Alito Commentary

If you click around the blogosphere a bit, you'll probably find just about all the information you could possibly want to know about Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. I don't feel like linking to everything I've read, but most of the blogs on the sidebar have some good stuff on them right now.

My thoughts: Bush seems to have realized that we conservatives actually want someone who is, you know, conservative to be on the Court. Strangely enough, nominating an inexperienced unknown who just happens to oppose abortion isn't good enough. What. A. Shock.

Alito looks like solid pick. There's lots of information here about some of his opinions (although you should never trust Wikipedia as an unbiased source of info, most of it seems accurate at the moment), and a lot of what I'm reading in the 'sphere strikes me as positive, particularly the hyperventilating and doomsaying on the left.

There's nothing like watching moonbats make fools of themselves.

A lot of the negative reaction seems to revolve around Alito's dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which he argued that a law requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion was constitutional.

I find the response to this hilarious for several reasons. First of all, a lot of the objections are based on the idea that Alito considers a woman's uterus to be the property of her husband, and that the law in question would be an unnecessary restriction on abortion "rights."

If the morons would actually research the damn case, they would see that the law did not, in fact, require the husband's consent in an abortion. It only required notification, which, getting to the first point, seems reasonable when you consider that the husband participated in the creation of the child who is about to be terminated.

Here's a fun lesson in categorical distinctions: A (hypothetical) law requiring a man to approve of his wife's hysterectomy gives him partial control of her uterus. A law requiring a man to know that his child is going to be killed does not.

Anyway, Patterico has plenty of info on this case that I won't try to summarize here, so go check that out if you're interested.

Misrepresentations aside, the issue at stake in this case, as mentioned before, was whether the law was constitutional, not whether it was good. Liberals seem to miss this point quite often when discussing judicial politics. Alito's opinion on the constitutionality of the law does not necessarily reflect his opinion on the law itself, and even if it does...IT'S NOT IMPORTANT.

This is one of the things that bothers me...a lot...about this whole Supreme Court nomination issue. An alarming number of people on the left (and some on the right) seem to think that judges are meant to rule in favor of laws they agree with and strike down laws they oppose, which is why we hear so much about "balance" on the Supreme Court.

But since the people in question are judges and not friggin' Jedi, "balance" should have nothing to do with it. We shouldn't even need to know if a nominee is conservative or liberal, but since one side now seems to believe that personal opinion is more important than the Constitution, that's the way it is.

I'm going to make this bold and capitalized so anyone who hasn't gotten the point can see it:

JUDGES DO NOT MAKE LAWS.

I'm sick of people arguing over whether a judge's philosophy would allow him to support certain laws. That. Should. Not. Matter. The only thing I'm concerned about is whether the nominee believes that the Constitution means what it says. All other beliefs, both personal and political, are irrelevant after that.

In addition, I find it odd that the debate always seems to revolve around Roe v. Wade and abortion in general. Since when did the judiciary become the Abortion Branch? The Constitution says nothing about abortion, so it really is amazing that it's more or less the number one issue coming up here.

What about First Amendment cases? What about Second Amendment cases? What about dealing with the abominable Kelo decision? Do all these issues pale in comparison to abortion? Does nobody care that judges make decisions about other things?

Look at the big picture, people.

Posted by CD on October 31, 2005 05:23 PM | TrackBack
Category: The Judicial System