A Quota Queen for the Court
If the U.S. Senate rejects race-based justice, Sonia Sotomayor will never sit on the Supreme Court.
Because that is what Sonia is all about. As the New York Times reported Saturday, the salient cause of her career has been advancing persons of color, over whites, based on race and national origin.
"Judge Sotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico," writes reporter David Kirkpatrick, "has championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career."
At Princeton, she headed up Accion Puertorriquena, which filed a complaint with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare demanding that her school hire Hispanic teachers. At Yale, she co-chaired a coalition of non-black minorities of color that demanded more Latino professors and administrators.
At Yale, she "shared the alarm of others in the group when the Supreme Court prohibited the use of quotas in university admissions in the 1978 decision Regents of the University of California v. Bakke."
Alan Bakke was an applicant to the UC medical school at Davis who was rejected, though his test scores were higher than almost all of the minority students who were admitted. Bakke was white.
After Yale, Sotomayor joined the National Council of La Raza and the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. Both promote race and ethnic preferences, affirmative action and quotas for Hispanics.
But why should Puerto Ricans like Sotomayor, who were never subjected to slavery or Jim Crow—their island was liberated from Spain in 1898 by the United States—get racial or ethnic preferences over Polish- or Portuguese-Americans?
What is the justification for this kind of discrimination?
Like Lani Guinier, the Clinton appointee rejected for reverse racism, Sonia Sotomayor is a quota queen. She believes in, preaches and practices race-based justice. Her burying the appeal of the white New Haven firefighters, who were denied promotions they had won in competitive exams, was a no-brainer for her.
In her world, equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice.
Now, people often come out to vote for one of their own. Catholics for JFK, evangelicals for Mike Huckabee, women for Hillary Clinton, Mormons for Mitt Romney, Jews for Joe Lieberman and African-Americans for Barack Obama. That is political reality and an exercise of political freedom.
But tribal justice is un-American.
In the 1950s and 1960s, this country reached consensus that denying black men and women the equal opportunity to advance and succeed must come to an end. Discrimination based on race, color or ethnicity, we agreed, was wrong.
Sotomayor, however, has an exception to the no-discrimination rule. She believes in no discrimination, unless done to white males and to benefit people like her.
How can any Republican senator vote to elevate to the Supreme Court a judge who, all her life, has believed in, preached and practiced race discrimination against white males, without endorsing the Obama-Sotomayor view that diversity trumps equal justice, and race-based justice should have its own seat on the high court?
Down the path Sotomayor would take us lies an America where Hispanic justices rule for Hispanics, black judges rule for blacks and white judges rule for white folks.
It is an America where who gets admitted to the best colleges and universities is not decided on grades and academic excellence, but on race and ethnicity, where advancement in jobs and careers depends not on aptitude and ability, but on where your grandparents came from.
On principle, Republicans cannot support Sonia Sotomayor.
And politically, if they do, why should the white working man and woman ever vote Republican again, as it is they who are the designated victims of the race-based justice of Sonia Sotomayor?
It was Richard Nixon who brought the white working class, North and South, into his New Majority, when he increased the Republican presidential vote from 43 percent in 1968 to 61 percent in 1972. Ronald Reagan solidified this base.
But why should the white working and middle class stay with the GOP? Its presidents exported their jobs to Mexico, China and Asia, and threw open America's doors to tens of millions, legal and illegal, from the Third World, who have swamped their cities and towns. If the GOP will not end race-based affirmative action, which threatens the futures of their children, why vote for the GOP?
Why should white folks vote for anyone who says, "We are against race discrimination, unless it is discrimination against you"?
Obama would not have selected Sotomayor if he did not share her convictions. And there is nothing in his writings or career to hint at disagreement. Thus it comes down to the senators, especially the Republicans. A vote for Sonia Sotomayor is a vote to affirm that race-based justice deserves its own seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But if that happens, it will not only be the race consciousness of Hispanics that will be on the rise in the good old U.S.A.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
On principle, Republicans cannot support Sonia Sotomayor.
And politically, if they do, why should the white working man and woman ever vote Republican again, as it is they who are the designated victims of the race-based justice of Sonia Sotomayor?
1.) Many Republicans WILL VOTE for her.
2.) Pat Buchanan WILL STILL encourage voters to vote Republican.
3.) There WILL NEVER come a point where Pat Buchanan will look at the Republicans as hopeless. That happened for me a long time ago.
It seems clear that we are already losing control of our own country. The Obamanation is in the vanguard, while whites applaud and the media outdoes each other in praise. I can only hope that conservatives coalesce into a real conservative party. Otherwise, a total and absolute collapse is our only hope. At least we can then rebuild with some semblance of sanity.
Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed with over eighty affirmative votes. The Republican Party is just that supine. You have to hand it to the Democrats. They fight hard and they hate their cowardly Republican opponents. On the Supreme Court picks over the years, they defeated two conservatives, Haynesworth and Carswell, nominated by Nixon, whipped Bork, and almost defeated Thomas. Even the highly qualified Alito received over forty negative votes from the Democrats.
