Sotomayor as Supreme Court Pick

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

During Obama’s speech announcing her, he mentioned that she had more wisdom being a Latina woman than white man who didn’t live her life. WTF? She is wise because she Latina? And I am not wise because I didn’t live a life like her? WTF is he even claiming. She is a diabetic and I am not? So she is wiser from that too? Honestly, who the hell is he to say who is wiser and for whatever lame ass reason. Obama brought up the ethnic issue, which is a main reason why I said what I said. As you can see with Obama, there is an agenda going on, and he is playing chess. He is moving his pieces into position.

Also, do you really think these people (if they got amnesty) are going to start paying taxes? They haven’t paid 1 cent of taxes during their time here ILLEGALLY. Now you think that they are going to pay the little they make into our Federal and State tax system? They have gotten a free ride this whole time, why would they bother to change that. Wait, wait, wait, I know what you’re thinking. They will get arrested for tax evasion right? Wrong. They weren’t arrested for initially being here illegally, and you think NOW the law will come for them? Please. I live in Cali, where illegals run rampant. I see it everywhere.

If you think illegals aren’t taking over, come over here and let’s see how you think. GL, you live in DC, how can you even tell what the illegal situation is in the Southwest? Dude I am here in Cali, and I see the influx everywhere. I saw the Brown Berets marching here and shove a journalist into the street. Tell you what, go to a border state and still talk some shit. I dont think you will. Dont worry, every business here se habla espanol. [/quote]

Well, I’ve got to give you props for having the balls to admit you’re talking about ethnicity. 'Course Obama didn’t say the things you claim he did. Here’s the speech, check for yourself. President Obama Nominates Sotomayor - YouTube I’m sure you can figure out who did say something similar to that though…but I’ll also bet you won’t take the time to read it in context either.

You never did explain your statement though. You said [quote]My worry is if Amnesty ever comes up as an issue, we all know how she will vote. [/quote] and now admitted you were talking about ethnicity. How do we know how she vote based on her ethnicity?

BTW, I like your use of “these people” it’s rare that people have the balls to say that kind of thing anymore.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]JD430 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
JD430 wrote:

I’m not talking about “white males” or “Latina women” or how any of them would vote. I am not interested in identity politics.

I was just making the point that there is some evidence out there that she would support amnesty and it has nothing to do with her ethnicity or gender…it has to do with her being listed as a member of an organization that supports amnesty. You did ask the question how we would know she might vote for amnesty, didn’t you?

No, I was asking Maximus. Who is this “we” you’re speaking of? Are you two friends? Sorry, I don’t recognize either of your names.

But I am having some trouble understanding your comment. First you say you’re not interested in identity politics, but you’re concerned that she’s a member of “the race.” This seems somewhat at ends to me, it sounds like you are very concerned about it. I don’t know much about “La Raza” though, how do you know that they support amnesty? Could you provide me with a source? A quick search on their website only turned this up:

Doesn’t much look like amnesty to me…but maybe you’re speaking of something else? Please, fill me in.

Also, you may wish to stop looking at such extreme websites. Anything that posts the type of demagoguery that the site you listed above does is not out to do good or to inform. I’m all for looking at a wide range of political beliefs, but that one seemed–from my one quick viewing–to be pretty extreme. They actually cited Ann Colture (sp?) and that link I aluded to above was pretty far out there. …but maybe this was just one link?

Please, I would like to hear what you dislike about La Raza. As I said, I don’t know much, so please provide sources.

I wasn’t speaking for Maximus as I don’t know what he had in mind when he posted that. [/quote] Then why did you say “we”? Sure sounded like you were trying to defend him.

[quote]
La Raza was the forefront lobbying group for the failed “comprehensive immigration reform” (ie. amnesty) bill. Don’t start with the “McCain supported it” line either. At this point, I think the only thing worse for the country than a Republican is a Democrat. I don’t identify with either party.

