Thursday, January 12, 2006
Let me say up front that I don't agree with Alito on a number of issues. (And that his name is not Alioto, as many newscasters keep calling him.) On the other hand, I'm not sure that my agreement or lack thereof has any bearing on anything. What I am sure of is that some politicians have become energetic players in blood games on the simplistic and brutal level of cock fighting and gladiator bouts, and it's disgusting whoever is attacking and whoever is being attacked.
Even Joe Biden, recent record-holder for speaking three words for every one he allowed Alito to answer, believes that the current system in which Supreme Court nominees must answer questions from the Judiciay Committee is "kind of broken" in that it doesn't bring out relevant information and that maybe a person's viewpoints have nothing to do with their qualifications to be a good Supreme Court justice. What does matter is a person's ability to reason well, knowledge of the U.S. legal process, and thinking clearly without being influenced (as much as possible) by one's own points of view. Yes, invariably the Court takes on a certain character at different times because of who has appointed justices especially if one president appoints more than one justice, but that's the nature of the animal (cf. FDR's "stacked" court).
Name-calling and asking people the intellectual equivalent of whether they've stopped beating their wife are extremely and unecessarily rude and, more to the point, irrelevant. And, as polls and conversations show, Americans are appalled and disgusted by our so-called leaders as they attack like rabid curs. Perhaps even more to the point, those so-called leaders should have more faith in the set-up provided by our Constitution. Then they could stop gnawing on candidates' and candidates' families' emotional and intellectual flesh.
Even Joe Biden, recent record-holder for speaking three words for every one he allowed Alito to answer, believes that the current system in which Supreme Court nominees must answer questions from the Judiciay Committee is "kind of broken" in that it doesn't bring out relevant information and that maybe a person's viewpoints have nothing to do with their qualifications to be a good Supreme Court justice. What does matter is a person's ability to reason well, knowledge of the U.S. legal process, and thinking clearly without being influenced (as much as possible) by one's own points of view. Yes, invariably the Court takes on a certain character at different times because of who has appointed justices especially if one president appoints more than one justice, but that's the nature of the animal (cf. FDR's "stacked" court).
Name-calling and asking people the intellectual equivalent of whether they've stopped beating their wife are extremely and unecessarily rude and, more to the point, irrelevant. And, as polls and conversations show, Americans are appalled and disgusted by our so-called leaders as they attack like rabid curs. Perhaps even more to the point, those so-called leaders should have more faith in the set-up provided by our Constitution. Then they could stop gnawing on candidates' and candidates' families' emotional and intellectual flesh.
Technorati tags: politics, kindness
Labels: politics, reflections
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