posted
Incidently, all of this is irrelevant anyway.... Obama has already demonstrated that he has enough basketball insight to recognize that what the liberals on the Court really need is a dominant post player.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: We are worried about some supreme court justices being secret atheists?
Well, Lisa is, apparently.
I don't especially care.
I don't care. The unfortunately was that my suspicions relate to the Jewish members, and I feel it's unfortunate that a Jew would be an atheist. As far as SCOTUS is concerned, I would hope that they wouldn't allow their religious inclinations or lack thereof to affect their performance of their duties (she said, naively).
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quote:Originally posted by contents under pressure: John Paul Stevens is the only Protestant on the Supreme Court. If another Catholic or Jew replaces him, there will be no protestants on the court. Will Obama be mindful of this as he chooses a replacement? Should he mindful? And does this mean that Sotamayor represents the "hispanic seat" and Thomas the "black" seat?
I don't think religion or ethnicity matters. The constitution didn't spell out a quota system for the Supreme Court. Even if they did, Thomas certainly doesn't represent the "black seat". He's a conservative. Michael Steele isn't considered a black leader for the same reason. Of course the DNC has never elevated a black guy to that post, but if they did, he would go down in history as a significant black leader. Obama needs to appoint another black to represent the blacks. Maybe he should consult with the local news stations. They've figured out the magic formula of racial mixes on their broadcast stations. They all have their happy fat guy, nice Asian woman, bald black guy, Hispanic commentator and a mix of racially ambiguous people to fill in the gaps.
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Mal, grow up. Petulance blended with arrogance blended with ignorance is a deadly brew.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: My point isn't that a group of 9 people should somehow be an accurate reflection of America's demographics. That is literally impossible.
The fact that it is literally impossible should not be the first strike against it. The first strike ought to be: It's a Stupid Idea.
All things are never equal, and incidentally I am *very* happy knowing that the appointment of justices is not a democratic process.
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quote: Simply that if you have a choice between two reasonably identical candidates in terms of qualifications, it is appropriate to select the one that brings a quality to the supreme court that isn't there already
I thought I made it clear that I find this point to be invalid. There is not such thing as a set of equal circumstances. However, there are many situations in which people can be led to believe that all else is equal, and in those cases, can be led to believe that "diversity" or "proportionality" are desirable features worth pursuing. It assumes one fallacy, that there can be equally qualified candidates, and superimposes a second fallacy, that one can divide said candidates into useful categories, and lastly that the categories one has chosen are useful or even desirable qualities to be targeted for "diversity." And that all rests on an even greater fallacy, in the idea that a person's religious beliefs can be divorced from their other myriad qualities as human beings, and be taken as a separate factor- in short, the quantification of human qualities is the uber-fallacy, and it's a pernicious and evil piece of folk-wisdom stirred up every time someone thinks they're figured out what really makes people tick- be it the shape of their head or the sequences of their genome.
So, as I pointed out in my first post in the thread, the metric by which we measure balance on the bench in terms of religious practice is arbitrary, and is already bent to reflect a cultural norm, as Tom pointed out, which favors those segments of our culture most rooted in the judicial and political systems- Jews and Catholics. Shocker. I suppose your solution might be, given two equal candidates, to choose a member of another religion, or of no religion? Why do you find that advantageous, exactly, in a court position which is clearly divorced from religious practice, and is intended to be divorced from politics as well?
Consider uncertainty and Law of Unintended Consequences. Suppose the court is full of 9 Orthodox Jews. By establishing a precident that "diversity is better" when choosing between "equally qualified" candidates, you have, quite unintentionally, limited the pool of candidates by tacitly discouraging Jews from pursuing the position, and you have also by necessity discouraged the President and advisors from looking at Jews as possible candidates. You have also increased the liklihood that the terms for "equally qualified" will be bent to favor non-Jews.
And this is all because "a perfect world" where "all else is equal" does not exist, and cannot exist. So your assertion is meaningless. It is even dangerous, in so much as it is a thought shared by "open minded" and "progressive" people. There is always a best candidate. There is always a better guitar player. Always.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: There are, oddly enough, a lot of Roman Catholics really interested in high-powered jurisprudence. I have no idea why this is.
Catholics tend towards Lawful Alignments whether Good or Evil.