They won’t use the word “amnesty” of course, because it has quite a negative meaning nowadays. Don’t look for it on their website, but you will seeit if you do some reading between the lines. I won’t do that for you. They are on record opposing any type of barrier with the Mexican border, as well as programs like college tuition and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. I don’t support any of those ideas, largely because I believe in a country’s right to have borders and make laws which they expect to have respected so it doesn’t descend into chaos. [/quote]

Immigration is a difficult debate, I suggest Borjas and Chiswick (sp?) Bottom line is that the system we have is broken and needs some fixing. I supported that bill for the same reason Bill O’Reilly supported it at the time (or at least what I recall of why he supported it).

[quote]
Asking you to stop the red herring arguments about ethnicity is probably a waste. [/quote] Ummmm…Maximus WAS talking about ethnicity. I underlined his comment above for you.

Also, don’t tell me what to look at on the internet. I have read enough drivel posted on these forums alone to last me a lifetime, so don’t worry about an occasional trip to WND. I realize it is quite slanted to a particular viewpoint, but if the potential justice’s name is on the La Raza membership list, it is probably safe to assume she concurs with their beliefs.

I could care less where you look on the 'net. You posted what appeared to be an extremist site, so I thought you actually took them seriously. If you want to be informed and educated, that’s your choice. If you choose to read extremism instead, that’s your choice too.

[SteelyD]

Subject: Rabidly Anti-gun Sotomayor is Unacceptable
From: “Gun Owners of America”
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:58:38 -0400 (EDT)

Obama Picks Anti-gun Judge for the Supreme Court
– Time to start contacting your Senators right away

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert

GOA | The only no compromise gun lobby in Washington

Friday, May 29, 2009

Unless you’ve taken a very long Memorial Day vacation, you’ve no doubt
heard the big news.

President Obama has picked an anti-gun radical to replace Justice David
Souter on the Supreme Court.

Obama’s pick is Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is currently on the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second District. There she has racked up an
anti-Second Amendment record and has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution.

[b]The Heller decision put the Supreme Court in support of the
Constitutional protection of the individual right to keep and bear arms.
Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of centralized government power
(as long as she is part of the power elite), immediately went into
counter-attack mode against the Heller decision.

Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel earlier this year which ruled
in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not apply to the
states. As she and her cohorts claimed, the Supreme Court has not yet
incorporated the states under the Second Amendment. Until then, she
believes, the Second only applies to the District of Columbia.[/b]

This is pure judicial arrogance – something Sotomayor relishes (as long
as she is one of the ruling judges). In fact, protection of the right
to keep and bear arms was a major objective for enactment of the
Fourteenth Amendment, as recently freed slaves were being disarmed and terrorized in their neighborhoods.

[b]But Sotomayor disdains this important right of individuals, as indicated
by an earlier opinion from 2004. In United States v. Sanchez-Villar,
she stated that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental
right.”

Sotomayor has held very anti-gun views, even as far back as the 1970s.
Fox Cable News reported yesterday that in her senior thesis at Princeton
University, she wrote that America has a “deadly obsession” with guns
and that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to firearms ownership.[/b]

Sotomayor’s Second Amendment views go hand in hand with her politically correct views on the law and the role of judges.

In a speech given at Duke University in 2005, she made it abundantly
clear that judges are involved in making policy. Realizing that this
did not sound very judicial (even though most judges act on this basis),
Sotomayor tried to laugh off her brazen admission: “I know this is on
tape and I should never say that, [audience laughing], because we don’t
make law – I know. Um, okay. I know, I’m not promoting it, I’m not
advocating it.” The audience continued to laugh. They got the joke.

But Sotomayor’s joke will be on us and our liberties if she gets
confirmed to the Supreme Court. And that is why we need to start
contacting our Senators early and often, urging them to vote against
this dangerous nomination.

ACTION: Please contact your two Senators and urge them to oppose the
nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. You can go to the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at
http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators the
pre-written e-mail message below.

[skaz05]

HA! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_sotomayor

[Headhunter]

[quote]ds1973 wrote:
Here’s the real problem with all SCOTUS (supreme court of the United States) judges. They don’t give a damn about protecting individual rights.

Good article: Supreme Disappointments: Conservatives and Liberals are Both Wrong About Rights
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5527

Where do individual rights come from? You’d think that if anyone knows the answer, it would be America’s top judges.

