Note to GOP Blowhards: All Judges Are 'Activist Judges'

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Note to GOP Blowhards: All Judges Are 'Activist Judges'

Posted by Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant at 9:50 AM on July 13, 2009.

All justices rely on their past experiences, ideologies, biases, prejudices, and yes -- the most dreaded of human qualities -- empathy.



Senator Jeff Sessions wasted no time today at the top of Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. The New York Times live-blog reports that shortly into his speech, he said that the confirmation hearing marks a “fork in the road.” Sessions is worried by President Obama’s decision to include empathy as a qualification for the Supreme Court. Remember, “empathy” is that bad thing we don’t want in our judges.



But what Sessions fails to acknowledge is that politics is always in the courtroom, and every justice has their own set of ideologies, biases, and prejudices. Rolling out the fossilized attack of “liberal activism” may be part of more political grandstanding. However, this line of thinking is not only antiquated, but also disingenuous. Two of the biggest partisan hacks on the court, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia (both Republicans) are wildly ideologically biased, and yet they are never labeled as “activist judges.”

Scalia could be called a gun activist, since he is a gun owner, and went beyond defending the Second Amendment in his ruling during District of Columbia v Heller. He said self defense is a “central” constitutional right that requires the ownership of guns (specifically handguns) be permitted so that it can be fully exercised. Crowbarring “handguns” into the definition of “right to bear arms” might have opened up Scalia to accusations of being a “right-wing activist,” but luckily, he avoided such inconveniences.

Clarence Thomas, Scalia’s younger, crazier cousin, is the definition of an activist judge. Check out his dissent in the voting rights case Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. Thomas was the only one of the nine justices who wanted to throw out Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as an unconstitutional intrusion on states’ rights. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/141271/note_to_gop_blowhards%3A_all_judges_are_%27activist_judges%27/

Before the phrase "Activist Judges", at least they'd be intellectually honest. Nah, we couldn't have that.

If their job was simply a matter of mechanically applying the written law, then they could all be replaced with a software package.