If you want to limit oppression, you need to move away from the subjective feelings of individual men, and towards a strict reading of written law. Then if the written law is unjust, you change the law.

I’d rather be able to count on clearly-written laws that apply to everyone the same way, than to hope the court is currently filled with people who happen to agree with me and vote their feelings.

Empathy-Schmempathy – if you didn’t personally experience it yourself, you can’t even begin to understand it.

So just shut up and stop your whiny cracker complaining.

Do I have that about right, VRB? May as well cut directly to the point, right?

I am not one who thinks the world is going to hell in a hand basket, when someone is elected that I didn’t vote for.

We agree on that. The fact that I didn’t vote for President Obama does not lead me to believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket. The fact that he’s already committed to spending thousands of billions of dollars more than the preceding overspending executive is what leads me to believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

The fact that President Obama stated that he would like to appoint Supreme Court Justices on criteria other than interpreting the constitution as objectively as possible simply makes me brace for more well-meaning government intrusion into my life.

No one knows here exactly what my sentiments are, for I have not expressed all of them. I am not a purist of any ideology and when Clarence Thomas was selected my first thought was “is he smart enough,” since I had no clear view of his judicial thinking. The Republicans had no history of appointed qualified black people, just black people who agreed with their ideology. One that sticks out; a minister who ran a Christian radio station chosen to head the US Commission on Civil Rights, shouldn’t that have been a lawyer?

I would have liked for the Supreme Court to have had empathy in order for them to understand the humanity of all humans for the first 150 years of the constitution.

I’ll agree with you — to a point — in that I’m not sure I’ve read quotes from Obama that explicity say that he’s trying to favor certain groups — but that I think his view of the Supreme Court is entirely consistent with “judicial activism”:

I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives — whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.

Obama believes the role of the Supreme Court shouldn’t just be to impartially adjudicate cases based on what the law says; rather it’s to engage in social justice.

I suppose you agree with that sentiment. But I wonder if you’d still agree if the court had 5 members of the Alito/Roberts mold?

It’s easy to support arbitrary theories of judicial propriety when your guy is in power.

ROTFLMAO!

How much kool aid did you drink, VRB? There.

“Empathy” means leaving your prejudices elsewhere?

No – it means the exact opposite.

Empathy is an emotion. Empathy means BRINGING your prejudices (which are emotion-based) into the the decision making process, rather than, in an UN-emotional and therefore fair and UNbiased manner, applying the law. In a fair, equal, and uniform (“blind”) manner for all.

The lawyer-contributors at Powerline comment:

“Deciding cases on the basis of “empathy” really means ruling in favor of politically-influential constituencies. We got a preview of the law of “empathy” in the Obama administration’s effort to violate the legal rights of Chrysler’s secured creditors in order to funnel money to the United Auto Workers. “Empathy” is another word for lawlessness.”

Sometimes I think most people can not read or understand English that comment here.

I don’t care whether Justice Souter et al. personally thought that the Fifth Amendment’s phrase “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” really meant “nor shall private property be taken for public interest, without just compensation” and that these men could therefore take Susette Kelo’s property away from her and give it to developers.

The rule of law helps guard us from men who interpret that law “empathically”. Especially when they end up empathic to the feelings of city planners who want to steal the fruit’s of our lives’ effort.