But you would be wrong.

On this basic question conservative and liberal judges alike are locked into a crucial error about America’s bedrock constitutional principle: individual rights.

The error consists in regarding rights as gifts from society that can be revoked at will, through the political process.

In truth, rights are not social gifts but political principles based on facts of reality. These facts don’t bend to the so-called will of society. Thats why the most fundamental question a Supreme Court justice must answer is what in fact do the individuals rights to life, liberty, property, and happiness include? Only then can he determine if a certain law or government action is securing or violating those rights.

But judges don’t ask this question anymore, because they don’t think it’s objectively answerable.

When I was in grad school, I had a friend who was attending law school. He kept talking about SCOTUS this, SCOTUS that. I asked him: “Ok, so the supreme court is supposed to ultimately act as a final check on legislation that violates individual rights. What’s the final check on the supreme court?”
After some more back and forth (where he talked about the nomination process and how judges tend to be “above politics” once on the bench, etc), I finally pinned him down. He said: “I suppose the final check is the Second Amendment, and an armed populace.”
[/quote]

This is actually a problem in metaphysics, which David Hume pointed out — Where is the ‘ought’ universe? When we say humans have rights, the implication is that there is some mystical place (like heaven) which is the actual and ideal, to which we should try and match. When someone is treated unjustly, for ex, we are saying that the action doesn’t match with the ideal action ‘up in heaven’.

So, logically, rights are a mystical concept. Here in the real world only POWER matters. You take what you can get. We might invent social rights so that we don’t kill ourselves in a war of All-Against-All, but there really is no such thing as rights outside of this social context.

[Bill_Roberts]

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
MaximusB wrote:

During Obama’s speech announcing her, he mentioned that she had more wisdom being a Latina woman than white man who didn’t live her life.

You said My worry is if Amnesty ever comes up as an issue, we all know how she will vote. and now admitted you were talking about ethnicity. How do we know how she vote based on her ethnicity? [/quote]

Not based on her ethnicity – that is you assuming racism – but on account of her being a member of La Raza. An organization fully and vigorously on the side of amnesty for illegal aliens, or at least Hispanic illegal aliens (if they have ever fought for non-Hispanic illegal aliens to get anything, I’m unaware of it.)

As an aside: I wonder how a white candidate would do being a member of an organization called “The Race” which had as its sole function advancing the cause of white people? Let’s say for example this imaginary organization, The Race, fought against reverse discrimination, such as in the case of the New Haven firefighters, but were only interested in cases involving whites. So if for example an Asian were a victim of it they would have nothing to do with that. That would be wrong, correct, and most certainly so for a potential Supreme Court justice?

[Headhunter]

She was chosen for, among other things, the goal of outlawing guns. It’s no coincidence that freedom arose among populations when handguns were invented. If the tax collector might get blasted in the face, then taxes had to become less arbitrary and seemingly ‘fair’ (though that’s not possible). Handguns mean individual power (see my prev post).

The handgun is probably the most liberating thing ever invented in human history. That’s why oppressive regimes outlaw them (first thing the Nazis did) and why Obama put this criminal up for the Supreme Court.

[ds1973]

This was all solved by Rand.

—Ayn Rand Lexicon

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

Reality exists as an objective absolute - facts are facts, independent of mans feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by mans senses) is mans only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Man - every man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects mans rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

[dhickey]

[quote]tme wrote:

I pretty sure the constitution allow scongress to limit cases even heard by the supreme court. A simple majority could take elections, gay marriage, abortion, etc right of the supreme courts table. The question is why don’t they use this option?

I pretty sure you’re full of shit on this.
[/quote]
have you read the constitution? Artical III? If this is too much work, just do a search for “congress” and “limit court jurisdiction”

Congress can write any law they want to, but if it’s unconstitutional it will be ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

The other great fallacy I see on here all the time is that a ballot measure that passes is “the will of the people” and must therefore become law.

If the ballot measure is a change to the constitution, it is by definition constitutional. Where’s the fallacy here?