Re #3
Is the Republican Party supine or are we just fooled that they retreat on this issue out of cowardice? I think the evidence is that the Republicans for the most part side with the Democrats on the issue of racial preferences. We need to see how they act not how they talk to conservative groups.
The republicans can be hard as nails and lie, cheat, and steal to get their way when it is an issue they "care" about. Two come to mind:
1.) Neocon desired wars such as Iraq.
2.) Bailout of billionaire investment bankers on Wall Street.
After all the struggle and tragedy of racism in America, which has shed so much over this issue, along comes the supreme idiot Obama to nominate an outright racist to the US Supreme Court. This is pouring gasoline on the tribal wars already in motion in America. If the Republicans vote to confirm her I will remain an independent and continue to not vote in national elections. After Clinton and Bush, and now the idiot Obama, I consider America a lost cause not worthy of its inheritance.
Funny how the two issues mentioned by TomL are the root causes of the Republican election disaster of 2008. Sad is that people(ie. Kristol, Barnes, the two Davids, Brooks and Frum) who advocated policies that brought the Republicans ruin walked away unscathed, their reputations apparently undiminished.
Remember that the GOP had the votes to end affirmative action in 1996. Newt Gingrich (influenced by J.C. Watts)scuttled a vote on the issue saying it would "send the wrong message" to blacks. Sam Francis wrote numerous columns about this at the time.
Now I see Gingrich is trying to sell himself as the conservative savior. Chronicles readers are too smart to fall for this huckster, but what about rank-and-file conservatives?
Some "conservatives" will fall for Gingrich's new song and dance but not many. Notice how ungenuine Gingrich is and how often he re-invents himself. He served as a Congressman from Georgia but was never Southern; he didn't even gain a Southern accent or have Southern values. He's ditched two wives for younger women. Like many congressmen these days(Jack Kemp comes to mind), he never returned home, if Georgia was really ever Gingrich's home. Gingrich is now trying to sell himself as a devote Roman Catholic convert. I, for one, don't think he'll die a Roman Catholic. Gingrich is too capricious for that. Any chance Mr. Newt will die a Buddhist priest? Stranger things have happened. After all, few of us only a few years ago would have thought it possible that a black man with a Muslim-sounding name could be elected president or that America's largest automobile manufacturer would be essentially nationalized.
"Gingrich is now trying to sell himself as a devote[d] Roman Catholic convert."
It is sad that this may be indeed true, that he actually is one and that he will be believed. He is probably a great example of an American Roman Catholic and an American Conservative.
He will engage with us in dialogue, I'm sure.
To be more realistic though, he has won in the past and is a real politician (not a compliment). Is there something in him that is worth backing?
There is only one political party -- the Banker's -- in the US even though it has two faces -- Democratic and Republican. The incidents described herein are just distractions to keep the plebs preoccupied.
YouTube has posted a video of Enoch Powell's "incendiary" 1968 speech about the Tiber foaming with blood. It opens thus, "in 20 years the hand of the black man will hold the whip."
Well done racist ameriKKKa!
"He’s ditched two wives for younger women."
I have known for a long time about this. As for Gingrich's supposed conversion to Catholicism, I hope that is it true and sincere, premised--inter alia--upon the contrition and amends necessary to sacramental forgiveness for those very public sins.
To me, one, unambiguous proof of that would be for him to withdraw entirely from public life into a life of inscrutable, unobserved and truly Catholic religious rigor. Anything short of that leaves everything he does open to justifiable skepticism.
Pat should have noted that his beloved former boss, Nixon, was the main person (not LBJ) who advanced affirmative action.
Pat writes, "It was Richard Nixon who brought the white working class, North and South, into his New Majority, when he increased the Republican presidential vote from 43 percent in 1968 to 61 percent in 1972." Then Tricky Dick stabbed his top supporters in the back. Typical Republican.
See "Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action," by Kevin L. Yuill.
Also, Essortment.com notes, "Perpetuating the civil rights movement and affirmative action even further was the fact that on March 23, 1973 [just after Pat's white working class gave Nixon his great election landslide], the Nixon administration's Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Service Commission issued a joint memorandum titled 'State and Local Employment Practices Guide.' The guide pointed out that the Nixon Administration... 'since September of 1969, recognized that goals and timetables... are a proper means for helping to implement the nation's commitment to equal employment opportunity.' While strict quotas were not encouraged, goals based on specific timetables were."
Link: http://www.essortment.com/all/affirmativeacti_riow.htm
The Republican Party from the beginning unto the present has always had a 3-point basic agenda. 1) serve big money. 2) preserve the perks of professional politicians. 3) achieve electoral strength for goals 1 and 2 by appealling to the part of the populatiion that is desperate for social respectability. Under present delusive but predominant public feeling, to oppose a double minority female for high office is not "respectable." Confirmation is a cinch.
Dr. Wilson,
Yes, the Republicans were triangulating long before Bill Clinton popularized the notion. When Pat Buchanan began to appeal to those voters seeking a certain public respect for their views, the other two legs of the three legged milk-stool became irritated and cut him down a notch. It was what Bob Dole referred to as "the hard way," and what Karl Rove called "getting the policy right and letting the politics take care of itself." I always enjoy your principled insights as to what is really occuring on stage. Thank you again for another one.
