YEEEEHAAAAAAA. What a bunch of CRAP...

Stephanie

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2004
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Dean: The Verdict on John Roberts
Governor Dean wrote the following op-ed for national distribution:

John Roberts is a decent family man and a bright, articulate, thoughtful judge. He has a quality absent in previous right wing candidates like Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork, namely a judicial temperament that makes litigants feel that they have been respectfully heard whether they are on the winning or losing side of a verdict.

But John Roberts is the wrong man for the job. Despite the fact that the White House has withheld key documents either out of incompetence or a fear that those documents might prove embarrassing, we have learned enough from the files on Roberts at the Reagan Library to make it clear that he should be rejected.

This conclusion has only been solidified by Roberts' testimony during this week's hearings. He has been a polished performer, but in failing to present clear answers to straightforward questions, Roberts missed a crucial opportunity to answer legitimate concerns about his record and show compassion for those who have been excluded from the American Dream. The consistent mark of Roberts' career is a lack of commitment to making the Constitution's promise of equal protection a reality for all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable in our society.

He has opposed laws protecting the rights of girls and young women to have the same opportunities in sports as boys and young men. He has argued that politicians, not individual women themselves, ought to control women's reproductive health care. He has opposed various remedies for the racial injustices which have occurred in America since slavery and which persist today. He has consistently joined the radical right in seeking to weaken voting rights protections, in essence attacking the rights of black and Hispanic voters to cast their ballot without paying poll taxes or being subjected to intimidation or gerrymandering. He fought against protecting all Americans from workplace discrimination. Most worrisome, he refused to answer questions on his limited view of the right to personal privacy that most Americans take for granted.

Over the last half century, we have made great progress in promoting equal opportunity for all Americans, but there is still much work to be done. Hurricane Katrina was more than the most catastrophic natural disaster in American history. Those who have in so many ways been denied the opportunity for full participation in our society once again suffered disproportionately in this tragedy -- seniors, African-Americans and those burdened by poverty.

Now is not the time for a Chief Justice who is bent on turning back the progress we have made in moving America forward.

Judge Roberts is said to love the law, but loving the law without loving the American people enough to protect their individual rights and freedoms will make our American community weaker. And the exercise of the law without compassion -- something that Judge Roberts and so many on the far right have consistently been guilty of -- undermines the grace and wisdom of the founders whose sense of balance and fairness made this country great.

In the past few weeks we have seen what happens when politics and indifference supercede compassion and organization. The enduring lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that there still are too many Americans who are disproportionately vulnerable. Despite the fact that they worked hard and played by the rules, their luck ran out. Americans are a compassionate, fair-minded people. Our nation is great and strong because of that compassion, not just because we have a strong military. We also have strong moral values which include an innate sense of justice often absent in many other parts of the world.

Our Government today shrinks from compassion. In doing so they have first diminished America in the eyes of the rest of the world, and now they have diminished America in the eyes of our own people. This is a time for justice tempered with mercy and understanding. There is no evidence of either in Judge Roberts's career. The President should be denied this confirmation.

This man is such a liar. He make's my skin crawl....(shiversssss) :cuckoo:
 
Stephanie said:
This man is such a liar. He make's my skin crawl....(shiversssss) :cuckoo:

Stephanie, I do think that Roberts should be confirmed. What bothers me about him is that he has lived a very privileged life and thus has a lack of perspective of those who have not been privileged. For example, Justice Blackmun came from a very poor family. Thus, he understand what it was like to be underprivileged. The same with Warren Burger and Clarence Thomas (they came from poor families). Roberts has grown up with money, gone to the best schools, gotten fantastic jobs, etc. He clearly is brilliant, but he has never struggled, which bothers me.

Does anyone else think that Roberts's eyes are a little weird?
 
ProudDem said:
Stephanie, I do think that Roberts should be confirmed. What bothers me about him is that he has lived a very privileged life and thus has a lack of perspective of those who have not been privileged. For example, Justice Blackmun came from a very poor family. Thus, he understand what it was like to be underprivileged. The same with Warren Burger and Clarence Thomas (they came from poor families). Roberts has grown up with money, gone to the best schools, gotten fantastic jobs, etc. He clearly is brilliant, but he has never struggled, which bothers me.

Does anyone else think that Roberts's eyes are a little weird?

The " he has never been there" excuse is so lame I can't handle it anymore.
 
dilloduck said:
The " he has never been there" excuse is so lame I can't handle it anymore.

Why is it lame? BTW, I didn't say it was a reason to NOT confirm him--just that it reduced his ability to be able to have perspective on some of the types of people who will come before him.
 
ProudDem said:
Why is it lame? BTW, I didn't say it was a reason to NOT confirm him--just that it reduced his ability to be able to have perspective on some of the types of people who will come before him.

SO do you apply the same standard to the Hollyweird elite who wouldn't know reality if it knocked down their doors? Or are Michael Moore and Martin Sheen "heroes of the cause"?

I personally don't see where class is a contributing factor to interpreting the US Constitution.
 
GunnyL said:
SO do you apply the same standard to the Hollyweird elite who wouldn't know reality if it knocked down their doors? Or are Michael Moore and Martin Sheen "heroes of the cause"?

I personally don't see where class is a contributing factor to interpreting the US Constitution.

Michael Moore and Martin Sheen have not been nominated for a lifetime position on a federal court.

