Sotomayor — A Step Back for the Supreme Court

Women struggle to hear the voice of righteous truth
amid a confusing cacophony of voices persuasively urging them
toward expediency and political correctness.
— Virginia U. Jensen
B.O.'s pick for the Supreme Court has only been out for a few days, but enough red flags have come up so far, that I know where I stand.  I'm against her being confirmed to the Supreme Court.  Among the reasons for my opposition are racism, her anti-Second Amendment rights positions, and the idea that somehow her so-called story qualifies her.

In a story in the San Fransisco Chronicle, which starts out by laying down its obvious bias in Sotomayor's favor by stating that her views are nothing controversial at U.C. Berkeley, as if that's some kind of measuring stick normal people would even want to use, Sotomayor is quoted as saying, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”  Now, the Left say conservatives have taken that comment out of context by calling it evidence of racism.  They say the speech the line was lifted from was about how important it is to realize that every individual brings something unique and something special to the table.  I say there is no context missing by calling it racism.  If we're all important and all our views are equally important, a Latina woman will not come to a better conclusion than a white man.  See, if she was really trying to say everybody's viewpoint is important to consider, she would've said that — using those words — not the words she chose to use.

Sotomayor, like many liberals, has yet to realize that Martin Luther King spoke of a world in which race didn't matter.  Dr. King would've hoped the woman and the man could have a civil conversation, noting the positive traits in each other irrespective of race.  Dr. King would've hoped the man didn't notice and didn't care his interlocutor was Latina; he would've hoped the woman didn't notice and didn't care the person she was talking to was male or white.  People should be judged based on their actions, not on what color their skin is.  It is not acceptable to have someone deciding whether or not laws or court decisions conform to the Constitution if they don't even understand that the Constitution is colorblind.

Treason

Treason is a word that often, and appropriately, I think, evokes strong emotions in many people.  Many people are loyal to their country and find it offensive that a fellow countryman would want to harm their homeland.  Leading up to the time of the Revolutionary War, treason was punishable by death in most places.  The crime was taken seriously and applied broadly.  It is now often bandied about as a political epithet, but I wish it carried the weight it once did, at least as far as the United States is concerned.  People should understand the responsibility they have to a nation that provides the freedoms and opportunities America does.

It was those very freedoms and opportunities that prompted the hero of Bill Powell's Treason: How a Russian Spy Led an American Journalist to a U.S. Double Agent (ISBN: 0-7432-2915-0) to betray his native Soviet Union.  This true story chronicles how a journalist (the author) became entangled in a U.S. mole hunt (the mole hunt resulted in the arrest of the traitor Robert Hansson) because of his contact with a former Soviet GRU agent named Vyacheslav Baranov.  Baranov had decided the Soviet life wasn't for him while serving in Bangladesh and made contact with the CIA, giving them a few bits of information.  The CIA hired him, but once he was stationed back in Moscow, his contact with the CIA stopped, although he didn't know why.  He kept trying to make contact, but was eventually arrested.  After spending time in a Russian prison (by the time he was arrested, the Soviet Union had fallen), he wanted to know what had happened and enlisted the author's help by basically recruiting him as a spy would.  They weren't able to figure out for sure who ratted on Baranov, but as he tried to solve the mystery, Hansson was arrested and Baranov learned that the troubles with Ames and Hansson is what made his contact with the CIA so short lived.  The reason for Baranov's original treason, a better life in America, is finally realized at the end of the book, a couple generations later, when he, his wife, their children, and his one grandchild move to America.

The book was really a pretty light read, but it was very interesting even though the story, which was really about Baranov trying to figure out who told on him, wasn't resolved as well as some might like.  I was also intrigued by the story because it tells about how things go when they don't go right, unlike many of the other intelligence-related books out there.  CIA and KGB shortcomings are a major part of the book, although the CIA aspects are ironed out in the end when Baranov and his family move to America.  That part is what really makes the book, though.  Baranov understood early on in his career that socialism and communism just really didn't cut it for people who really wanted to experience opportunity.  Although he hit some major bumps in the road and had reasons to swear off America, he didn't, always remembering the possibilities it held for all.

Mind-stimulating Stuff on the Web

There's a chance I'm frying my brain reading through all this stuff, but if I didn't, I'd think the entire U.S. thought abortion, homosexuals wanting to be married, and communist healthcare were good ideas.  They're not, and I think I'm safe in saying most people think that way, but one has to dig to get to these types of conservative opinions.

To alleviate the digging, here's a list:

• Ken Blackwell discusses torture, the Geneva Convention and its lack of applicability to terrorists, and abortion in his column.
• My cousin, employed in the healthcare insurance industry, explains why socialized (socialized in the same sense of the word as the Soviet Union was a socialist country) healthcare is a guaranteed recipe for absolute failure.
• NTU is asking everyone to write their elected representatives and remind them that the masses (we the people) are not interested in cap-and-trade programs because they result in higher taxes.  It's always worth remembering something simple about taxes that is especially relevant when discussing things like cap-and-trade, which will supposedly only affect those evil businesses out there (so the liberals say).  If your local store sells widgets for $1.00, and they make a 25¢ profit off each such sale, which is optimum for them, that optimum profit level isn't going to change when the government enacts a 10% tax on business earnings.  The store will not continue selling widgets for $1.00.  They'll raise the price such that they still get 25¢ after the tax is collected.  What that means is that you, the consumer, will be paying $1.10 for your widget, but your salary won't have gone up.  Essentially, you are paying the tax.
• In a Fox News column, it is explained that colleges don't invite conservatives to speak at convocations and similar events.  Hardly a surprise, but the column makes some very interesting points about why that's important and why the treatment conservatives that do receive invitations are dealt is so indicative of people who haven't the slightest bit of civility or open-mindedness about them.

