Clarence Darrow and the Justice of Obama's Empathy Test
Reader Comments
To Muser
Well stated, but I believe you reenforce my point. The weighing of unemotional and impartial facts and a logical reading of the Constitution would have eliminated slavery. You assume "empathy" would eliminate slavery; I believe empathy for the slave states maintained it. Bigotry is an emotion too.
Brad (below)
I'm inclined to question the scale as a symbol of justice at the Supreme Court level. You can put some stuff on either side of any scale and it will tip one way or another. But someone has to decide what's fair to be putting on either side in the first place and then announce with honesty which way the thing tilted.
There was NEVER anything to be "weighed" that would have justified the existence of slavery for even a single year after the constitution was ratified---and yet Lincoln found himself talking about "four score (plus)" years in which the Supreme Court had not found a way to strike it down.
We needed a bunch of Darrow types and did not get them---that's all. Now we have a chance to get one. I hope Sotomayor is really so inclined.
Thank Goodness Clarence Isn't Available
As a defender of the weak and down-trodden, Clarence Darrow was a wonderful person and a fine American; but he would have made a terrible Supreme Court Justice. Empathy may sound like a fine trait for a judge, but one man's empathy is another's tyranny - which is why justice is symbolized by a scale - unemotional and impartial. In any case this is a moot point, as a white male Darrow wouldn't satisfy Obama's primary criteria.
And the moral of the story is what?
That we should be looking for Supreme Court Justices who can devise or accept legal theories in court cases that will undo some of the "organized injustice"? Some that will counter laws that are "constructs to secure the rich and powerful"?
Sounds good to me. Whenever I hear people wishing for "strict constructionists", I can think of nothing but that they are wishing that slavery was still upheld in America because the constitutional writers originally accomodated it.
