I just read of the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the 9th Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco. This is the “fruits and nuts” Court, as Mark Twain would have said. It’s the one that has had more cases overturned by the Supreme Court than any other in the country and typically takes the most progressive view of the law and the Constitution of any of the Appeals Courts. You never know what zany new interpretation of the Constitution they’ll come up with.
Professor Liu comes from Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley, which is situated in the middle of San Francisco, basically Ground Zero for liberal lunacy. The term Ground Zero has been used three times, really. Twice at the end of World War II when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, and on 9/11. It should not be used lightly.
But Professor Liu has some rather odd beliefs. According to Wikipedia he is a nationally recognized left wing activist. He argues that welfare rights reflect the “contingent character of our collective judgments rather that the tidy logic of a comprehensive moral theory”. He clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and his views are, according to all of his supporters “ambitiously progressive”. In other words, the ends justify the means and the law means what we say it it means. New rights are conjured up out of thin air in such an environment.
Dr. Liu has taken a noble stand on the right to a good education. As we see our schools fall apart in the blue states, perhaps his decisions would emphasize excellence of opportunity rather than outcome. Frankly, the deck is stacked against a good education in most large urban school districts. Bureaucracy, cronyism, and incompetence are the enemies.
But when I read one of his key papers, “Improving Title I Equity Funding Across,States, Districts and Schools” there is no discussion of how the money is spent. Equity is important, but wisdom is more important. As the former chair of a parochial school finance committee which consistently outperformed the public schools in our area, we found long ago it is not about how much money is spent but how it is spent. California spends over $8,000/year per public school student but has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country. The parochial schools spend half as much with double the graduation rate.
On the 2nd Amendment, he argued with Hillary Clinton that in seven instances in the past 10 years, the Supreme Court’’s interpretation of that amendment is wrong. Virtually every time the Court upheld the 2nd amendment, he argued against the majority. As we see Chicago’s gun free zone laws being challenged in the Supreme Court, this should give one pause. After all Washington D.C. and Chicago have the highest gun crime rates in the country despite having been gun free zones since the 1970’s. Where is the logic there in Mr. Liu’s opinions?
The Constitution is a funny thing. It was conceived of by some of the most brilliant minds in history and may be the document closest to political perfection yet conceived. And yet it contained certain flaws. The whole 3/5th’s thing really bothers me still. And yet at the time there was a certain logic. It was the world as it was but even then Washington and Jefferson, slave owners both, knew that the central evil of slavery was wrong and was a time bomb for future generations. But it would be for those later generations to resolve. That is why the bar for the amendment process was set as it was, a 2/3 majority of all of the states.
One of the central tenets of progressivism is to short circuit this process. Progressivism is centered on using subterfuge and the legal process and litigation by any means necessary to forward the agenda. The ends justify the means. But the Constitution is a pesky thing. There are established procedures for enacting change and the they get in the way of the agenda.
By all accounts, Professor Liu is a brilliant and skilled attorney and a decent and just man. But if he does not understand and agree with the central tenets of the Constitution, he should not be confirmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment