Adapt or Become Extinct

Although it is to be expected, I find the controversy around the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be ludicrous and racist, sexist and just about every other kind of ist. It is typical partisan garbage. The woman is eminently qualified and should be admitted to the highest court without much of a hassle, barring any unforeseen scandal the Republicans can muster up. this is not to say that she should not be questioned and investigated – that is part of the process. But the BS flying around the last couple of days reeks like Limburger.

What really gets me however is this concept of “strict constructionist judges” versus “activist judges.”  As I understand it, the strict constructionists believe that they absolutely know the thinking of the Founding Fathers and can literally interpret the Constitution with impunity. Activist is a term applied to judges the Right deem unsuitable because they believe that the Constitution is a living document which is open to interpretation. What is clear to me and most students of history is that the Constitution is an imperfect document that was put together by men who had conflicting national views and interests. Even though it may be the greatest document ever written and stands as the basis of our free society, we have to remember that it was crafted at a time when there were no automobiles, airplanes, cell phones, AK-47 automatic weapons, SCUD missiles, stem cell research, no State of Israel, not even a State of California. Things change. Shit happens.

Thomas Jefferson, writer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the world’s greatest thinkers got it right when he said that “all men are created equal” and that they have certain “unalienable” rights including Life Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness. Of course, he was referring to white, Christian men but that’s not how they articulated it and thank goodness for that semantic difference. Women, blacks, Chinese and Indians had no rights whatsoever in Jefferson’s world. That came later as the Constitution was ammended over time.

Jefferson was brilliant but his scope of knowledge was limited. I just read in the New Yorker that Jefferson believed, as did many scientists of his day, that all the species on earth were fixed, that is to say that God created all the animals of the earth for all eternity. When he sent Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Northwest he fully expected them to come upon live mastodons roaming the region. Somewhere along the way we learned differently. The dinosaurs died out just like Moa of New Zealand and countless other species. We are still learning and still adapting to life on this planet. (The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, May 25th)

And because we are still all evolving, as people and as a society, our Constitution will continue to evolve with us. If statistics prove correct, the country will soon have more Hispanic citizens than any other group. So Ms Sotomayor seems to be the right woman at the right time to bring a Latin understanding to the heart of our nations justice system.