B.O. and the Media

The media loves B.O.  We all knew that during the campaign, but it seems that they just can't get over him.  Much ado (about nothing) has been made regarding B.O.'s first 100 days in office.  Does anyone remember this kind of to-do about any other president's first few days in office?  Of course, the answer is "no" because it hasn't ever happened before.

The recent White House Correspondents Dinner pointed out the media's many flaws.  As Brent Bozell notes in a recent column, the media has gone out of its way to make sure Obama's line is toed and oppositionist voices are not aired.  Of course, this is the same media that is epitomized by the so-called CNN reporter who was supposed to be covering the April 15th TEA Parties, but ended up just criticizing the guy she interviewed on the air.  I still haven't figured out when editoralizing become reporting.  The media love B.O., and since they do, they don't ask hard questions, and like the speakers and comedians at the dinner, they don't criticize him.  It seems it's more fun to continue making fun of President Bush, even though he's no longer news and the point of the dinner having a comedian is to make fun of the current president (late night comedy writers defended the lack of jabs at B.O. by saying he's just been too competent, which means late night comedy writers don't actually pay attention to the news or the president, who once announced he'd visited fifty-seven states).

The Media Research Center released a report on the media coverage of Obama during his (in)famous first 100 days, and they unsurprisingly found that the traditional media voiced opposition viewpoints less than 15% of the time.  It's weird how when I was growing up and having my mind messed with by the public school system that I was always told reporters presented both sides of various stories.  I guess that was just one of those things that only happens in theory.  Also, as a parting thought, other states where oppositionists get their voices heard only 15% of the time have names like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

11 Years Later

Way back in 1998, two friends and I put together our second effort at an entry into a major website design contest sponsored by an organization called Advanced Network and Services, Inc.  It has since been taken over by the Oracle Education Foundation, but the basic premise is still the same: kids design a website and win stuff (now, though, it's down to lame stuff like laptops and cameras instead of scholarships).  (Actually, I could comment more on the changed state of the ThinkQuest competition, but that another long, boring post for another day.)  Our site, Math for Morons Like Us, didn't win in 1998, but it eventually won something called the GEM Award, which was awarded to sites that hadn't previously been awarded anything, but were still visited often and generating feedback from Internet users.  The $10,000.00 scholarship I earned because of that award was one of the greatest blessings I'v experienced as far as education is concerned.

Since that time, the site has taken on a life of its own.  In the early days, my classmates and I received frequent e-mails asking for help with various math problems.  We answered if we could.  We always figured the requests and suggestions would die off after a few years, especially when we were no longer allowed access to our site, which was put in the archives.  It didn't happen.  To this day, I received requests for math help, suggestions on improving the site (my favorite is the occasional request to rename the site because the suggestion that anyone is a moron is somehow offensive to people — my response: lighten up), and requests to use the content (some people, though, just steal it).

I guess I have to admit that I'm kind of proud of the site.  What I like the most, though, is that the site is proving useful.  It's still generating tons of hits.  So many, in fact, that Google's results page divides it up into sections like many of its heavy hitters like news sites or computer company sites.  Even better, it's been included in numerous best-of-the-Web guides, the latest being 100 Amazing How-To Sites to Teach Yourself Anything.  Although I can't fix the mistakes on the site, can't improve it, or anything like that, which sometimes makes me feel like it's not my site, I think it's awesome that our work is still garnering high praise and recognition.

Never-ending

Sometimes the reluctance of the media to move off a subject is annoying.  For once, though, I'm glad we're still talking about one of those stories that just won't go away.  In a column by David Limbaugh, one can read another brilliant defense of freedom of speech as it pertains to should-have-been Miss USA, Carrie Prejean.  If people, especially liberals, were as open to people believing and doing whatever they want as they say they were, we wouldn't ever have heard anything about this.  However, since the Left's idea of an open mind is one that is in lockstep with theirs, this is in the news, and it becomes more and more apparent that true defenders of the first amendment are those who think it's okay for people to express their opinions and tell the truth about the way they feel, not those who would silence someone just because they may hold a differing opinion.

In the same vein, what is it about people getting offended over what others say?  (For a rather humorous viewing experience, watch Ann Coulter's take on asking if she'd like to be waterboarded.  Coulter is one who definitely pays no attention to what others think of her.)  Homosexuals say they're offended by this incident.  Atheists sometimes claim they're offended by people mentioning God in public.  How is this?  How can people be offended by someone expressing what is considered to be an opinion or a point of view (of course, I will go so far as to say it is the correct point of view)?  Why are people defining themselves by what others think of them?  People should define themselves by who they are, not what others think of them.  This is even easier when one understands the simple truth that one is a child of God.