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Protestants on the SC are like Gold Candlesticks in church. It seems like a fine idea at first, but then you have to ask yourself how many starving children could eat that Protestant.
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quote:I thought I made it clear that I find this point to be invalid
You had previously only made one post in this thread that addressed it at all, and that post addressed a version of the idea that nobody had actually advocated. So no.
I do not think this should be anything resembling an official policy, just a general guideline that presidents should bear in mind when making their picks. And while there might be dangers associated with it becoming such a common practice that White Christian Men (or any combination thereof) stopped aspiring to be a supreme court justices... seriously, I am just not worried about that happening. At all. Ever.
And it's not even like "Supreme Court Justice" is a job you can set out to achieve with any degree of certainty. You can hope that someone retires at a time when you have achieved enough experience to be considered by a president who would approve of your track record, but that's a pretty slim window.
The real issue, though, is this:
quote:There is always a best candidate.
I have been asking about this for the past several years, and nobody has ever given me an answer that seemed satisfactory either to me or to the US population at large: by what metric do you measure "best" Judge? The only person qualified enough to determine that would be another, "better" judge. Because if anyone could determine the value of a good judge, we wouldn't need judges in the first place.
All I've seen are liberals complaining when the president picks a conservative judge, and conservatives complaining when the president picks a liberal one. In an ideal world, judges would all be perfectly impartial and accurate, and they'd always agree with each other. But that is never happening. You can create a court of "middle-of-the-road" justices who have spent their careers either never offending anyone (i.e. never ruling on a controversial case at all) or alternating between who they offend so you can point to them and say "see, they're fair." But even that doesn't necessarily mean the judge is GOOD, or that an entire court full of them is the best for the U.S. By actively selecting decently experienced judges with different backgrounds, you help to build a court that will approach controversial issues (or ones with limited legal precedent) from myriad viewpoints.
I do agree with Tres that the primary concern should be over "justices who approach and view the law in different ways." I'm not sure how much their law school actually matters here, but the most obvious metric of for that is differing political views. Fortunately, the most important metric for ensuring a balanced court comes with a built in safeguard - presidents with different political agendas rotate in and pick new justices, and unless you have presidents with identical political beliefs remaining in power enough to fully stack the court, we usually seem to end up with a court that's reasonably balanced.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: which favors those segments of our culture most rooted in the judicial and political systems- Jews and Catholics.
I'm not sure that I buy that these are really more rooted in the judicial and political system than Protestants.
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I suppose the supremely qualified atheist has a biased disadvantage for being appointed to the Supreme Court.
Racial and religious ambiguity works best for the local news stations and in the white house. The Obama's haven't chosen a church. They have made the political calculation not to isolate anyone. It's best to be racially and religiously ambiguous. Don't want to alienate the Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, white or black voting block. Especially in a country where a few hundred votes can determine a presidency.
I prefer he who chooses a church based upon his faith or none due to his lack of faith. From this president we aren't going to get the truth. He hides his politically incorrect cigarette addiction quite well. I would think the media could've produced a picture of Obama smoking by now.
quote: have been asking about this for the past several years, and nobody has ever given me an answer that seemed satisfactory either to me or to the US population at large: by what metric do you measure "best" Judge? The only person qualified enough to determine that would be another, "better" judge. Because if anyone could determine the value of a good judge, we wouldn't need judges in the first place.
This is false. Completely false. You can look at a bunch of metrics to measure a judges performance, and you do NOT have to be a judge yourself to do it.
Good/best will mean different thing to different people, of course, but the idea that only another, better judge can rate a judges performance is wrong, not to mention dangerous.
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I have been asking about this for the past several years, and nobody has ever given me an answer that seemed satisfactory either to me or to the US population at large: by what metric do you measure "best" Judge? The only person qualified enough to determine that would be another, "better" judge. Because if anyone could determine the value of a good judge, we wouldn't need judges in the first place.
Clearly then, you are aware that the metrics by which we measure candidates are by necessity complex. Therefore imagining a simplified situation in which we have two equal candidates is folly. If you don't believe we can even judge who is best, how can we judge who is the same? We have much better elements to base our decisions on than race, age, sex, or religion.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: which favors those segments of our culture most rooted in the judicial and political systems- Jews and Catholics.
