So What About Harriet Miers?
I've been avoiding the subject of Ms. Miers in an effort to define terms--and I won't devote much to her just yet. Hearings don't begin for another two weeks. I will say, things might have been done differently. Most of what we know about her is that she is something of an unknown. That is unfortunate, when there are so many solid people with both outstanding resumes, demonstrated scholarship, and a known commitment to a traditional judicial philosophy.
My hunch has been that the president was ducking a fight when he chose Miers. She was a known supporter of Dukakis and at one time supposedly gave money to pro-choice causes. (Or this may all be rumor. My sources are not good.) Now I hear people assuming she experienced a radical conversion to Christianity and changed her view on abortion and other things. I don't know what the truth is. And I don't get a vote in this anyway--since she's not a politician.
But I don't understand why Bush didn't pick a solid candidate that his supporters could rally around. The GOP has the majority, yet we seem to be trying to placate the ravenous dogs by throwing them a Dukakis supporter. Then James Dobson gets on the air and implies Miers is just who we want on the bench. But what does that mean? That she's pro-life, no doubt. But I'm sorry, but I'm just not interested in getting that single vote on a single issue--even if it is the biggest issue of the last fifty years. We should take the long view and appoint someone who is schooled in conservative scholarship on dozens and dozens of issues. We need excellence and a demonstrated judicial acumen. I'm not saying Miers lacks either--only that I have no idea. It's the president's choice, and Bush has always been good at reading people. Maybe she's the best choice. I hope so.
posted by S. at 12:32 AM
5 Comments:
You know, I sent this blog address to a nice crowd of people and get few comments. It's either too boring to read or the topic is so foreign no one dares to write. I hope it's the latter. But the topic matters, even if, as one writer put it, the "abstinence [judicial philosophy] counsels is unsatisfying [a/k/a boring]."
But your comment is complicated enough to keep me busy....
First, kudos for your curiosity and for reading. If you master this at all, you'll know more than most lawyers on this narrow and largely-ignored subject.
"Who would you choose?" is a good question. First, I'm hardly in a position to know. But there certainly are justices who "remember the foundation of our government." Rehnquist was an excellent example. His dissents in cases involving public displays of religion, whether posting the ten commandments at schools, or a nativity scene at a county courthouse, show an amazing grasp of our nation's founding documents. Nice writing too.
The best of these justices may be Antonin Scalia, who has similarly written some excellent opinions, though again, usually his were the dissents. (Which is why this appointment matters.)
Janice Rogers Brown is a good choice. Many of the candidates that were going to be filibustered (for lower court appointments) would also have been good. Sorry I can't give you names without research.
Janice Rogers Brown wrote a paper I just read that was amazing. It's as if she's reading these cases on an entirely different level of scholarship. Where most of us are reading to understand what the law says, she's looking at the philosophical Marxist or Judeo-Christian underpinnings. This is so unusual, I was left wondering where she learned it, if she took some graduate course I never heard of or what. You can see the short speech at the following:
http://www.constitution.org/col/jrb/00420_jrb_fedsoc.htm
Finally, I don't think democracy has ever worked out for the majority--in a sense. The majority will always struggle with their individual and corporate failures, with corruption, with laziness, with sloth and the poverty that follows, with crime and ignorance, prejudice, hatred, class warfare, and a thousand other evils.
But I think democracy is still the best response to these problems, specifically because it was created with such things in mind. That is, democracy, unlike many other theories, assumes that people are concerned primarily with themselves and will be bad when the cost-benefit analysis says it's worth the risk.
John Locke used a term I like: enlightened self-interest.
With that in mind, it seems to me that democracy has been much better for the world than anything else. Believe it or not, Janice Rogers Brown's speech actually addresses some of this.
Thanks for the great comments!
e, in my understanding of the judicial branch/process (and I know Steven will happily correct me if I err) the Court is charged to read the Constitution and interpret the cases presented in the Light of that same document. The beauty of the Document is that it does not contain phrases of distiction such as: "all men (but not women, slaves, asians, I-talians, or et-ceteras- cuz we don't like them folk)..." You get the idea.
Another note- true freedom ought not be confused with absolute freedom (freedom to govern themselves in a way that seems fit for them) because the freedom expressed in the latter case really amounts to anarchy if it is implemented in a society wherein different groups decide to govern themselves differently, at times perhaps in opposition to other groups (as is the natural tendency of man to congregate in groups of the like-minded). The former case, so-called true freedom is only found when it is expressed as freedoms gained within the bounds of some common restaints, that which we often refer to as the Law.