"To me, one, unambiguous proof of that would be for him to withdraw entirely from public life into a life of inscrutable, unobserved and truly Catholic religious rigor. Anything short of that leaves everything he does open to justifiable skepticism."
Mark,
I could not agree more.
Yep, what with the pusillanimous and greedy occupying the chambers of the U.S. Congress, instead of the principled, Sotomayor is a shoo-in. What bothers me is why do I still care; why do I even comment on it?
Charles Burris wrote an article (over at the Lew Rockwell site) on the Sotomayor thing. He quotes from a Washington Times editorial, "Judge Sotomayor seems to think that inherent racial and sexual differences are not simply quirks of genetics, but make some better than others. Consider her 2002 speech at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law:
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said. "I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."
"She also accepted as potentially valid the idea that the 'different perspectives' of 'men and women of color' are due to 'basic differences in logic in reasoning' due to "inherent physiological or cultural differences." Burris says that Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises called this type of thinking, "Marxist nonsense" and classed it under the category of "polylogism". In other words, the "logical structure of the mind is different based on one's class, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual preference, etc." Burris says that this bogus idea "lies at the root of all 'politically correct' notions of cultural relativism and multiculturism fashionable in academia, the elite media, and critical legal theory circles today." Thus, "There is no objective reality independent from these fixed determinative factors of causality." Burris said this is no more than "sociological jurisprudence" and contradicts the Founding Fathers original intent of the Constitution. There is much at stake, here: "Her nomination is a key battle in the on-going Culture War which lies at the heart of what America is all about." Sotomayor is not just a Latina racist-feminist, she's a Multicultural Supremacist, too (minus white men, of course). We must be on the brink of the abyss for all this nonsense to be holding sway.
The notion of a Constitutionally-driven independent judicial temperament or impartiality becomes impossible.
All we have left is "sociological jurisprudence" which was (is) an attempt to get away as far as possible from the Framers' original intent of the Constitution, and to adopt the doctrine of "the Living Constitution" shaped by socioeconomic causal factors.
It was one of the bogus concepts to come out of the so-called Progressive Era a hundred years ago and has eroded our legal system in ways beyond belief.
Another way to look at it, it's the old Marxist concept of "the sociology of knowledge" applied to law and public policy.
Marxism as a rationale for state aggrandizement and empire (as in the former Soviet Union) may be dead but as an ideological prop it is very much alive in such widely-accepted notions as multiculturalism, "cultural imperialism," sociological jurisprudence, and environmentalism.
Here is an article by a prominent "Progressive Democrat" who precisely articulates in his defense of Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor all the things I mention above.
He sees the "conservative" attack on Sotomayor as an attack on Obama, upon the social concept of "empathy" at the heart of progressivism, upon the notion of "sociological jurisprudence" as the basis of progressive legal theory (although he doesn't employ the specific term) as opposed to "strict construction" or the original intent of the Framers in formulating the Constitution.
This author uses all the pejorative Bogey man names (Dick Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, Newt Gingrich, etc.) to stir up progressives to see this battle as a Manichean struggle between the angelic forces of light and the satanic forces of darkness (in a sanitized, secular humanist sense, of course).
But he can't let outdated "God language" tarnish his post-Enlightenment, modernist or progressive exposition. Only reactionaries resort to such antiquated terminology.
There is much more to this fight than whether Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed.
Her nomination is a key battle in the on-going Culture War which lies at the heart of what America is all about.
June 3, 2009
Charles A. Burris
Well, pardon my not cutting the rest of the article from my post in #17.
"How can any Republican senator vote to elevate to the Supreme Court a judge who, all her life, has believed in, preached and practiced race discrimination against white males, without endorsing the Obama-Sotomayor view that diversity trumps equal justice, and race-based justice should have its own seat on the high court?"
Never mind "How", just mark my words that it will happen. The majority of republican senators will vote to confirm the Quota Queen, just as they rallied bravely and voted in the "Wicked Witch of the West", as I call Ginzburg.
Pat should have noted that his beloved former boss, Nixon, was the main person (not LBJ) who advanced affirmative action.
Pat writes, “It was Richard Nixon who brought the white working class, North and South, into his New Majority, when he increased the Republican presidential vote from 43 percent in 1968 to 61 percent in 1972.” Then Tricky Dick stabbed his top supporters in the back. Typical Republican.
See “Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action,” by Kevin L. Yuill.
Also, Essortment.com notes, “Perpetuating the civil rights movement and affirmative action even further was the fact that on March 23, 1973 [just after Pat's white working class gave Nixon his great election landslide], the Nixon administration’s Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Service Commission issued a joint memorandum titled ‘State and Local Employment Practices Guide.’ The guide pointed out that the Nixon Administration… ’since September of 1969, recognized that goals and timetables… are a proper means for helping to implement the nation’s commitment to equal employment opportunity.’ While strict quotas were not encouraged, goals based on specific timetables were.”