Judging Sotomayor?

[unixronin]

Much has been written, on both sides, about the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. President Obama has repeatedly said that he feels the Supreme Court needs her “empathy”. Sotomayor herself has said on many occasions that “a wise Latina woman [...] would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male” when it comes to judging the law.

I have grave reservations about this nomination, and a few minutes ago, I realized how to distil out the central essence of why.

You see, the United States is a Constitutional republic, a nation of law, and the duty of the United States Supreme Court is to be the final judge and arbiter of the nations laws and their rectitude. It is the duty of the Supreme Court’s Justices to make their judgements as fairly, as correctly, and as objectively as they possibly can. Their responsibility is not to judge the ethnic sensitivity of the plaintiff or the hardships faced by the defendant; it is to judge the fairness, the correctness, and the Constitutional soundness of the applicable law itself. If the Supreme Court cannot be objective, it cannot properly discharge its duties and responsibilities.

Yet, our President is nominating to the United States Supreme Court a woman whose strongest and most vital qualification for the position — or so he tells us — is precisely that she is not objective.

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

Comments

[ariyanakylstram.livejournal.com]

is any human truly objective?

go back to the Biblical story of the two women who each claimed to be the mother of one child...

who makes the better decision, the true mother of the child who would rather the other woman have her child than the child be killed by being cut in half, or the woman who wanted to steal the child and was willing to let it die to prove her objectivity?

Is empathy such a curse, then?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The second woman's wasn't demonstrating anything to do with objectivity. She was demonstrating "If I can't have it, NOBODY will, bitch."


No, no human is truly objective, as you well know. You've run across your share of proof. But the job of a Supreme Court Justice is objectivity to the greatest degree possible, and the idea of nominating a Justice on the asserted grounds that she'll put empathy ahead of objectivity is a poor one.