Obama and the Law
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, October 28, 2008



One of the biggest and most long-lasting "change" to expect if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States is in the kinds of federal judges he appoints. These include Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal justices all across the country, all of whom will have lifetime tenure.

Senator Obama has stated very clearly what kinds of Supreme Court justices he wants-- those with "the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."

Like so many things that Obama says, it may sound nice if you don't stop and think-- and chilling if you do stop and think. Do we really want judges who decide cases based on who you are, rather than on the facts and the law?

If the case involves a white man versus a black woman, should the judge decide that case differently than if both litigants are of the same race or sex?

The kind of criteria that Barack Obama promotes could have gotten three young men at Duke University sent to prison for a crime that neither they nor anybody else committed.

Didn't we spend decades in America, and centuries in Western civilization, trying to get away from the idea that who you are determines what your legal rights are?

What kind of judges are we talking about?

A classic example is federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin, who could have bankrupted a small New Jersey town because they decided to stop putting up with belligerent homeless men who kept disrupting their local public library. Judge Sarokin's rulings threatened the town with heavy damage awards, and the town settled the case by paying $150,000 to the leading disrupter of its public library.

After Bill Clinton became president, he elevated Judge Sarokin from the district court to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Would President Barack Obama elevate him-- or others like him-- to the Supreme Court? Judge Sarokin certainly fits Obama's job description for a Supreme Court justice.

A court case should not depend on who you are and who the judge is. We are supposed to be a country with "the rule of law and not of men." Like all human beings, Americans haven't always lived up to our ideals. But Obama is proposing the explicit repudiation of that ideal itself.

That is certainly "change," but is it one that most Americans believe in? Or is it something that we may end up with anyway, just because too many voters cannot be bothered to look beyond rhetoric and style?

We can vote a president out of office at the next election if we don't like him. But we can never vote out the federal judges he appoints in courts across the country, including justices of the Supreme Court.

The kind of judges that Barack Obama wants to appoint can still be siding with criminals or terrorists during the lifetime of your children and grandchildren.

The Constitution of the United States will not mean much if judges carry out Obama's vision of the Constitution as "a living document"-- that is, something that judges should feel free to change by "interpretation" to favor particular individuals, groups or causes.

We have already seen where that leads with the 2005 Kelo Supreme Court decision that allows local politicians to take people's homes or businesses and transfer that property to others. Almost invariably, these are the homes of working class people and small neighborhood businesses that are confiscated under the government's power of eminent domain. And almost invariably they are transferred to developers who will build shopping malls, hotels or other businesses that will bring in more tax revenue.

The Constitution protected private property, precisely in order to prevent such abuses of political power, leaving a small exception when property is taken for "public use," such as the government's building a reservoir or a highway.

But just by expanding "public use" to mean "public purpose"-- which can be anything-- the Supreme Court opened the floodgates.
That's not "a living Constitution." That's a dying Constitution-- and an Obama presidency can kill it off.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Thank you for eloquently stating your position based upon facts and the ideals (even if you didnt write it)that this country was founded upon. Obama is not the president we need nor is his opponent in the "republican" party, but I think that this election will help remind the American people of the nature of our nation, and the state of domestic and foreign politics. If it does not, the continued "theft" of american rights will eventually() realize their errors, hopefully it will be before something bad happens.

I doubt much will change with this election, other than the continued economic slavery that has continued with the ideals of capitalism.

Again thank you.

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Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. Which isn't much now.
~Newest op:http://www.rollitup.org/members/trav...p-1-14-09.html

Give it up VI!!! Stop trying to make new thread after new thread to spread your propaganda!!

Vi is the king of the copy and paste mentality.

No, travkatx, thank you. Thank you for reading the article in it's entirety and getting something important out of it. The last sentence in your response tells me that you get it. I wish more of the folks who post in this forum would.

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

There are none so hopelessly enslaved than those who think they are free when they are not.

And by the way, since when are you the new post monitor? <Sheesh!>

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

And are you of the mentality that knows all, therefore you won't read the content of the post just out of the possibility that you may learn something new?

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Please identify the flaws in the article.

You too Einstein. Please identify the flaws in the article.

And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

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In no way, shape, or form have I ever consumed or smoked marijuana, nor have I ever attempted to grow cannabis and I do not plan on it. All posts and dialogues written and displayed by myself are completely fictional and are by no means true.