Bullshit, it’s the will of the majority of voters, and if it violates the constitution it’s just not valid, regardless the number of votes.

unless it is an ammedment to the constitution.

If Congress doesn’t want to leave laws open to interpretation by the courts then they have to right clear and well defined laws. If you want to make a law that’s unconstitutional you have to amend the constitution, which takes a lot more than a simple majority in Congress.

that’s the way it should be.

[JD430]

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
MaximusB wrote:

During Obama’s speech announcing her, he mentioned that she had more wisdom being a Latina woman than white man who didn’t live her life.

You said My worry is if Amnesty ever comes up as an issue, we all know how she will vote. and now admitted you were talking about ethnicity. How do we know how she vote based on her ethnicity?

Not based on her ethnicity – that is you assuming racism – but on account of her being a member of La Raza. An organization fully and vigorously on the side of amnesty for illegal aliens, or at least Hispanic illegal aliens (if they have ever fought for non-Hispanic illegal aliens to get anything, I’m unaware of it.)

As an aside: I wonder how a white candidate would do being a member of an organization called “The Race” which had as its sole function advancing the cause of white people? Let’s say for example this imaginary organization, The Race, fought against reverse discrimination, such as in the case of the New Haven firefighters, but were only interested in cases involving whites. So if for example an Asian were a victim of it they would have nothing to do with that. That would be wrong, correct, and most certainly so for a potential Supreme Court justice?

[/quote]

Bill,

He has already skirted this issue once with all kinds of strawman nonsense. Maybe second time is the charm?

[JD430]

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Subject: Rabidly Anti-gun Sotomayor is Unacceptable
From: “Gun Owners of America”
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:58:38 -0400 (EDT)

Obama Picks Anti-gun Judge for the Supreme Court
– Time to start contacting your Senators right away

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert

GOA | The only no compromise gun lobby in Washington

Friday, May 29, 2009

Unless you’ve taken a very long Memorial Day vacation, you’ve no doubt
heard the big news.

President Obama has picked an anti-gun radical to replace Justice David
Souter on the Supreme Court.

Obama’s pick is Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is currently on the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second District. There she has racked up an
anti-Second Amendment record and has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution.

[b]The Heller decision put the Supreme Court in support of the
Constitutional protection of the individual right to keep and bear arms.
Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of centralized government power
(as long as she is part of the power elite), immediately went into
counter-attack mode against the Heller decision.

Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel earlier this year which ruled
in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not apply to the
states. As she and her cohorts claimed, the Supreme Court has not yet
incorporated the states under the Second Amendment. Until then, she
believes, the Second only applies to the District of Columbia.[/b]

This is pure judicial arrogance – something Sotomayor relishes (as long
as she is one of the ruling judges). In fact, protection of the right
to keep and bear arms was a major objective for enactment of the
Fourteenth Amendment, as recently freed slaves were being disarmed and terrorized in their neighborhoods.

[b]But Sotomayor disdains this important right of individuals, as indicated
by an earlier opinion from 2004. In United States v. Sanchez-Villar,
she stated that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental
right.”

Sotomayor has held very anti-gun views, even as far back as the 1970s.
Fox Cable News reported yesterday that in her senior thesis at Princeton
University, she wrote that America has a “deadly obsession” with guns
and that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to firearms ownership.[/b]

Sotomayor’s Second Amendment views go hand in hand with her politically correct views on the law and the role of judges.

In a speech given at Duke University in 2005, she made it abundantly
clear that judges are involved in making policy. Realizing that this
did not sound very judicial (even though most judges act on this basis),
Sotomayor tried to laugh off her brazen admission: “I know this is on
tape and I should never say that, [audience laughing], because we don’t
make law – I know. Um, okay. I know, I’m not promoting it, I’m not
advocating it.” The audience continued to laugh. They got the joke.

But Sotomayor’s joke will be on us and our liberties if she gets
confirmed to the Supreme Court. And that is why we need to start
contacting our Senators early and often, urging them to vote against
this dangerous nomination.

ACTION: Please contact your two Senators and urge them to oppose the
nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. You can go to the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at
http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators the
pre-written e-mail message below.[/quote]

I think this was one of the key requirements for this administration. Perhaps even the primary one.