I understand what you're saying about not seeing a connection, but I respectfully disagree. Our life experiences have an impact on how we decide things. You have to interpret the Constitution based upon a set of facts. For example, the eminent domain case that came before the Supreme Court--I wonder just how many of those justices who supported the taking of private propery had ever experienced any hardship. I know that Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor have not had privileged lives, and they voted against it. I don't know about Ginsberg, Breyer, Kennedy, etc. I may have to research their past to test my theory.
 
ProudDem said:
Stephanie, I do think that Roberts should be confirmed. What bothers me about him is that he has lived a very privileged life and thus has a lack of perspective of those who have not been privileged. For example, Justice Blackmun came from a very poor family. Thus, he understand what it was like to be underprivileged. The same with Warren Burger and Clarence Thomas (they came from poor families). Roberts has grown up with money, gone to the best schools, gotten fantastic jobs, etc. He clearly is brilliant, but he has never struggled, which bothers me.

Does anyone else think that Roberts's eyes are a little weird?

Privilege. Yes. People who aren't poor aren't poor because someone ELSE granted them the privilege. Economic status is granted from on high by an unseen hand.

Anyway. So all justices must be poor to be fair? How stupid.
 
While I believe life experience impacts one's perspective, I also believe that I would be able to perceive what is wrong and what is right, with respect to the Constitution, especially if I had spent my entire adult life studying that discipline, regardless of whether I were poor or priviledged.

Being poor does not give one more "compassion" for others, any more than being priviledged somehow mutes "compassion". Being underpriviledged or priviledged should not be a requirement for a Supreme Court Judge.

I want a Chief Justice who will be able to suspend their ideologies and make rulings with regard to the Constitution and what is in the best interests of the majority in the long term.
 
Kurtsprincess, those are very valid points, and I appreciate that you disagreed with me without being disagreeable.

Rightwing avenger, it's okay to say that you disagree with me, but to call my argument "stupid" shows you have nothing intelligent to say in response to my thoughts. BTW, your reading comprehension isn't very good. I said that I believe that having had tough experiences give people perspective. I never said you had to be poor to be fair. You're dismissed.
 
ProudDem,

You do not have to be poor to have compassion or to understand another person's perspective. You do not have to be black, a woman, gay, or from a broken home to have struggled in your life, to have overcome difficulties, to have valuable life experiences, to have a perspective that can be helpful in making fair rulings.

I am far more interested in whether or not Roberts will do the job to which he is "applying," without bowing to popular pressures from either side of the political spectrum rather than whether or not his parents were wealthy or not.

I disagree with the notion that diversity simply for diversity's sake is a wonderful thing we should be striving for at all times. We should be striving for diversity out of the competant, valid choices we have. We shouldn't be turning down intelligent, respected, well-experienced judges because they don't fit a quota.
 
The job of Supreme Court justice is NOT an affirmative action position however politics has degraded it into a job where 2 parties want to pick their own person for. One that will be likely to interpret the law in the way that is more advantageous to thier agenda.
 
ProudDem said:
Stephanie, I do think that Roberts should be confirmed. What bothers me about him is that he has lived a very privileged life and thus has a lack of perspective of those who have not been privileged. For example, Justice Blackmun came from a very poor family. Thus, he understand what it was like to be underprivileged. The same with Warren Burger and Clarence Thomas (they came from poor families). Roberts has grown up with money, gone to the best schools, gotten fantastic jobs, etc. He clearly is brilliant, but he has never struggled, which bothers me.

Does anyone else think that Roberts's eyes are a little weird?


never struggled?...and what is with the "weird" eye comment...very immature in a debate!
 
Gem said:
ProudDem,

You do not have to be poor to have compassion or to understand another person's perspective. You do not have to be black, a woman, gay, or from a broken home to have struggled in your life, to have overcome difficulties, to have valuable life experiences, to have a perspective that can be helpful in making fair rulings.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't saying that a privileged person cannot have perspective--I was saying that SOME may not have perspective. That's it.
 
archangel said:
never struggled?...and what is with the "weird" eye comment...very immature in a debate!

What about my "never struggled" comment?

Oh jeez. Lighten up as to your "very immature" comment. Although if you think I'm immature, that's fine with me. :happy2:
 
ProudDem said:
Kurtsprincess, those are very valid points, and I appreciate that you disagreed with me without being disagreeable.

Rightwing avenger, it's okay to say that you disagree with me, but to call my argument "stupid" shows you have nothing intelligent to say in response to my thoughts. BTW, your reading comprehension isn't very good. I said that I believe that having had tough experiences give people perspective. I never said you had to be poor to be fair. You're dismissed.

That is what you're saying. Essentially. And it's so meritless it's unworthy of much more than being called stupid.
 
ProudDem said:
What about my "never struggled" comment?

Oh jeez. Lighten up as to your "very immature" comment. Although if you think I'm immature, that's fine with me. :happy2:

show me some evidence where he never struggled in life...I truly believe we all have!...prove me wrong!
 
archangel said:
show me some evidence where he never struggled in life...I truly believe we all have!...prove me wrong!

I'm talking about struggling financially. I really don't care to prove you wrong. It's okay if you don't agree with me.
 
ProudDem said:
I'm talking about struggling financially. I really don't care to prove you wrong. It's okay if you don't agree with me.

I'm still mystified you think economic class should be some sort of prerequisite for a competent Judge. It seems like a radical belief to me.
 
rtwngAvngr said:
I'm still mystified you think economic class should be some sort of prerequisite for a competent Judge. It seems like a radical belief to me.

I never said he wasn't competent.
 
ProudDem said:
I never said he wasn't competent.

Of course you didn't. You never say anything when it comes down to it. Whenever you're wrong that's just not what you said.
 

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