I'm not sure that I buy that these are really more rooted in the judicial and political system than Protestants.
Would it be wrong of me to claim as prima facie evidence of the predominance of Jews and Catholics on the supreme court that these two groups are clearly rooted deeply in the judicial system? I guess it could be a coincidence, and certainly it is more than simply beeing "rooted," but rather that these two groups produce large numbers of desirable candidates for justices. I don't know- the fact of the current demographics indicates there's something to it- both religions together make up less than 1/3rd the US population, and an even smaller fraction of the actively religious US population.
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Given the number of other possible contributing factors, and the fact that neither group has had all that much representation on the court historically, yeah, still no.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: We have much better elements to base our decisions on than race, age, sex, or religion.
Sometimes those elements are informed by such things as race, age, sex, religion, and I would add, life experience.
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I am open to the notion that there is a way to find the best candidate. While I didn't go out of my way to reiterate this, I did point out that the ideas I went on to talk about are ideas I've been thinking about AFTER having tried to figure out what metric we should be using to find the "best" candidate, and nobody providing me with a useful answer. Orincoro and Kwea both state "there are plenty of ways." Okay, fine. What are they?
So far I've got: 1. Has X years of experience (easily measured, fine) 2. Has made a variety of rulings on complex cases, without having made logical/intellectual errors that anyone noticed (slightly subjective but mostly measurable) 3. Has a reputation for "fairness" (probably measurable somehow, but I cannot think of a way that wouldn't be completely subjective and that loads of people would disagree with)
I can't imagine that is enough to remotely narrow the field down to one person. If someone can give me examples of other criteria that the average person can look at, I am open to that. But most complaints I have ever heard about a justice pick was that they were too liberal or too conservative.
There are certain qualities that a candidate might lack that would make it obvious that they are not qualified to someone without legal training (Harriet Miers being a good example) but I would think that'd apply mostly to lower tier candidates who were, well, obviously unqualified.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: We have much better elements to base our decisions on than race, age, sex, or religion.
Sometimes those elements are informed by such things as race, age, sex, religion, and I would add, life experience.
Yeah, I agree. That's why those factors can't be, and shouldn't be, isolated. They don't appear in a vacuum.
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And seriously Raymond, you want me to produce a list of qualities and factors that can be used to judge? I remind you that there is no application sheet with a list of qualifications that needs filling out. My point is that it's not quantifiable- and I don't even hold strongly to notion that "best candidate" means most qualified. Politically most advantageous candidate is fine. Politically most advantageous candidate partly because of that person's religion or race or sex or age is fine, but I'm against the idea that it's even possible to boil it all down to "two equal candidates." I am against the idea that any one of those factors can have any weight all by itself.
Do you seriously need a laundry list of things that weigh in such a decision? From someone who is saying to you, emphatically, and repeatedly, that there exists no specific list of such things? Do you think that's productive?
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quote:Politically most advantageous candidate is fine. Politically most advantageous candidate partly because of that person's religion or race or sex or age is fine, but I'm against the idea that it's even possible to boil it all down to "two equal candidates." I am against the idea that any one of those factors can have any weight all by itself.
I think that is all a perfectly valid way of looking at it. It's actually not that different than how I look at it. I may not have clarified this very well but I didn't think you could literally have two perfectly equal candidates and then just go with the one who is black or female or atheist. I think there is a certain minimum threshold of experience required, after which "better" candidate is extremely subjective.
When you've narrowed it down to the candidates that everyone can agree are among the best, then I think "which of these brings the most diversity to the court" is a valid element to be considering when the president makes his (ultimately subjective) decision.
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And clearly we disagree. I find that attitude dangerous. Looking at a person's race as a flat aspect of their personhood is not productive. Especially when the effects of that person's race on that person's life are much more relevant to their qualities as a potential candidate.
This all kind of sounds like voting for Barack Obama because he's black, as opposed to voting for him because he's the person that being black has made him. "Content of their character" as a great man once said, not the color of their skin.
Basically your position is an acceptance of the continuation of, even support for, racial politics in America. Because as long as you use race as a prescriptive marker for one's place in society, apart from everything else that makes them human, you objectify that person, that class of persons, and treat them as less than they truly are. It is a great thing to self-identify as a part of a group, but a poor thing indeed to be anchored to that belonging, and to be weighed down by it.
