The Anchoress

Some may not know this, but once upon a time it was not unusual for Justice Antonin Scalia to sit down at the piano and tickle the ivories while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg would belt out a showtune. Philosophies and Ideologies aside, they were able to find a connection through a mutual love of a good Mermanesque belter.

Those days are over. It’s been a while since Nino and Ruthie performed for the rest. And without music binding them, it seems judicial and professional courtesy has gone flat.

Ginsberg apparently made a speech in South Africa a month ago (it’s funny how, in an age of instant communications, some speeches take such a long time to be disseminated) in which she criticized her former accompanist. But more importantly, she made some pointed remarks about valuing international law over our constitutional. Or to be more precise, she believes that international law should be applied to the interpreting of our constitution.

From Powerline:

Ginsburg argued explicitly for the relevance of foreign law and court decisions to interpretation of the American Constitution. Ginsburg did not try to hide the partisan nature of this issue; at one point, she referred to “the perspective I share with four of my current colleagues,”

So, FIVE Justices believe that international law should bear weight in interpreting our constitution? I’m no isolationist, but I think to open our constitution to “international” points of view is to step away from the uniquely American perspective that first informed the constitution and continues to support it.

Ginsberg also - in a neat bit of demagoguery - compares those who disagree with her to supporters of the Dred Scott decision. Once again, as we examined yesterday, we see a mindset that declares “if you don’t agree, you do not merely hold a differing view…you are eeeevil.”

I’m printing out the speech to read later, but this caught my eye:

To a large extent, I believe, the critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions. We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald’s words, of “common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed.”

Awww…so we just want to be nice and consider all views, even from abroad.

That would be lovely, if we were not a sovereign nation with a ripe and thorough constitution with plenty of fine minds abounding. Is she suggesting that we NEED to look to other countries to fine wellsprings of common sense and compassion which are eluding us here?

The fact that Ginsberg had to change Thomas Jefferson’s words “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” into humankind tells me that she has no respect for what came before, or for the common sensibilities of human beings who are grounded enough to see the word “mankind” and know it means “everyone” without having to fastidiously edit the words of a great man in order not to offend some mediocre women. My experience with such politically correct grammatical nitpickers is that they are so busy counting brushstrokes, they too often miss the big picture. Or, to be clearer, they are so busy cleansing a document of “offensive” yet immaterial words, that they miss its meaning.

Perhaps Justice Ginsberg has decided to embrace mediocrity over meaning.

Supposedly Ginsberg has received death threats. That’s always wrong, deplorable, frightening and insupportable. These are never laughing matters, even if they are not considered “credible.” I know because I got one in 1985 for criticising Ronald Reagan. Got another one recently for daring to criticise Cindy Sheehan. There are unstable nutjobs on every side of every issue. Still, there is something - a whiff of political exploitation - in Ginsberg’s mention of them. A rather noble and martyrish, “see, I’m enlightened and the conservative nazis want to kill me.”

I do wish conservatives would stop making death threats to people. It embarrasses me. I wish liberals would stop doing it, too. It just really…puts a damper on the conversation.

Related: Right Wing Nuthouse
JunkyardBlog
Ace has an angry and good fisking of the whole thing - law, death threats, etc.