The Judeo-Christian society implements laws in order to attain a level of freedom that is only found in theory, but is an image of the eternal as presented in both the Talmud and the Bible. The Bible (of which I am more familiar) clearly states that freedom is found as a result of the Law, which aids us in understanding the nature of man and his (or hers- I'm not meaning to say that only men are this way) predilection towards self-serving behaviors. Even as a Christian one must submit to authority in order to truly understand the freedom one has in Christ.
and then there's my opinion on how free we are now...
I really think that we are more free as a society now, whether white, black, asian, pacific islander, man, woman, boy, girl, irish-american, greco-roman, whatever, than any society that has ever been. Not that we are a Utopia by any stretch. But no matter who you are or where you are from, you can make it in our society if you take it upon yourself to do it, and don't expect anyone to give it to you. those who expect the most to be handed out to them, complain the most of their lack of freedom, while those who work the hardest often are the most thankful for it. Just ask you local migrant (undocumented) worker how important freedom is here. Or ask an Iraqi who voted last week for the first time. Ever. And knows that it counted.
Our nation is hardly the ideal, but it sure is better than what it could have been. And for that, thank the writers of the Constitution, and the Courts that have upheld it.
Well, Pandora, you opened up a box this time. Just kidding. But I'm not up to the task just now. I saw most of the 14-inning game, then tried to catch a 7 a.m. flight.... So very tired.
I have a friend named Jay C. at work. We talked a bit today. Jay--if you're reading this--jump in here any time.
Rather than attempt to carefully address all issues, let's try the whole global, holistic thing.
Here's a story from the news. The NBA, whose worst players are paid over six figures and whose best earn millions, just instituted a dress code for injured players. While at their place of work but out of uniform, they have to wear a coat and tie (or that's how Reggie Miller told it on Letterman). Is that too much to ask? Is it racist to ask them to stop showing up dressed like gangsta' thugs or rap singers? I don't think so. Reggie Miller (a black NBA hero) says this has gotten way out of proportion. He noted that Magic Johnson and all the stars Reggie grew up watching traveled in very nice clothes and came to games in suits. He said that was a reasonable request from any employer. I agree.
But from the outcry, you'd think we were talking about opening up fire hoses in Selma, Alabama.
Remember how much money these guys make? And how many months of the year they can blow? Who else has more free time and more disposable income, surely two signs of a tremendous freedom, one never before seen on Earth?
By contrast, consider North Korea, where defectors have testified that the number of people in prison at any time (250,000) is carefully regulated so that prison factories never have a shortage of workers. If people die from the 20 hours of work (without once getting off the chair), from frostbite, from constant beatings, from working sometimes 20 hours a day, seven days a week, from eating only one spoon of rice a day, from paralysis brought on by sitting in a 3' x 3' box for seven days straight--one with razor sharp thorns on the side so no one can lean over--from the horrible diseases that burn through the prison like a wildfire, if the prison population drops for any reason, then more people are arrested on trumped-up charges. Other prisoners drag the bodies out and bury them in the orchard, where guards say the fruit will then be especially good.
This is the way North Korea treats North Koreans. For foreigners it's even worse. And for Christians, it's worse still. They endure constant torture so they will deny their 'superstitions' and deny 'Heaven' (the word 'God' being illegal even for guards to speak).
When one guard grew tired of ten Christians that he could not force to recant, he had them killed. The group worked in a factory--so he had other prisoners bring over a ladle filled with molten steel (at 1,200 degrees). The steel was poured on each kneeling believer, and of course, burned right through their bony, malnourished bodies, shriveling the carcasses into tiny burnt husks, black and twisted like curled bacon.
Similar tragedies go on every day in places like Sudan, Saudi Arabia (yes, even our great 'ally'), Pakistan, Burma, and many other places.
I bring these up only as a contrast. I think we forget what real persecution, terror, and torture is. In the U.S., we see so little prejudice that is truly egregious, that we focus all our attention on things that are really quite trivial. I know suffering is suffering. But when a rapper says he turned to a life of crime because growing up he watched the Cosby show and it made him want what rich people have, then I just think the guy is watching the wrong thing. If people here knew a little more about how the rest of the world really lives, they might appreciate the incredible freedoms this land offers.
The land of the free may not always have been as great as it is now. But it has always been the land of the more-free. Or the land of the free-est.
