Conservative> R Emmett Tyrrell> Sotomayor S Flawed Reasoning

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Sotomayor's Flawed Reasoning

WASHINGTON — Liberal opinion is engaged heavily now in belaboring Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh for calling the Prophet Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a racist. The proximate cause for this charge is the following statement by Judge Sotomayor to an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2001: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Well, possibly the bigotry inhering in that line does not rise to the level of being racist. So will the critics accept the appellation "supremacist"? Based on the meaning of Judge Sotomayor's statement, "supremacist" certainly applies. Yet if Judge Sotomayor were to disagree with me, I guess she would be right. After all, I am a white male, and according to her, she, "a wise Latina woman," would "more often than not reach a better conclusion" than I. Now, what kind of a society have we arrived at through Judge Sotomayor's reasoning? It is a society in which some groups are superior to others, namely, wise Latinas are superior to the rest of us. That is not what I call progress over intolerance, bigotry or, for that matter, stupidity.

Nonetheless, this is the mindset of liberals who hold sway at the nation's law schools. Professor Barack Obama had the same point of view when he taught at the University of Chicago Law School, which he made clear back in September 2005, when, as the junior senator from Illinois, he voted against the confirmation of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court. As Sen. Obama saw it, Judge Roberts lacked the background to judge with "empathy" on a range of issues, from affirmative action to abortion to something about the Commerce Clause; on that something, he was inscrutable to an Obama-like extent.

The consequence of Sotomayor and Obama's bigoted mindset is that they are, by definition, right, and those who disagree with them are wrong. This is classic ipse dixit reasoning, which is to say, reasoning based solely on the assumed superiority of one's standing.

Again, this is the reasoning of a supremacist. It is intolerant, bigoted and surprisingly stupid.

The position does not hold up to rational analysis. According to Sotomayor and Obama, a person whose life experience has included a select series of privations is better-equipped to judge that experience than people who have not undergone those privations. This novel way of viewing privation is right out of the 1960s youth culture and the radical left. It is a flawed argument generally recognized as "argument by assertion" or "argument from authority."

One could argue with equal cogency that a person who has suffered these privations is unable to make wise judgments about them. Arguably, the deprived person has been traumatized by privation. In fact, such claims were made by some social scientists before the 1960s. They assumed that people from impoverished backgrounds lack a wider perspective on life. Thus, the deprived person could not judge bourgeois life clearly or impartially. Only a "wise person" free of this experience of privation would be capable of prudent judgment.

By Sotomayor and Obama's reasoning, the best doctors for treating cancer are doctors who have suffered cancer. The best counselors for treating alcoholism are reformed alcoholics or possibly practicing alcoholics. An even more illuminating reductio ad absurdum of Sotomayor and Obama's position is this: The best counselor against suicide is a "wise person" who had attempted suicide.

The problem with their position is that it assumes we are all prisoners of our experience except for Sotomayor and Obama, who somehow have transcended their experience. The rest of us cannot think objectively. In fact, we cannot read the law or the Constitution unimpeded by our backgrounds. Yet Sotomayor and Obama are here to guide and to govern. At some point, perhaps, we will get over this middle-class idea of holding elections. Or maybe Sotomayor and Obama simply will suspend them. They seem to know what is best.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. To find out more about R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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Sir;.....You are a racist, and so is Mr. Limbaugh... First, Latinos are not a race apart from our own, but the Latino experience has been different from most of our own, so at worst, her remark was sensitive to the cultural experience of many left out people in this country...If white men are making the laws, as they are for the most part, is it some how racist that those affected by them should judge them???Is it better that so many of all creeds, cultures, and colors judge the laws as unjust, and judge the supreme court as so many zombies; yet are denied the legal expression of their contempt???The fact is that none of the justices can escape the law...That is the problem, that they deal with the form called law, and from within that form, they cannot judge it...The constitution is just a form too...Read what Jefferson said of forms in the Declaration of Independence...The form of their government was what those revolutionaries were trying to change...Do you think they ever believed the constitution was perfect, or would never need to be revised, re written, or reformed??? A form is not only a form... Every form is a form, but every form is also a relationship...Any intelligent person can see that the relationship called the United States is not working...It will not work unless that relationship can be understood, and unless the constitution can be changed to reflect the needs of that relationship...I understand that you simply want the minorities to accept their powerlessness to change and correct the constitution...We have been led into disunion, and it is only because a certain unity is required to change the constitution...But only a majority of lawyers on the highest court will ever be in a position to interpret the constitution according to its goals... Were an unimaginable majority of the people to be assembled, the constitution could be changed, but I will not count on that unliklyhood...Instead, if enough people are put on the court who have the intelligence to see through the constitution, and to judge the constitution instead of judging by the constitution, then revolution can be averted...Calling that woman a racist is non sense...You simply do not want anyone there with the knowledge that law does not bring justice, and that the constitution does not give birth to just laws... So long as rich white men can make the law, and judge the laws they make we cannot expect better than what the past has already shown us, which is to say, nothing but injustice...While I might say of congress, or the people who elected them, that most of them are racist; this misses the point...It may be that the laws are more unjust to certain races....What is killing us is that the whole economic system that the court is incapable of judging is robbing us all, and that people wounded by the injustice of our shared life cannot stand in defense of this society... And I can forgive the sort of racism we see across this land for one reason only: People injured by injustice seek out the guilty, but they most often lash out at one as injured as themselves...Our ideologies, both Christianity and Capitalism blind us to the truly guilty, and so we are left with hating, and blaming our neighbors...So no...Mrs. Sotomayor is not a rascist...But she is most certainly a victim, and the consciousness of injustice is the last thing you want on the court...What you need is a Pangloss...One of you should see if he is looking for work... Thanks...Sweeney

Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Jun 4, 2009 9:42 PM