm sure he won't repeat, Obama told us the quality he most prizes in a judge is empathy, but empathy is in direct opposition to the concept of justice and the oath of office above. Empathy in a judge means administering justice according to persons instead of the law. It means treating the rich and poor differently. It means bias.

That's because in a court case empathy is a double edged sword. In working for one party, empathy automatically works against the other. You don't have to be Oprah to figure out who Obama nominees will have empathy for. It isn't white males. It isn't the rich or even middle class. It isn't conservatives or libertarians. If you fall into one of these categories, beware standing before one of Obama's judicial appointments.

The rule of law is essential to the functioning of a free society. The rule of law makes the actions of government predictable which encourages investment and support of the system,. This enables people using the system of voluntary exchange that America is founded on to thrive. The alternative to the rule of law, the rule of men, does just the opposite. It makes government unpredictable, undermines support for the system, harms investment, leads to poverty, and turns countries into banana republics.

President Obama couldn't have made his disdain for the rule of law and the principles that made America the greatest country in history more clear than when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice. Sotomayor is the poster child for empathy, dishonesty and affirmative action and an opponent of the rule of law.

We knew Sotomayor didn't respect the rule of law before her confirmation hearings. In speech after speech for years, she repeated this often quoted sentiment, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often that not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” What's scary about this quote, besides how often she repeated it, is that she presented it in opposition to Justice Ginsburg's contention that a wise old man and wise old woman should reach the same conclusions on the bench. That comment puts Sotomayor's judicial philosophy firmly to the banana republic side of the most liberal justice on the Court.

In another assault on the rule of law, Sotomayor is on record claiming that the Court of Appeals is where policy is made. Policy should be made by elected representatives. It's not supposed to be made by the courts. Courts have one purpose – to apply the law. But since the reign of FDR, since the people have resisted implementing leftist policies in the political arena, Democrats have appointed activist judges to implement their policies in the courts. Sotomayor appears to covet that role and will be unrestrained on the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor's decisions also showed her racial bias. Right before her confirmation hearings, the Supreme Court overturned her decision in Ricci v. DeStafano in which she ruled against Ricci because no black applicants had passed a firefighters exam. Sotomayor's ruling firmly supported racial quotas. She even failed to sign the decision, like she was trying to avoid taking responsibility for it. All nine Supreme Court justices said that Sotomayor's reasoning supporting racial quotas was insufficient to decide the case.

Because all this is on record, her confirmation hearings should have sparked a full-throated debate about empathy versus the rule of law, but robust debate failed to materialize because after Sotomayor got her marching orders from the Liar-in-Chief, she came out and lied about her philosophy. It was stunning. Under oath Sotomayor claimed she didn't support empathy in judges and that judges must follow the rule of law. She pretended all those speeches where she said exactly the opposite was a misunderstanding. It was as if Obama was using her to erase his words about wanting empathetic justices. The self-proclaimed wise Latina woman committed perjury on national TV and got away with it.

While Republicans challenged her on her 180, they failed to take advantage of this opportunity. They failed to call for her arrest on perjury charges, which would have prompted the serious debate about the disdain of rule of law by Obama and his allies we need. They should have used Sotomayor's falsely proclaimed devotion to the rule of law to attack President Obama's lawlessness. They should have used her to condemn his actions including the hot button issue at the time, his manipulation of Chrysler's and GM's bankruptcies.

One thing we did learn about Sotomayor was that she wasn't smart enough to get into college or law school on her own. She only got in because of affirmative action. A better qualified white man was denied entry because of her. This should be a serious lesson to every American. If not for affirmative action, we would have a smarter, better justice on the Supreme Court right now. Maybe that lack of intelligence explains why Sotomayor doesn't understand the clear meaning of the second amendment.

Justice Sotomayor will spend the rest of her life gleefully applying empathy over the rule of law, and we're all worse off for it. But because Obama put identity politics above the rule of law, he'll pay a price for this nomination. Not even the majority of Hispanics support Sotomayor. When she starts issuing leftist rulings, Obama will lose more support.

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Sotomayor's wise Latina woman quote. Sotomayor explains that policy is made in the appellate courts. Affirmative action allowed Sotomayor to go to college and law school.AmmoLand.com calls Sotomayor a radical anti-gunner.

Ann Coulter says Sotomayor ruled to the left of Ginsberg in the Ricci case overturned by the Supreme Court. Why am I not surprised that Sotomayor worked for an activist group tied to ACORN?