The fight over Alito - throwing mud

As the title might suggest, this blog post is going to be a rant about the state of the Alito nomination. What brought this on, to briefly continue a topic from my last post, is the fight going on in the full Senate over confirming Judge Alito to the Supreme Court. The Democrats are trying to block his nomination by filibuster. Ultimately, this will fail, because the Senate has enough votes (60 out of 100) to end a filibuster. But what upsets me is more terminology. In my last blog, I explored the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' and their meanings. Today I read an article about the struggle in the Senate (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060127/ap_on_go_co/alito) and Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California said that the addition of Alito to the Supreme Court would allow them to apply 'originalist' interpretations to court decisions. I was curious to what 'originalist' means and so again went to the online dictionary. According to http://dictionary.reference.com the definition of originalist is:  the belief that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to the intent of those who composed and adopted it. Well DUH! Wouldn't it seem reasonable to interpret the Constitution in the way in which it was intended when it was written??? It seems that those who would rather interpret the Constitution as they see fit are doing a great diservice to our country and are basically rebelling against the very foundations of the United States.

What was even more exasperating was the reason Senator Feinstein gave for opposing this "originalist" stance. She says, and I quote:

"If an originalist analysis was applied to the Fourteenth Amendment, women would not be provided equal protection under the Constitution, interracial marriages could be outlawed, schools could still be segregated and the principle of one man, one vote would not govern the way we elect our representatives."

See there is a slight problem with her arguement: by definition, an originalist is someone who interprets the Constitution according to the intent of those who COMPOSED and ADOPTED it. It was composed and adopted on December 15, 1791 and only included 10 articles we know as the Bill of Rights (http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html). The other Amendments (#11 - 27) are just that: amendments to the original Bill of Rights. Heck, Amendment 14 wasn't even composed and adopted by the original (root word in which originalist is derived) writers. It wasn't even passed until until July 9, 1868.

You might ask, "why all this ranting over the word 'originalist'?" Because those who wish to push their agenda are using scare tactics to try to convince the people that if Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court that the people's world as they know it will come to an end. The word 'originalist', which most people probaby have no idea what it means (heck, I had to look it up!), sounds very discrimating. It sounds like it might be akin to 'racist' or 'fascist' or even 'Communist' and those words scare people and anger people. SO, needless to say, the Senator's hope is to scare people into thinking an originalist interpretation will take away all the 'freedoms' we have in today's society. The reality is that this type of interpretation would seem to return our society to a state of moral and social maturity that our founders intended.

I could be wrong here and if you think I am, please feel free to comment. I like hearing other points of view or even expansions on my view.

Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 19:34 | link | comments |
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