Showing posts with label courts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label courts. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sonia Sotomayor's Quotes Reveal Complete Ignorance on the Duties of Our Judicial Branch

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's first nominee for the Supreme Court of The United States, seems to have less knowledge on the duties of our judicial branch than the average high school student. (public school students excluded of course)

Let's have a brief discussion on the separation of powers. Most High School students are educated on how our government operates with three separate branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial. Each branch has it's own powers and limitations. This type of government prevents any branch from gaining too much power, thus limiting the possibility of abuse of power. The President (executive) may enact certain things, but is overseen by congress (legislative) and the courts (judicial). Each branch has it's own powers and limitations. Apparently Judge Sotomayor is not familiar with our Constitution and the separation of powers, maybe I'm losing my mind but it would seem familiarity with these would be somewhat of a prerequisite for the job.

Sotomayor, self-admittedly claimed that it is a judges job to make policy, rather than adjudicate and interpret constitutional law. Don't believe me? It's on tape!



This type of viewpoint should prevent her from being a judge at all, much less a Supreme Court justice.

She has been overturned 80% (4 out of 5 times) by the Supreme Court when they reviewed opinions that she authored. 3 out of the 4 times the Court held that Judge Sotomayor erred in her statutory interpretation. Not exactly a resume builder for a Supreme Court position.

Judge Sotomayor stated, "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."

Now, let's play a little game. Let's use the same quote from above, but let's switch the places of "Latina woman" and "white male", and let's make the quote from any white male you would like to use. For my game I have used Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy...

Judge Kennedy stated, "I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latino woman."

Now can anyone look me straight in the eye and tell me that Judge Kennedy would be nominated, much less stand any chance of being confirmed if he had made that statement? The statement oozes with racism, and yet, judge Sotomayor will more than likely get a pass on this, because of a dangerous double standard we have accepted in this country.

This is the first real chance for the Republican Party to tighten up their belts and reestablish themselves as the "conservative" party. It will be interesting to see if they put on their gloves for a fight, or slip further to the left and away from any defining feature or stance, by giving the radical left yet another free pass.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

WE MUST LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICTURE

In dealing with each arising issue in this country, it is important to always consider the big picture. The statist knows that he or she cannot take away our liberties in one sweeping stroke. Doing this would set off millions of alarms and the citizens would rebel immediately. The plan of the statist is to quietly and very subtly erode little liberties, so that they go unnoticed, but to the few who do their research and actually call the statists out for what they are. If they control 95% of the media it is quite conceivable that they can publicly write off this group of whistleblowers as "extremist." They may even, for dramatic effect, have one of their agencies publish a report identifying such persons as "domestic terrorists." (See DHS report from April)

Back to my point for today...

Making a lot of news over the past few days is a 13 year old boy who does not wish to take chemotherapy for his lymphoma. Doctors have stated that he has a 90% chance of recovery if treated, a mere 5% if he is not. The family has religious beliefs which prevent them from accepting this treatment. The medical community has taken the parents to court to force the treatment, and the courts have ordered that the child be treated with chemotherapy. I'm sure that many of you, perhaps even a majority, believe the courts did the right thing in this situation. I challenge you to look at the bigger picture.

This one case will set future judicial precedence and empower the courts to interfere further in our private lives. I do not believe the federal government should have the power to tell us what medical treatment we will receive. I also do not believe the constitution permits such liberties to be taken away from individual citizens by courts. I will be honest with you. I agree that the religious beliefs of this family, which will more than likely result in their child's death, are unfortunate. I'll go a step further. I think their beliefs are downright crazy, but I also know that I take my right to practice my own religious beliefs seriously. You have to understand that by letting the courts rule this way in this one extreme scenario, we are allowing them to take away a small portion of our freedom to practice religion and worship God. The future will allow further court rulings. Each one will take an ever so small chunk of religious freedom until one day we will wake up and will find that our freedom to worship no longer exists.

In summary, it is easy to look at the surface of this situation and find a moral basis to conclude that the courts made the correct decision. Our initial emotions may even lead us to believe this, but we must look below the surface of this one incident and see that this decision has taken another small portion of our freedom and our liberty, and empowered the federal courts to interfere further in our private lives in the future. A general rule of thumb for me is to think logically, not emotionally.