re: #638 Obdicut

Apologies for that. I thought you meant it was precisely his record before the supreme court that made you believe the results on the supreme court were lucky. Sorry for getting you so deeply wrong; it was a significant error in how I read you. I completely acknowledge that you’re endorsing and celebrating his record as a Civil Rights lawyer.

forgiven and forgotten…i figured you’d just missed a word in there somewhere. moving along!

But again: I think that you’re putting far too much weight on a single sentence that the man uttered. I think his judicial philosophy can best be seen in his actual work, not a single sentence he said in a rejoinder to a question. I’m unsure why people are focusing so much on that, as though it’s a shibboleth when it clearly is not.

During the Civil Rights period, we had all sorts of terrible laws that needed to be overturned, and were overturned by the Supreme Court. To me, that seems a very good example of the Justices on the court doing what they thought— thought in regards to the Constitution, to human decency, and to the spirit of freedom— was right and letting the law catch up. I’m not sure why that phrase to you serves as such a dire warning of dark things.

Because i do not believe that there are any such gross, festering, unconscionable laws currently operating which pose more threat to a more perfect union than a justice(s) who believe that their conscience is a better guideline for the country than the consciences of our elected legislators.

And if someone that smart sums up their philosophy in a sentence like the one i quoted, i’m going to take them at their word. Surely we can take him at his word? He’s earned it…

And again again again: Why did you change his word ‘think’ to the word ‘feel’? By doing so you drastically change the meaning of the sentence, which you are already over-interpreting.

I accept that as an improper mutation of the sentence. I do not want justices to do what they think is right, in this day and age. I want them to do what they think is correct. Most of them are overly focused on the outcome of their ruling, as if it’s their job to mitigate the effects of shoddy legislation (on either side of the political spectrum).