Sotomayor Confirmed...Follow

No one's really surprised, but I am disappointed on how most of the Republicans voted. Really there was nothing firm to go against this woman with, so they went with partisanship. Yahoo!

What's it like to have to resort to number ******** in order to have a leg to stand on that doesn't resort to "WAAAAH SHE ISN'T CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH FOR US."?

True, but less than other justices, and... oh, read what Jophiel wrote. I was going to link it, haha.

Her exact statement during the confirmation was




Totally taken out of context. For example, see the case "Buck v Bell," upon which Sotomayor was commenting. She was of the opinion that nine white men would not view a case of forcing sterilization in the same light as a woman would... and I think's completely right.



Now, as said, there's no hard facts to stand on, and the vote was done on mostly partisan lines. Thank you for allowing me to back up my point.

CBD,



She is a bigot who thinks judges should be making law based on what she thinks is fair.

I believe this quote was in reference to the case I mentioned above, when the judges decided to forcibly sterilize a woman for being "feeble minded." In that case, Sotomayor was arguing that a woman would probably approach the situation with an outside view different than a group of men would. In this case the men had already reached their decision and saw no problem with sterilizing a woman against her will. A woman would likely not be as quick in her decision. This was also a case of the courts deciding laws; in this case, they supported the idea of eugenics. Later cases (Skinner v. Oklahoma, for example) mitigated this decision. Both of these decisions were supported by the laws already in effect; but the group in Buck did not give pause to consider what those in Skinner did.

You can be affected by your life's experiences and still interpret and apply the law correctly, Varrus. That's why people looked at a bunch of comments like yours (not Sotomayor's) and shook their heads.

I find it difficult to take you seriously.

Your belief is wrong. She didn't write this into a decision. She said in at a speech she gave at Berkeley for a "law and cultural diversity" lecture. It was very clearly in the context of racial differences and has nothing at all to do with any specific case. She was speaking to diversity, which is fine, but where she should have said that a Wise Latina can arrive at good decisions just as well as a Wise White Man, she instead said that the Latina would arrive at "better" decisions.

We can only speculate as to exactly what she means by "better", but it's not unreasonable to assume, given the context and location, that a likely meaning is "better for minority interests". Which, if you believe that the law should be blind and should treat all groups and people equally, should give you pause.

Most of the rest of your post is irrelevant due to missing the location and context of the statement. but...



Yes. But she didn't say that. She said that a specific set of life experiences would allow someone to apply the law "better". You see how what you said is simply a statement of equality, while what she said is something else entirely?



No. I suspect it's because those shaking their heads haven't bothered to actually find out what she said, where she said it, and what it might mean in terms of her likelihood to rule based on some social agenda rather than the law itself. Given your ignorance of the facts regarding the statement, you kinda don't have a claim to shake your head at someone who says something about it you don't like.

to bad you didnt record it; that mustve been adorable :)

I think Varus and I should rent a cabin in the Outer Banks for a long weekend together. We can bring our dogs, a case of good hefeweissen for him, and diet root beer for me. It'll be magical.

Sounds like a yes to me, Mindel!

Yay!

We'll hang out, listen to NPR, and make contributions to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Well, my own wording was a bit skewed as well. Somewhere along the line I got the idea you were saying she's written this into a decision, but you only said she was "commenting on" the case in question (Buck v. Bell?).

Um. Either way, that's still incorrect. The only case she specifically referred to was Brown, which did not have to do with gender. Even if you take a broader approach that she mentioned gender differences, so the specific case doesn't matter, it still doesn't wash IMO. The case in question was 80 years ago. Yet, she used the present tense, not the past tense, when saying that a wise latina would arrive at a better conclusion than a white male. Not "those white males" or "the justices in those cases", but a white male today.


The issue is about time more than gender or race. The case in question was in the 20s. She mentioned herself that the court had not ruled in favor of a woman "prior to 1972". Um... But what about since then? How many women, let alone wise latinas were on the Supreme Court then? She's talking to people *today*. She's working as a justice *today*. Not 80+ years ago. Not even 37 years ago. It's pretty apparent that the wise white men of today will also rule "better" on cases today than the wise white men of 80+ years ago as well. Thus, her comment was still pretty much about playing the race/gender cards and not a whole lot more...




It's just fine actually. I had read the whole quote prior to posting. Did you? I still don't see how that comment could be interpreted as anything other than racist/sexist. Again. The tense is significant.



Have a different opinion due to perspective? Of course I believe that. Will that opinion be "better"? There's no way to determine that. I'll grant you that diversity is beneficial in this regard though. The "Court" will be better for having more backgrounds represented. But again. That's not what she said. If she had stated that the diversity of viewpoints gained by adding a wise latina to the court would make it better, I doubt very many people would have issue with it. But she specifically said that her decisions would be better than those of a white male (more often than not).


That's not diversity adding to the whole. That's picking a race/gender and holding it up above others. The words she actually spoke matter.



How the hell do you arrive at this conclusion? That case was not mentioned in the speech she gave. You are stretching the whole associative reasoning thing a bit far with this one...

Edited, Aug 7th 2009 3:47pm by gbaji