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From me, you may not take it as a compliment but, well said Orincoro. Unfortunately, racial politics is continuing. There were many more qualified candidates than the most recent appointment. The court "needed" a female latino. If it were up to qualifications, there would be someone else.
I'm not suggesting she wasn't qualified but there were many more qualified people available. What happened to "justice is blind"? Skin color and religion does matter in our separation of church and state with equal protection under the law society. It's ok to look at race, sex and religion when it's advantageous to the the protected class. It's illegal to consider these factors when it is disadvantageous to the protected classes.
Lady justice isn't only suppose to be blind, she holds a scale. A human's sex, race or religion wont register on a scale held by a blindfolded justice system. Someone is peaking through the blindfold to check the color and religion.
posted
I'm pretty confused as to why this is okay:
quote:Politically most advantageous candidate is fine. Politically most advantageous candidate partly because of that person's religion or race or sex or age is fine,
and this is bad:
quote:When you've narrowed it down to the candidates that everyone can agree are among the best, then I think "which of these brings the most diversity to the court" is a valid element to be considering when the president makes his (ultimately subjective) decision.
I see a distinction between the two, but the distinction is incredibly slight and I don't understand the intensity of your disagreement. I'm not saying race, creed or gender is more important than "content of character."
I believe that, all things being equal, there is value to having a diverse supreme court. That value comes both from different life experiences and approaches to problem solving that diversity tends to bring, as well as the ability for the American people to feel that their laws are not judicated by a group of straight white christian men.
I believe if we could hold blind auditions for the supreme court, diversity would come to it naturally, as it does to a lot of occupations that institute blind examinations of violin music or resume analysis. But the nature of the Supreme Court is not something you can do that with. You can only examine judges who appear fully formed where you know everything about them, and as such, whatever prejudices that affect both you and the system that created them are in full effect. Taking race, gender, sexual orientation or creed into account as part of an ultimately subjective decision is not important because being black makes you a better judge, it's important because if you don't, you are allowing a system biased in favor of straight white males to continue to be so.
Is it ever possible to literally have two candidates who are identical, and to simply say "well he's black and he's white, so that's the tiebreaker?" No, of course not. That is not remotely the point. All things being equal, I'd also like a candidate that is good at spelling, and math. I'd like a candidate who has detailed understanding of what the theory of evolution actually means and why its important. A candidate who got an A rather than a B on their 12th grade social studies final. None of these things are dealbreakers in the slightest. Some of them are harder to check than others. None of them will ever be the single deciding factor that leads you to pick between two otherwise identical people. But they all form part of the composite of the final person, and to various degrees impact the ultimate decision making process.
[ April 15, 2010, 02:51 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
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On the one hand Raymond, you have a decision which is affected by the race, age, sex, or religion of the candidate, because that candidate is the person *they are* because of race, age, sex, or religion. On the other hand you have singled out a person's race, age, sex, or religion, and used that as a litmus, out of context, for their suitability. I cannot be more clear- there is a distinction, and I'm sorry if you don't understand that distinction.
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I understand the distinction in theory, but in practice, in particular after my subsequent clarifications, I don't think the distinction is all the significant.
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I know you don't. Your subsequent clarifications being restatements of the same premise, not withstanding.
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Well, okay then. I would argue that many of your earlier criticisms applied specifically to versions of my argument that I worded poorly, but I don't really see this going anywhere fruitful.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I believe that, all things being equal, there is value to having a diverse supreme court. That value comes both from different life experiences and approaches to problem solving that diversity tends to bring, as well as the ability for the American people to feel that their laws are not judicated by a group of straight white christian men.
You are assuming people have common life experiences based upon the color of their skin. This is stereotypical thinking. Michael Steele's children and Obama's children will have very similar life experiences. The life experience in a free society has less to do with religious preference and skin color than it does with a stable family with providing parents. The 20% born in wedlock blacks who were given every opportunity to succeed, might take offense to being stereotyped as having.......typical black life experiences.
Color means nothing. Did you have a daddy? How affluent were your parents? These traits are more significant than skin color or religion. Growing up poor and succeeding is a better trait to consider than the color of one's skin.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Michael Steele's children and Obama's children will have very similar life experiences.
