Good news: Obama promises Souter’s replacement will be big on “empathy”

My son was in Venezuela for a week or so back in January; he saw “judicial empathy” in action: If you own a small business, and one day you come along and find that a bunch of people have illegally tapped into your electricity, you will be jailed if you try to disconnect them.

The judicial logic used is that you, as a business person, have more wealth than the unfortunates that must be tapping into your electric, so you are prohibited from causing them any harm or discomfort. The notion of personal property rights is non-existent.

Such judicial rulings are very common in Venezuela and nearly always go against a business or property owner that is “more well off” than the person that is stealing or squatting on someone else’s property.

My son is convinced that this is exactly the direction the United States is headed for… the “have nots” that do nothing to earn it will be given freely from the “haves” via judicial fiat.

Why will anyone work hard anymore (personally, business) if they will be obligated to give more and more to the moochers and leeches? Game over, America – it was a nice 230+ years while it lasted.

The city ordinance I described applied to the entire city, not just a “Housing Associating”.

crr6 on May 2, 2009 at 1:19 AM

Are you referring to ordinances like bans on mobile homes and pre-structured homes or how many can live in a household or ordinances that ban you from parking work trucks in YOUR driveway or ordinances that require you to paint your home one of three colors. These ordinances are in place all over this country, in places like Simi Valley and Callabasas California, Eureka Springs Arkansas, University City Missouri, Athens Georgia, Springfield Illinois AND Mass., to name but a very few of the cities with such ordinances.
It IS a good thing that a federal law was enacted under the Bush administration that protects ANYONE who flies the U.S. Flag on the residential property they own or rent, too bad this law doesn’t include businesses.

What about someone who understands the Constitution? Idiot!

Not good enough. How about somebody who actually upholds the Constitution?

Again WRONG, if you don’t think a Housing Associating cannot block someone from renting or buying a home, you are SADLY out of touch with reality and sadly mistaken.

nelsonknows on May 2, 2009 at 12:59 AM

The city ordinance I described applied to the entire city, not just a “Housing Associating”.

crr6 on May 2, 2009 at 12:44 AM

Again WRONG, if you don’t think a Housing Associating cannot block someone from renting or buying a home, you are SADLY out of touch with reality and sadly mistaken.

Souter is just another in a line of narcissistic asses who believe they are above the Constitution and the Founding Fathers who wrote that Constitution. (As if anyone alive in this Country has anywhere NEAR the brilliance of out Founding Fathers!)
Souter is a rube in a robe and O’bunghole will appoint ANOTHER rube in a robe who believes they are supperior to the Constitution.

nelsonknows on May 1, 2009 at 5:01 PM

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
- John F. Kennedy (to a assembled group of scholars in the White House)

Well, firstly it was not my quibble. I am somewhat late to the bulk of this thread. Secondly, of course ones ‘feelings’ if you will, would be a component in any decision but the letter of the law MUST overide these if they in any way conflict. While an ‘empathic’ judge might be acceptable, this must not be his sole or main criteria for decision making.

jeanie on May 1, 2009 at 8:14 PM

I agree with that. I don’t think Obama would argue that empathy should be the sole criteria for decision making either.

WRONG: Subjects not directly covered in the Constitution are directly given to the STATE and to the PEOPLE in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Try actually READING the Constitution, PLEASE.

nelsonknows on May 2, 2009 at 12:39 AM

(sigh). Right. Let’s say the state has no law against the city ordinance. There is nothing in the Constitution to invalidate the law.

crr6 on May 1, 2009 at 7:26 PM

WRONG: Subjects not directly covered in the Constitution are directly given to the STATE and to the PEOPLE in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Try actually READING the Constitution, PLEASE.

Obama promises Souter’s replacement will be big on “empathy”

Yah, big on “empathy” for Obama and whatever he wants to do, not big on “empathy” for the U.S. Constitution..

Even when a “strict constitutionalist” attempts to make a legal argument, they inevitable must cite principles or ideas which are not actually in the Constitution.

crr6 on May 1, 2009 at 6:56 PM

This isn’t quite accurate. Let’s give a simple example.

The ban on automatic weapons, right?

Second amendment is quite clear the “congress shall make no law…”

Someone who is guided by empathy would decide that “well, firearms do kill people, so is justified here…” even though its clearly opposed in the constitution.

In a more broad sense, a judge who is guided by “empathy/hopes” cannot possibly make decisions that are uniformly applied across the board. He’d make legal concessions to those who he empathized with or had good intentions.

If you want a legal system that is uniformly applied to everyone, strict interpretation is the only way to go. It really should be common sense.

The legal system is supposed to prevent chaos, not cause it.

Imagine, for example, a defendant facing eviction for non-payment of a mortgage for nearly a year. Empathy says, the guy’s gotta live somewhere. Justice says, under contract law, a person willingly entering in to that contract is responsible for following the letter of that contract unless allowed by mutual consent of all parties to that contract to abrogate his responsibilities.

Imagine a nation where the most pitiful/sympathetic defendants are exonerated from all responsibility for crimes or other mischief under law, and the less sympathetic defendants are punished…not for any violation of law, but merely because they did not inspire “empathy?”

Looking at the housing crisis and subsequent housing bailout…and the root causes for the necessity of that bailout, and the very idea that government can compel a bank to re-write a mortgage, for example, seems we are already well on our way to that point where justice is subjective…and in effect, there is no justice.

This is the Pandora’s Box Obama has opened with his comment on “empathy.”

Empathy is all fine and well for a family court judge, but has no place in the considerations of a supreme court judge. Empathy on the federal level is for the legislature and Presidential pardons, not the judiciary.

Count to 10 on May 1, 2009 at 8:42 PM

TOTUS said during his presser wednesday that “Churchill doesn’t torture”; and the MSM keeps telling us how smart obama is!

Why more scary, you ask? Because if you recall, after The One told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to “spread the wealth”, a tape of a radio interview he’d done in Chicago surfaced in which he expresses his disappointment at the fact that courts haven’t been involved in redistribution of wealth

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/27/smells-like-socialist-spirit/

You think the not so secret socialist has weakened in that stance? I think not. He’s already realized his dreams of fundamentally changing, thereby destroying this country in many other ways. Why stop there?

All Hail The High Chancellor!

Yes, he’s quite gifted at saying little and making it last quite a long time while he does it.

“[Gibbs is] doing an unbelievable job” (emphasis his)

Heh. Passive aggressive? Teh One? Nah.

In any case, I agree heartily with the President. Robert Gibbs is an unbelievable spokesman for the WH.