Sensing Right and Wrong and Other Mysticisms

Today we hear that Senator Orin Hatch is trying to calm down all those whacko right-wingers who weren't yelping for joy upon hearing that Harriet Miers was the new nominee. Inexplicably the herd didn't 'baaaahhh' in perfect unison with their approval. Not buying, "A friend of Bush is a friend of mine. Friends make great Supreme Court Judges."
But don't get so upset you whackos Senator Hatch says. "I've known her for quite a while and I feel she's gonna be an excellent justice. She has a very strong sense of right and wrong." Ok, so she's your friend. I've had girlfriends before that I cared deeply for, there were however friends of hers that I deeply detested. So "A friend of his, should be a friend of yours" doesn't work. She also broke up with me, proving people never are who you really think they are.

"A Sense of right and wrong." Actually, this is not anywhere on the application form, and shouldn't be. In fact I would argue that having a strong sense of right and wrong may make someone a BAD JUSTICE!

Now wait, hear me out on this. That sounds completely ridiculous, I know becuase of the way that we've grown to view the Supreme Court of the United States. You see, I believe ideally that a computer (completely free of a conscience, bias, or political ties) could decide these laws. Obviously that won't ever happen but the methodology should be similar. Read the laws, don't read INTO the laws. That's one of the reasons I admire Clarence Thomas so much. He's a strict constructionist, he reads the case problem, then goes back to the law and sees how it is handled. The other side of that is Sandra Day O'Connor, she is the absolute CLASSIC for someone who knows what the outcome should be (based on her sense of right and wrong) and then using her magic decoder ring, and special cryptographer assistant she interprets new rights and privelges in the document to give her the right out come.
Ok, Ms. Miers has a strong sense of right and wrong...I bet Ginsberg has an EXTRMELY strong sense of right and wrong (which can actually be useful for all of us: If she votes against it, then the founding fathers would have voted for it and we should support it. And so forth). I sure as shooting don't want another GINSBERG on the court Mr. Hatch.


Let's take a look at Roe V Wade, the very lifeblood of the modern feminist movement, and the one thing that the Democrats do know that they stand for. This is the epitome of looking at the problem deciding the solution and then trying to make the law say what you need it to say.

Can you imagine the founding fathers (after opening the Convention with prayer to "Lord God Almighty" which they did at the beginning of each day...even the day when they wrote The Bill of Rights which was recently interpreted to say that "Under God" in the pledge is unconstitutional) sitting down at the table and saying,

"Hey Ben, you know what we really need to protect in here? The right for a woman to spray saline solution onto the raw flesh of her unborn child!" "Gee whiz Tommy, I hadn't even thought of that! You are absolutely right, that was one of the biggest things that kept ticking me off about Britain."

Of course they never intended that, so the liberals needed a way to make sure that their "right" to such neccassary freedoms as stabbing an 8 month old "fetus" in the base of the skull with scissors and sucking its brains out with a plastic tube, would be forever protected. They could have relied on the spirit and conscious of the American People to, oh say, vote to protect it. But such delicate and intracate measures can not be trusted in the hands of the average American voter! We must concede to a higher power, the most trusted, the all-knowing, the alpha and the omega: *insert chours of angels* The Supreme Court of the United States. Surely in all their goodness and mercy and wisdom they could see how vital abortions on demand were to the Women's Movement to maintain law and order and equality.

And they did, and in a very creative way. In fact, if it didn't have such deadly (literally) consequences you could almost laugh at such skewed logic. I can't imagine the consenters signing on with a straight face. Most people know what the court case was about, but very few actually know HOW it was decided. Here's a synopsis for you:

Step 1) Refer to the Bill of Rights which says that the government can not quarter soldiers in civilian homes.

Step 2) Infer that what they really meant was that we have a right to privacy in our homes.

Step 3) Decide that if we have a right to privacy (note that this phrase appears NO WHERE in the actual Constitution) in our homes than that means we also have privacy in our property.

Step 4) Extend the right to privacy in our property to mean our physical person.

Step 5) Decide that the new right to privacy means the government can not tell a woman that she can't kill her unborn child.

Step 6) Legislate to the states that abortion must be available to everyone!

Forget the fact that aboritions happen in a hospital, not a home so Step 1 falters, forget the fact that we are talking about another being, not a piece of property, just grin and bear it. The Supreme Court knows best.

So when Mr. Hatch tell me to not worry because Ms. Miers has 'a strong sense of right and wrong', I hear: Ms. Miers has her own internal values system which may or may not reflect those found in the Constitution, and I should just 'trust' her.

Not happening.