Gee, I might guess that Obama's children might manage to pick up a little more knowledge about Black History along the path of life. You think?
What a troll.
Why would you think that Obama's kids would pick up more black history knowledge? Michael Steele is more black than Obama. Obama is only half black. Steele is more African American than Obama and he has slave blood to boot.
Steele's kids will know actual history better than Obama's. For sure, Obama's kids will know more about the inventor of Peanut Butter.
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I own a lot of guns with thousands of rounds. I'm opposed to abortion and a returning vet who believes in strong borders with a bible by my bed.
I have a sticker on my bumper that sais, "DHS Certified Right Wing Extremist"
I love Peanut Butter. It's a contribution equivalent to jelly. The inventor of peanut butter gets more paragraphs in "black history" than the first African American Supreme Court Justice.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I would argue that many of your earlier criticisms applied specifically to versions of my argument that I worded poorly
Soooo not my fault.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I own a lot of guns with thousands of rounds. I'm opposed to abortion and a returning vet who believes in strong borders with a bible by my bed.
I have a sticker on my bumper that sais, "DHS Certified Right Wing Extremist"
Because Jesus said "Turn the other Uzi."
Thank God for Jesus, right, mal?
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That I worded my arguments poorly? No. But it is your fault that you a) started by responding with glib one liners to straw man arguments nobody actually said, and continued to do so for a while, b) when you made an actual argument post, it was built upon several statements that were either STILL responding to straw man arguments ("I'm glad the appointment of justices is not a democratic process."), or that didn't actually mean much and which you later acted as if I was crazy for asking you to support them ("There is always a best candidate"), and fixated upon my wording "there is no equal set of circumstances," which wasn't the point at all.
You warn of a possible bad time in the hypothetical future where Jews might be "discouraged" from aspiring to be a Supreme Court Justice because of a "diversity" policy, ignoring the fact that right now, gays and atheists and various other minorities look at the government and see that they are marginalized and will have to hide who they are if they want to be successful. Even black and latino people, despite having recently gotten some high profile people to look up to, can see that their representation is grossly disproportionate. A minority being discouraged from government is far more dangerous than an overrepresented group being discouraged.
The only actual argument you've been consistent about with any validity is that using skin color and other non-character based qualities as a litmus test is inherently dangerous. Which is still a mischaracterization of what I said.
I get why you worry about that. But there are certain qualities, relevant to how one reacts to cases involving discrimination, that you either simply CAN'T get or will never be able to fully understand without being part of the group in question.
Requoting scholarette's post from a while ago:
quote:In the case that convinced me having more women on the court might matter, the issue was what constituted a reasonable search. Ginsburg felt as though the school passed reasonable in checking the girl's bra. The male justices had no problem with that. in this case, Ginsburg was at the time the only one who has probably ever worn a bra. The wording was reasonable and in this case, different genders might very well have different views of reasonable (go to a public swimming pool and most men seem to have no problem exposing their chest. Woman tend to have at least some of it covered, to varying degrees).
In issues of race, someone who has grown up with racial epithets thrown at them constantly might be more sensitive to it than someone who hasn't. Being part of the abused underclass could change one's view on the rightness of a law or the application of a law. If you see how a law has been used to subvert people's basic rights in person, it is different than seeing the law from a detached view. For example, brown vs board (separate is inherently unequal) might be more obvious if you were part of the underclass. Perhaps if the supreme court was diverse, that decision would have been made earlier (or the original separate but equal decision never made).
Reading about gender and race and sexuality and religious issues in the abstract is one thing, but it can't compare with actually experiencing it yourself. In the cases that I am actually concerned about "content of the character" is NOT something that can be divorced from the color of your skin. (I'd also note that religious beliefs fall pretty squarely into "content of your character").
[ April 16, 2010, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
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The supreme court should be staffed by the best judges. Questions have been raised in this forum about what determines, "the best judge". Maybe someone who has been a judge. Welders put together what engineers design....would you hire a designer to be the top welder?
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At my husband's work, the techies often graduate to management/ design stuff and do extremely well at it. My husband has the degree and that has some advantages too, as well as disadvantages. Overall, the two work well together actually, bringing different strengths and weaknesses. So, while I may not hire the designer to weld, I would hire a welder to design.
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