Today, the Ronald Reagan library and archives released over 5,000 pages of documents relating to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts.
And they certainly cast light on his views on some (if not all) of the subjects that are of the most concern to many people.
For example, in a memo on November 21, 1985, Roberts criticized the Supreme Court's decision prohibiting "meditation or voluntary prayer" in Alabama schools. Roberts said the ruling's conclusion that "the Constitution prohibits such a moment of silent reflection -- or even silent 'prayer' -- seems indefensible."
Of course the reason behind the ruling is that in such a setting, 'voluntary' is often accompanied by intense pressure from both peers and school officials, as it was in Alabama under the law that the court threw out. The court decided that school should not be a place for coercion. Just that simple. This ruling, notice, did not affect such events as the use of a prayer by one person at an event like a game or a graduation, since no one is then forced, or can be coerced, into participating. But apparently Judge Roberts believes that there was no problem with that.
Much more disturbing, however, was Roberts' take on a 1983 ruling in which the Washington state supreme court found the state guilty of discrimination for paying women less than men for jobs of "comparable worth."
Roberts wrote about three Republican congresswomen who objected to the ruling (ironically, led by Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the Senators who will be voting on his confirmation) "I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistribute concept. Their slogan may as well be 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender,'"
It is hard to see, aside from the complete insensitivity that John Roberts shows here in regard to the matter of unequal pay, how this statement, in particular its last line, can be considered anything other than blatantly sexist. The implication is that only men are able, and that working women are asking for money that they don't deserve. I'm not even female, and I find this line absolutely insulting, almost akin to suggesting that we should go back to feudalism.
Troubling. Very troubling.
3 comments:
Your critisim of Robert's statement is sophistic and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what equal pay cases are about. He critisized ONE poorly reasoned judical decision and implied he is against paying identical wages to women who lack the same skill or experience level as men. That is ALL his statement can be read to failry imply. It does NOT imply, unless one is retarded or delusional, that he favors pay discrimination. However, since you may be delusional, based on your fantasy that Bill Richardson has a snowball's chance in hell of ever becoming President, I shall not attempt to guess the cause of your erroneous reading of Robert's comment.
Anonymous,
Your critisim of Robert's statement is sophistic
Thank you. That is a nice compliment.
However, since the rest of your post is sophomoric, I'm not sure what to make of it.
I see nothing in his statement that refers to skill or experience level, only 'ability.' I'm not implying anything, I read the statement exactly as he said it. If I were to read it to imply something, my take is that he thinks that the three congresswomen who supported equal pay are communists (after all, he is paraphrasing a quote made by Karl Marx), in which case Olympia Snowe should certainly take offense at it.
And go ahead and underestimate Bill Richardson. He showed his leadership again last week when he went around the stinginess in funding the border patrol on the part of Washington, and opened state coffers to handle the emergency situation in southern NM (our governor here in AZ followed suit yesterday). In probably the most underreported story of the year, over thirty Americans living near the border have been kidnapped or killed by Mexican drug gangs bent on spreading their lawless border zone into pockets of the United States. That constitutes an outright invasion of the territory of the United States, and President Bush and the Republican governors of Texas and California do nothing.
In fact, there is an elite paramilitary force operating right now in the United States, murdering Americans and anyone else who gets in their way.
This is something that Governor Richardson has at least tried to warn people about, and President Bush has chosen to do NOTHING (except make sure that nothing gets into the press about the Zetas, the drug war along the border or the fact that last year reported that a Central American gang called Mara Salvatrucha (also known as MS-13) has established ties with al-Qaeda.)
Frankly, this story should scare the crap out of you, and you should hope that a President like Bill Richardson, who at least acknowledges the problem and has pledged to deal with it, instead of some bozo who would rather let it grow and hand it off to someone else later.
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