11 Responses to “Politics as usual, unfortunately”

1. Gabriel Rosenberg Writes:
   June 8th, 2005 at 10:11 pm

   If one wished to look for a silver lining, she will soon step down from the California Supreme Court.

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2. Julian Elson Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 1:45 am

   Ezra Klein (Jesse Taylor’s coblogger in the pre-Amanda days) thinks that the divisiveness of Bush’s nominations isn’t a side-effect of wanting to push radical-right ideology, but an intentional attempt to add to the polarization and division in the country while trying to paint Democrats as hating women or minorities. A widely admired justice on both sides of the aisle just wouldn’t do, because Frist wouldn’t be able to talk about what obstructionists Democrats are.

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3. Sydney Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 7:28 am

   Well I can’t see how Brown’s nomination is going to help make democrats seem like they don’t care about minorities and women. Brown is clearly a republican ally who has a track record of actively working against both those communities. I could be misunderstanding what Ezra is saying of course……

   The whole thing really just sickens me. I can’t believe that this woman is going to actually be in a position which requires an objective and comphrensive ability to examine the law. Her own peers think that she’s not competent. How far are conservatives willing to compromise justice in order to accomplish their own agenda? And how much are democrats going to take before they actually do something?

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4. Kyra Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 12:53 pm

   Uh, lemme get this straight. She’s “made it crystal clear that she doesn’t believe in government involvement of any kind” and yet she wants the government involved in young women’s lives in order to make it harder for them to get an abortion—she refused to allow the state government to be less involved than the federal government. And people say John Kerry is a flip-flopper.

   Now, if she could only tell the Pharmacists Refusal Clause people that THEY are free to move to “more congenial employment.” But somehow I doubt that will happen.

   And she protests that “the First Amendment should not protect the right to freely assemble.” What, is she going to attack the Constitution with a bottle of White-Out? Here’s a hint, Janice: READ it. It SAYS people have the right to peaceably assemble; therefore people who wish to peaceably assemble have the right to do so freely; therefore the First Amendment does guarantee the right of the people to freely assemble. She tried to directly contradict it, and as it is the duty of all judges to uphold the constitution and the principles of freedom this country was founded on, she has no business picking up a gavel in this country. (Maybe she should move to “more congenial employment.”)

   Regarding the scheme of painting the Democrats as anti-diversity, in reality the opposite is true. If the Democrats supported an unqualified judge whose views they oppose, simply because she’s black and female, THAT would make them racist and sexist—they would be turning down more qualified people because of a preference for a certain race and sex. What’s more, sacrificing the rights of millions of women to break a hole in the glass ceiling for one woman is not right at all.

   The goal of feminism should not be to simply get women into high offices, but to get PEOPLE into high offices who are supportive of women’s issues. True equality is judged by the amount of freedom EVERYONE possesses, not the gender ratio of the top levels of government (although with equality will come an equalized gender ratio).

   I don’t think anyone here would suggest that having Ann Coulter as President, Phyllis Schlafly as Vice President, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owens on the Supreme Court, and the rest of the Independent Women’s Forum and Pat Robertson’s co-host in Congress, would mean anything good for the cause of gender equality.

   On the other hand, if we had the Equal Rights Amendment passed, comprehensive sex education, maternity leave, public day care, easily accessable abortion, birth control, and EC, a public information campaign against domestic violence, and school programs that teach respect for all other people as a basic, necessary skill, then things would be much, much, much better, regardless of what percentage of congresspeople go to the bathroom standing up.

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5. Robert Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 2:23 pm

   She’s “made it crystal clear that she doesn’t believe in government involvement of any kind”? and yet she wants the government involved in young women’s lives in order to make it harder for them to get an abortion…she refused to allow the state government to be less involved than the federal government. And people say John Kerry is a flip-flopper.

   Yeah, she contradicts what her enemies say about her. That’s some serious inconsistency going on there. ;)

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6. Sydney Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 3:49 pm

   “I don’t think anyone here would suggest that having Ann Coulter as President, Phyllis Schlafly as Vice President, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owens on the Supreme Court, and the rest of the Independent Women’s Forum and Pat Robertson’s co-host in Congress, would mean anything good for the cause of gender equality. ”

   Only if we wanted the world to end.

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7. Samantha Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 3:53 pm

   It wouldn’t be good for gender equality, but would it be worse than what we have now? I’m not so sure.

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8. Julian Elson Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 5:34 pm

   To clarify, I wasn’t saying that the Democrats actually are anti-woman or anti-black. (though no doubt many here would say that they are, if marginally less so than the Republicans. I’m not as disillusioned with the Democrats as most here are, though.) I’m saying that Ezra said that the Bush people think that they get more political mileage by picking someone loathsome so that they can call Democrats “racists,” “sexists,” or — heavens forbid — “obstructionists” than they would out of picking someone the Democrats are willing to approve. They could be wrong, though. It’s a risky gamble. Sometimes I feel like, while the Republicans as a whole have gotten to Congress through deft manipulation, skillful campaigning, etc, the Bush administration in particular has mostly survived and gotten reelected more due to dumb luck than Karl Rove’s alleged genius. It’s possible that this is a really idiotic, hamfisted move on the part of the Bush administration.

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9. Mark in Mexico Writes:
   June 9th, 2005 at 6:25 pm

   Janice Rogers Brown on slaves and slavery

   This is a hatchet job if ever there was one. It is supposed to be a biography, I think. It really is an attack piece written from Ted Kennedy’s website. From the headline, New Judge Sees Slavery in Liberalism, through the first three paragraphs…

   This comment was written by Mark in Mexico.
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10. João Carlos Writes:
    June 9th, 2005 at 10:25 pm

    Wow! Where were you when Bush got enough votes to be Prez? Now, you have to carry the burden…

    This comment was written by João Carlos.
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11. David Writes:
    June 12th, 2005 at 3:52 pm

    Note that I’m no fan of J. R. Brown, but I do think it’s important to criticize what she actually says, not how people spin her. The phrase “the First Amendment should not protect the right to freely assemble”? is not a quote from Brown, it’s a quote from now.org attributing that view to her. While NOW doesn’t cite a particular case, I imagine they’re referring to Gallo v. Acuna, in which (if I’m reading this right; ianal) Brown wrote a majority opinion for the California Supreme Court, upholding an injunction against certain gang members, who had been terrorizing a neighborhood for quite awhile, hanging around that neighborhood in groups. If you read the opinion itself, it defnitely _doesn’t_ deny that the First Amendment protects free assembly; it just says that in some circumstances that protection isn’t absolute. (This isn’t radical in itself; hardly anyone thinks, for instance, that the right to free speech means that you can’t have laws against libel / slander / etc.) So it would not be intellectually responsible to spread the impression that she doesn’t believe in freedom of assembly at all…

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