I wanted to provide a little commentary about how Democrats are handling the Neil Gorsuch confirmation for U.S. Supreme Court justice, and ask my fair-minded liberal friends to consider just how bad this is and why they should not support this type of behavior from elected leaders when it comes to Supreme Court justice confirmations. The job of a judge is not to be a legislator or an executive. The job of a judge is not to follow their personal feelings or political persuasions. If a judge wants to rule based on their feelings or ideology, or wishes to be a legislator or executive, then that judge needs to find another profession or seek public office. This is something both the liberal and the conservative should want equally.
California Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein was wary of Gorsuch because based on her belief that the Constitution is a “living document,” she also believes that Gorsuch, as an “originalist” judge, will interpret the Constitution as it was written originally, when women didn’t have the right to vote and America had slaves. But there is a serious problem with her logic. It’s no news that the Constitution is a living document. It lives through the amendment process, and thus an originalist judge of today would interpret the Constitution as it exists today, not as it existed in its original form in 1789. How a woman who is a United States senator doesn’t know something so basic to her job would be astounding, so its clear to me the issue is she simply doesn’t like the Constitution, and wants Supreme Court judges on the bench to rule based on their political ideology and not based on the law.
Personally, I want a judge to follow the law, and not their political ideology, since political ideology can cut both ways. If the judge is a conservative, I want that judge to follow the law. If that judge is a liberal, I want that judge to follow the law. That is only fair to both the conservative and the liberal. Equal treatment. Matters such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and Obamacare should never have come before the Supreme Court and should never have been decided by the Supreme Court because none of these matters are federal matters. Liberals clearly like the judgment of the Supreme Court on all three of these issues, but they shouldn’t, because these decisions are clear violations of the Constitution since they are, again, not federal matters. Liberals did well at the Supreme Court under Obama, but do they think they will do so well under Trump? That’s to be determined.
My hope is once Gorsuch is confirmed that the court, moving forward, will rule based on the law, and not political ideology or feelings of social justice. Both liberals and conservatives should want the same. I’m certain there is going to come a case decided that liberals are going to intensely dislike. But I believe it will be because they want an ideological ruling instead of a constitutional ruling. And thus I ask my liberal friends to stop wanting ideological rulings by any judge because ideological rulings are bad rulings no matter who produces them. Soon enough there will be an ideological ruling that upsets liberals as well, and they shouldn’t complain because all along they will have advocated for judges that would make ideological rulings favorable to them. Well what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, so they should be careful of what they wish for because the shoe will be on the other foot soon enough. My admonition is to just be fair and wish for justices that will simply follow the law and the Constitution they are sworn to protect.
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