The politicians have largely gotten the message that the restriction of 2nd Amendment rights is career suicide except in a few hard left bastions(Mass. and NJ come to mind). The endrun around that problem is court appointments, particularly SCOTUS. Remember the Heller decision was 5-4. Although it has been celebrated as a victory for gun rights, the 5 to 4 vote was a total disgrace. It should have been 9-0, if all of the justices were honest. The agenda should be apparent.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
MaximusB wrote:

During Obama’s speech announcing her, he mentioned that she had more wisdom being a Latina woman than white man who didn’t live her life.

You said My worry is if Amnesty ever comes up as an issue, we all know how she will vote. and now admitted you were talking about ethnicity. How do we know how she vote based on her ethnicity?

Not based on her ethnicity – that is you assuming racism – but on account of her being a member of La Raza. An organization fully and vigorously on the side of amnesty for illegal aliens, or at least Hispanic illegal aliens (if they have ever fought for non-Hispanic illegal aliens to get anything, I’m unaware of it.)

As an aside: I wonder how a white candidate would do being a member of an organization called “The Race” which had as its sole function advancing the cause of white people? Let’s say for example this imaginary organization, The Race, fought against reverse discrimination, such as in the case of the New Haven firefighters, but were only interested in cases involving whites. So if for example an Asian were a victim of it they would have nothing to do with that. That would be wrong, correct, and most certainly so for a potential Supreme Court justice?

[/quote]

You are now the second poster who has come to “defend” Maximus. I really don’t understand why. Is this some sort of “rally round the family” type of response?

I didn’t “assume.” I asked. He responded that he was, in fact, talking about ethnicity. I even underlined it in the part you cut from the quote. Here it is what Maximus said again: [quote] Obama brought up the ethnic issue, which is a main reason why I said what I said.[/quote]

Honestly, why are you trying to answer for him?

For what (little) it’s worth, I do think your aside has merit.

[Headhunter]

[quote]ds1973 wrote:
This was all solved by Rand.

—Ayn Rand Lexicon

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

Reality exists as an objective absolute - facts are facts, independent of mans feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by mans senses) is mans only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Man - every man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects mans rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
[/quote]

Of course. Ms. Rand is easily the best philosopher who ever lived, no doubt. She especially understood that basing morality on mysticism would simply lead to the absence of morality, which we have today.

Until human beings recognize that morality has to be based upon the definition of human being, and that social systems have to incorporate this idea or doom themselves, we’ll get such travesties as Barack Obama and Whomever Santomajor.

[Bill_Roberts]

I am disagreeing with the error of an implication, if there was one as I thought there was, that nothing but racism would cause a person to expect Sotomayor to be pro-illegal-alien. Not “rallying around” someone else. I saw your post and responded to it, not even noticing where the attribution came from until needing to edit it to make that clear.

If in fact you had no expectation that that would have to be or likely would be the reason a person, in general, would predict that, then I erred in thinking that that reply applied to you. My mistake if so.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]JD430 wrote:

Bill,

He has already skirted this issue once with all kinds of strawman nonsense. Maybe second time is the charm?[/quote]

I responded directly to you post and even recommended economists who deal with migration issues for you to read.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
I am disagreeing with the error of an implication, if there was one as I thought there was, that nothing but racism would cause a person to expect Sotomayor to be pro-illegal-alien. Not “rallying around” someone else. I saw your post and responded to it, not even noticing where the attribution came from until needing to edit it to make that clear.

If in fact you had no expectation that that would have to be or likely would be the reason a person, in general, would predict that, then I erred in thinking that that reply applied to you. My mistake if so.

[/quote]

It’s okay. We’ve all mis-read a post here or there. No I had no intention of implying that. I was responding directly to a specific poster.

[Bill_Roberts]

Gotcha!

[IrishSteel]

apparently being anti-gun, a tax-cheat and a socialist are all you need to qualify for a position in the Obama administration . . … perhaps we should just go ahead and declare ourselves the Democratic Republic of America . . . .