This is grossly misleading because it treats the midpoint between the most rightward and most leftward judge as some kind of ideological middle ground. When you look at what is called “left” in this country and compare it to the rest of the world, we don’t have any justices that are anything more than moderately left, while all of the conservative justices are quite far right.
A question to both yourself and @droxford. Do you believe that a black woman can’t be qualified for the job? Do you think Biden by limiting himself or black women is bound to pick someone not qualified for the job?
we fight racism and prejudice by ensuring qualified minorities are given “a seat at the table.” Different backgrounds and life experiences matter, and sometimes the only way to have a broader and more nuanced understanding of an issue is to purposefully choose someone of a specific background (and particularly of a minority background) to help balance the majority think. While becoming a Supreme Court Justice should clearly be reserved for elite-level jurists, I think there are probably hundreds if not a few thousand judges who have the knowledge, experience, and temperament to fill the role successfully. So there is no “best” person for that role - only many, many qualified individuals (and hey, even a lefty like myself can admit that there are qualified conservatives). So that leaves it to the President to ensure that the S Court as a whole has a good balance of perspectives. This doesn’t just go for racial, gender and religious demographics. I absolutely agree that we need to look beyond Yale and Harvard graduates, and we also need to look at those who have significant legal experience outside of the judiciary. For example, one of the proposed replacements for Breyer has worked as a public defender - that is a much needed perspective among the current crop of Justices.
Not at all. and... It's definitely possible. If you're saying "it's time" to have a black woman as an SC judge.... and if we're playing the Joe Biden racist sexist game.... no, it's not. Since we've already women at SC justice and we've already had non-whites.... it's time we had a Native American, don't ya think? Or a Latino? We haven't had any gay or LGBTQ representation at the SC level...We haven't had a physically handicapped person... Muslim?...How about a Catholic w****, currently enjoying congress out of wedlock with his black Jewish boyfriend who works at a military abortion clinic? The truth is...we shouldn't be saying "it's time" for any specific ethnicity, gender, creed or culture. Politically speaking, if his agenda was to exclude candidates based on race or gender, I agree with you - he should've kept his mouth shut, told the country that he was considering everybody, and then just chosen the black woman that he wanted, and left everyone in the country wondering if he made a decision based on prejudice, like so many other previous presidents. But obviously Biden is the stupid kind of racist sexist president. Yay. OMG - I can't believe I just said the words "I agree with you" to fchowd0311. LOL. It's the end of the world!
yet, you were silent, when team Trump sought out a woman, Amy Barrett, to be a Supreme Court justice and then Moscow Mitch fast-tracked her nomination in ~ 30 days, a month before the American voters voted to fire Trump GOP Senator Susan Collins thought that Barret was not qualified and voted against her nomination
Re: My tangent with NewRoxFan on Sotomayor... The article you linked to was referring to this discussion with Sotomayor. Although I haven't finished watching all of it, I can see immediately that the article butchered what Sotomayor said (no surprise). I'll post more after I've watched it all.
Wrong. We fight racism and prejudice by providing an opportunity to "a seat at the table" for ALL qualified people. Every SC Justice represents ALL AMERICANS. If their cultural background prevents them from understanding how the law applies to other cultures, they are not qualified to be an SC Justice. They shouldn't have to be black to understand how the law applies to blacks. They shouldn't have to be female to understand how the law applies to females. I've already discussed this. ...I mostly agree, but by "best" person, I mean the person with the best experience and qualifications... .... SC judges should not be Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative. We're not talking about the executive or legislative branch of government here. I'm completely in favor of using experience and qualifications in the selection and nomination of SC justice.... but not skin color and gender.
I agree - people are human after all. But an SC judge should lean as little as possible, should have vast experience with federal law, should understand how it applies to all people, and should do their best to use their experience and knowledge to NOT make decisions based on personal bias.
The greatest irony of all this is for Cons to rail against stacking SCOTUS with ideological rubes when they totally judge a president's performance or sole reason to vote for the sumbitch entirely on who'd they signal for potential nominees. But heaven forbid the Other Guy does that!! So antiracist! So unAmerican!! End unborn baby slaughter liek yesterday nao!!! Translation: let's erode even more individual civil liberties and continue to let corporations, as people!, continue to fleece and rape the public's welfare and dignity.
Statistically, what are the odds that the best candidate for the job is Brett Kavanaugh, a drunk frat bro with a long history of sexual harassment?
Given that every person in the world is impacted by their individual life experiences, by your standard, no one is qualified to be a USSC judge. In your reality, there's no need for 9 justices, because every judge should see every issue exactly the same and would thus vote on everything identically.
Then why is the thrust of your argument that Biden is limiting himself from the most qualified candidates if you agree that that candidate could be a black woman? Or do you believe that Biden choice will only be in race and gender and not other qualification?
Not at all. SC justices can and should use their professional experience with federal law in their decision-making. But they should not allow personal bias to influence their decisions, nor should they allow their own ethnicity, gender or culture to interfere with their understanding of how the law applies to others who are different than them.
Might be a black woman... might not. For all we know, the best candidate might be a federal judge named Juan Martinez who has 35 years experience in immigration law ... but we'll never know... because he'd be excluded from consideration.... because he's male.. and he's not black. The consideration for candidates should be ONLY based on qualifications and experience. The consideration should never exclude anyone based on race or gender (or religion, or other culture, creed, or ethnicity).
I’m going to bring up another bit of Constitutional history. The Founders very well understood that judges have human biases and that those who appoint judges would do so out of self serving interests. That is why the president doesn’t have sole power to install judges but the Senate has advice and consent power. It’s also why impeachment wasn’t under the judicial branch. As such it shouldn’t be surprising that Presidents make appointments for political reasons. I can agree that in the strictest of terms it is racist and self serving of Biden to say he’s only going to appoint a black woman but to act as though this is now an existential crisis would be like claiming it’s the end of the MLB when pitchers were discovered using spider tack to make better pitches.
What are you basing qualifications on? Your argument is based on some level of certainty that Biden WON’T pick the most qualified person if it’s limited to a black person. The argument on qualifications only holds water if it can be shown with any certainty that a black women isn’t the most qualified person out there.
That's great that you feel that way, but you are living in a fantasyland. That has never and will never exist