About slavery, I believe the founders were against it--many set their own free in their wills--but the problem was a huge cancer that they could not adequately address in 1776. So they punted and left it for another generation. Considering the odds against them in the early years (see War of 1812), they probably had little choice.
By the way, all the stuff about North Korea comes from a book I'm reading: "Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Confessions of a North Korean Woman," by Soon Ok Lee.
Thanks again for the great comments.
ah, but I didn't mean to say that one must pull himself up by his own bootstraps alone, as if we are not in this together. Rather I meant to point out that one should not sit back and wait upon the government to implement some program that entitles him to more benefits in lieu of actually doing something to help himself and receiving help and assistance along the way. Ben Franklin (and not the Bible) said that God helps those who help themselves. Well, I don't believe that is exactly true, but in our society it does help if a person is trying to make some progress. Of course the poor will always be with us, and even though the poor in America are better off generally than the poor in Honduras or Angola or Burma, that doesn't mean that they can be ignored. I didn't mean to imply that. Only that in our country it seems that even the poorest person has certain opportunities afforded him that give him a chance to be most anything he reasonably wants to be. Contrast that with examples from any of the other nations above and one finds that those do not always have that. Healthcare for example is not universal here, but relatively accessable here compared to those other countries. That is one of the differences between First and Third-world countries. Of course there is a responsibility to provide some of the basic things, but not all notions can do that. Ours can, and generally tries to do so, though it is not always successful- just look at the literacy rates in certain states- the rankings seldom change very much. Yet the opportunity is there.
Now I must say that I am in agreement with you on certain levels- especially the true nature of our citizenship in Heaven. I do want you to know that I think about my place and position often, and I am deeply grateful to God for where he has placed me. I could have been a person in Rwanda who was never to leave the village until the day the Hutu's came and destroyed it, along with me and my family. Or worse, I could have been born into another white, suburban, middle-class southwest Houston home that just never made much mention of God in the home, leaving me with bitterness at God if I believed in His existance at all. yes, I know that He has blessed me with all that I have and am. Though I am considered upper-middle by class standards, I hope that I never treat any of my patients as though there is any distinction, whether they are CEOs of corporations or homeless and dirty from living on the streets. Let's just hope that we will have representation that truly does represent us and our wishes, and a judiciary that will protect us from representation that goes against the framework of our State.
Please pardon me if I can't be too specific. But generally, I too think the Bible certainly trumps the Constitution. (In a sense, the Bible really is a 'living' document...) And my citizenship in Heaven is so much more important than my citizenship on Earth. (Best book on that may be HEAVEN: YOUR REAL HOME, by Joni Eareckson. The title says it all.)
But as a citizen of Heaven, I want to store up treasure there (not selfishly--it's the command on my life). And I can only do that here.
While here, I want to make this world the best place it can be. I want to make a contribution. And when you boil that all down, one little way that calling affects me involves some of these legal/political issues.
Most of my close friends and family are Republicans, but not all. In the summer of 2000, a group of us got into a heated exchange about politics. I tried to be a peacemaker, asserting the truth that what matters most is our united faith in Christ and we should seek to elect officials not necessarily who are Christians or talk a good talk, but who we believe will support laws and policies that most closely follow the teachings of the Bible.
To bring all that back around to the Constitution, I believe ours is best specifically because it assumes total depravity, the "T" of Calvinism's TULIP. Anything less is bound to fail in many ways. Yet so much of the world assumes men are good, or the men in power are pure and uncorruptible, or Shiite Muslims are good, or Kim Jong Il is a god, or whatever. Western nations have documents that may also assume and prepare for the worst in human nature, but so many now are full of people who believe every tenet of humanism, therefore creating bad law even in places that were once "Christian nations."
As for your concerns about America the somewhat beautiful, sure, we must do all we can for the poor, the underprivileged, and etc. And I think the best way to do that is to remember that people (even the poor and downtrodden) are prone to evil and selfishness. And that is the reason for the incredibly well-designed checks and balances system, for Washington's unwillingness to serve a third term, and for so many other things. Power corrupts, so no one gets too much.
What this has to do with the US Supreme Court is that the Court has been taking too much power to itself, taking on a legislative role. And that presents a real separation of powers porblem. But a Justice who is committed to the kind of Judging the founders intended, won't cross that line. And if the Court can maintain it's proper role, some of the corruption (not to mention very bad law) can be put off.
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