Sonia Sotomayor

I was planning on writing a piece on the Supreme Court candidate Sonia Sotomayor, but Thomas Sowell has beaten me to the punch and would top me in any excellence that might be achieved. I urge the reading of his series of articles titled "Out of Context", which can be found in three parts here, here, and here.

Though I do think I should clarify something that Mr. Sowell seems to have not explained to satisfaction. As has been said before by Ayn Rand, the most difficult thing to explain is the most blindingly obvious that nobody decided to see. The offending quote of Sotomayor's is this:

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. [Excerpt from The New York Times.]

Some people seem to be stating that this is no grounds to accuse her of being a racist and sexist, but it is plainly obvious. To translate the sentence without distorting its meaning, she is stating that she hopes a woman of Latina descent would reach better conclusions, by reason of her race and gender, than a white male, by reason of his race and gender, that has not lived the life of a Latina woman. Everything is so specific here that no debate is possible. Ms. Sotomayor uses gender specific pronouns ("woman" and "male") and race specific adjectives ("Latina" and "white").

But we have not only her statement as grounds to accuse her; we have also have note of some of her actions. Regarding firefighters that sued The City of New Haven due to the denial of a promotion on the basis that not enough minorities passed the given exam:

New Haven city officials knew they were headed for a catch 22 when the test results came back.

The city decided to throw out the test results, fearing a lawsuit by the black firefighters. They got one anyway -- from the white and Hispanic firefighters, who said New Haven's decision discriminated against them.

The firefighters lost in court. They appealed, and that's how this case got to Sotomayor, who is currently a federal appeals judge.

What has all of Washington talking is what happened next: Sotomayor and two fellow appellate judges dismissed the white firefighters' claims -- and 2,000 pages of court papers and filings -- in a one-paragraph ruling. [Excerpt from ABC News.]

Whether or not one agrees with the particular law, the law is clearly written out that it is legally prohibited for an employer to discriminate against his employees, current or potential, on the basis of race, gender, or religion. By denying the promotions promised to those that satisfied the specified conditions on the basis that a racial group did not perform as well as other racial groups, the City is thereby guilty of racial discrimination and is to be dealt with as detailed by law. Did Sonia Sotomayor make her decision based on the lettering of the law? No, for the law should have ruled against the City, but instead the case was dismissed altogether.

Prejudiced or not, when a judge makes a judicial decision that is not based on the lettering of the law, that should amount for the automatic disqualification of a Supreme Court candidate. I stated in my article Vagueness and the Road to Power that nonobjective laws are bad because they are literally impossible to follow. A nonobjective judge is far worse, for not only would he be willing to operate on and support nonobjective laws, but he would actively ignore objectively defined laws as well.

If you think it is like a bad dream to have in temporary office a terrible politician, think of how bad things will be to have a bad judge appointed for an entire lifetime. I must add emphasis to reading Sowell's above articles, and encourage sending a letter to your elected representatives.