Empathy: It’s Some Weird Commie Shit

by Jim Washburn

Leave it to Senate Republicans to treat “empathy” like it’s a dirty word. One of the talking points they’re using against Sonia Sotomayor is President Obama’s statement that he considers empathy to be a desired quality in a judge.

That, combined with Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” comment is being twisted every which way to imply that, once freed from the restraints of being answerable to a higher court, she’s going to stick a hot pitchfork in Whitey’s ass, then legislate from the bench that “Spanish Harlem” is the new national anthem. They’re not saying that, but they’re meaning it. 

Addressing a conference on Hispanic judges, Sotomayor had said, “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.”

White males, who coincidentally compose most of the Senate, not to mention most boardrooms, have taken great umbrage at this, at least those ones who’ve consistently voted against civil rights, health care, aid to the poor and such.

Maybe I’m reading her wrong, but I see that quote rather as a caution to Latina women on the bench. Sotomayer didn’t say they’d reach better conclusions, but that she “would hope” they would. By the time anyone has a judgeship under his or her belt, they’re pretty much a part of what we used to call “the establishment.” What I think Sotomayor was hoping was that she and other judges of her background would not forget where they’d come from and what they’d been through, and would hence be more inclined to give the poor, underrepresented, disenfranchised schlub standing before her in court a fair shake. That is not always the case, as a considerable body of evidence will attest.

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and his other oppressed white cohorts spent a lot of their time showing very little empathy for empathy. They want blindfolded Lady Justice, unable to see the corporate thumb tipping her scale. They’ve said that a judge having empathy for citizens would result in legislating from the bench.

They might do better to look at how horribly skewed justice becomes when empathy is absent. Look no further than Justice Antonin Scalia, who has gone on record as believing that mere innocence isn’t reason enough for a convict’s retrial, and that torture isn’t “cruel and unusual punishment” because it’s not being meted out as punishment but as a means to extract information. I’d love to hear Scalia explain that to Jesus. Don’t tell Orrin Hatch, but the J-man was also accused of empathy in his day. 

 

Comments

Comments closed.