Judging the Supreme Court Judge Nominees

For anyone who wants to know why politicians behave in the ways they do, get ready. This summer, they will be parading under our analytic microscopes. They will be telling us what is "on their minds." Well, maybe it will be more like what is "in their minds," also known as the mess in the attic. You just thought that all of that persiflage issuing from their oral orifices was acting + opportunism, with a dash of psychopathy. Not so.

The utterly jillions of words coming from representatives, senators, other politicians and bureaucrats about the next Supreme Court justice nominee(s) will leave you knowing just how much in trouble America really is--if we leave America up to them. We plan to use their words as great grist for our mills.

Here is a starter. Senator Charles Schumer of New York had an attack of explosive oral diarrhea over the long 4th of July weekend about the next court nominee. I really wish I had the exact quote, but, alas, what I heard came over the radio news while working in the back yard. Schumer insisted that the judicial "philosophy" (a.k.a., "ideology" in Senatese, but both terms are equal opportunity befuddlers to our senators) of the nominee was crucial. He insisted that the only way for a justice nominee to clear his committee's "No Man's Land" was for the nominee not to have a judicial philosophy. (I know this sounds bizarre, but it is vintage Schumer. Work with me.)

The first question to ask is whether Schumer had any idea what he had just said. The answer is "No," but it is also "Yes." At the level of consciousness that Schumer uses, he had uttered total obfuscatory nonsense, which, to him, seemed to make all kinds of sense. That ought to begin raising the hair on the back of your neck.

To Schumer, the nominee must not have Rightist judicial philosophy. Since Schumer regards whoever is on the Left will be speaking red-letter Gospel-ese, he feels superior in throwing out whatever words come from anywhere on the Right as the rantings of Satan. But even Schumer is smart enough to realize that some flaming Leftist will never make it out of the committee nominating starting gate. Given the microscopic analysis each nominee must endure, even which hand he or she uses will become relevant, you know, right or left.

Before we go on, just stop for a minute. Think about this. Can you imagine a bona fide nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States of America possessing NO judicial philosophy? That kind of candidate would have a track record of having decided cases by use of the dart board. (I know, I know, it often seems like that is standard practice). Even Schumer knows that any judicial candidate will have some legal philosophical framework, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary.

That leads us beneath Schumer's usual operating level of consciousness, to the "Yes" answer to the question three paragraphs ago of whether Schumer had any idea what he had just said. Schumer wants a certain "ideal" judicial candidate, one possessing the same ideal worshipped by all senatorial Democrats and most senatorial Republicans. And that ideal candidate would seem to be almost bereft of judicial philosophy, and damned proud of it, too.

Enter the pragmatist candidate for the Supreme Court.

Pragmatism is an American philosophy cobbled together from the worst Europe had to offer, mostly from Kant and Hegel. Pragmatism became popular in the latter 19th century in America, died out as a popular school of philosophy after World War I, but became totally devastating to America. The worst possible thing happened. One of pragmatism's founders, John Dewey, utterly infected all of American education at all levels with it. For decades, Dewey's pragmatism has dominated American Education; from that vantage, it has infected most American youth. It became the utterly predominant philosophy among Washington politicians and bureaucrats.

Back to the pragmatist candidate for the Supreme Court. He or she will look like a "normal" person, because he or she will sound just like most everyone in elected and appointed office. This nominee will have been trained in one or more of America's "finest" universites, followed by the "finest training" in one or more of America's "foremost" legal schools. Emerging from those years, steeped in that uniquely American philosophy of pragmatism, and garnished liberally with postmodernism, this person will be the ideal Stepford justice nominee.

Step for a minute into an imaginary judiciary committee hearing for that nominee:

Q: How will you decide on the _____ issue?
A: It all depends on the circumstances.

Q: What do you think of the SCOTUS definition of "pornography"?
A: It is a good start, but it is too early to tell whether it works. We need more time and data.

Q: How will you decide "Roe" cases?
A: On their individual merit. I do not get cluttered up with principles and precedents. I want to make a "living decision," so to speak.

Q: What about the death penalty?
A: You just cannot be dogmatic about anything in law. After all, circumstances alter all cases.

Does this very tiny set of likely questions and answers begin to raise your red flag?

We are just beginning to scratch the surface here. Wait until journalistic organs begin publishing likely questions. We will be all over those like white on rice.

Are you getting just an inkling? This kind of nominee will not be bound to bedrock principles, because he or she is a pragmatist. He or she will not be principled ON PRINCIPLE. What does that mean in this context? It means just what pragmatism said about truth: Truth is that which works, in the present situation, right now. It will be different in the next situation, even in the next minute. You can't know what is true before you act. If it works out the way you want, then it was true. If not, it was false.

Please let that sink in.

To a pragmatist, truth is as arbitrary as the Constitution is a "living document" to the Left. Anything can mean anything we want, as long as we want it, as long as enough of us want it, and as long as we can make it come to pass the way we want it. Not even a small child has a mind that primitive and certainly not that screwed up--it takes years of the "finest" American education to produce minds like that.

So, to this nominee, he or she will be neither Left, nor Right, except for some leanings, depending on how the political, practical, and opportunistic winds blow. He or she will stand on no principles because he or she will always be figuring out whatever, as he or she goes along, according the situation of the moment. The Constitution will be no more than a "guide," or a set of suggestions, all dated, of course--the truth of today is not truth of yesterday, says the pragmatist.

Pragmatists believe in all forms of intellectual expediency. They tend to go with what groups want. Most lean Left, and all are collectivists. Left to their devices, they will finish off America via judicial activism. You see, even pragmatism, as aconceptual as it sounds, is a judicial philosophy, a political philosophy, and the philosophy of far too many Americans in positions of power and influence. Schumer might not know the nuts and bolts of details about pragmatism, but he sure loves what it gives him.

No matter how obnoxious and evil Islam is, and it is, without question, Islam, Muslims, and Jihad are not the most important concern for Americans for the next little while. WHO GETS ONTO THE SUPREME COURT IS! Right along with the abrogation of Americans' rights, leading to the cancellation of America, by the Supreme Court, are the actual judicial philosophies of the nominees.

All of the potential nominees, from the likeliest to the least likely, are broken men and women, philosophically speaking. They are all damaged goods, just as all of the current justices are. Our job to guide this selection procress could not be harder, nor more important.

At the barest minimum, we need judicial scholars who are committed to hard-rock, strict constructionism, as Supreme Court nominees. They can answer all senatorial hearing questions with a single answer: A ruling comes solely from what the Constitution specifically and explicitly permits or forbids in any case before the Court and any prior rulings up for reconsideration.