Confirmation Hearing: TexasGurl (Associate Justice)

[adam]

As you can see TexasGurl, your nomination hasn't been met by many warm hearts, I am assuming that this is the result of your previous work within the Atlasian government. So I'd like to ask;

If voted in, would you push a "radical leftist agenda" or would you, in the name of fairness,  reach across the border and govern in a bi-ideological manner?

[adam]

I don't expect TexasGurl to govern in a "bi-ideological" manner for several reasons.  The first is that we don't have two ideologies in Atlasia; we have roughly four. 

While that's cute Mr. President, I feel as though the point is more valid than any descrepencies in the language by which it was made. I'll elaborate in the next paragraph.

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I would argue the complete opposite Mr. President. Court Justices, like senators and governors, are public servants. Their job, while is to interpret the consititution, is to also do so in the best intrest of the people. I worry that someone with a history of abrasiveness will work against the senate, and thus work against the process of helping the Atlasian public. The court should have one body's agenda in mind, the public's. I worry that your nominee lacks this, what is in my mind, essential quality.

I am a fair man, and thus I will not strike a candidate down based on their matrix numbers. However, I think that I make a valid point and would really like to be convinced otherwise by the nominee.

[adam]

That view is abhorrent.  Working in the public interest is what has given us many of the United States Supreme Court's recent decisions.  If the Court makes an unsound decision they can just say that they were working in the public interest.  For example, Sandra Day O'Connor said that affirmative action may become unconstitutional after, say, fifty years once it has run out its purpose.  Does that sound logical or fair to you?  There is a reason we try not to allow that here.  We need at least one branch of the government that is not responsible to the public, and the judicial branch is it.

As far as the O'Connor incident is concerned, a vast majority of people have been claiming that AA has run it's course and is rather unconstitutional since the mid to late 80s. So I would say that her  assumption was in the intrest of the people. I'll provide you with another example, one that you may have been adament about as a real life Democrat. The 2000 election ruling. Would you be willing to concede that they did not have a responsibility to uphold the will of the people? I of course supported the decision for numerous other reasons, but tell those who believe Gore won Florida that SCOTUS did not have a responsibility to uphold public will. Now you Mr. President, as the first president in the history of Atlasia to be re-elected...I must say that I am disappointed in your assumption that any form of government should be free from public will. Had it not been for the strong public will, I'd probably be having this conversation with Andrew Berger.

Do you know what you get when you have a bench of people who can very much so alter the government and political landscape without one peice of input fromt he general public? An oligarchy. A form of government that has been proven to fail, and proven to oppress.

All of that aside, I think we are leaving the topic of TexasGurl. I consider her a friend, and she's probably wanting to put a foot upside my ass right about now...but I truly have concerns about her ability to do this job based on what I have read from her in the past. I am still undecided, and I appreciate her response.

[adam]

Affirmative action did not become "rather unconstitutional."  The constitutionality of something does not change based on shifting social norms.  The only thing that can change the constitutionality of something is a constitutional amendment.

The constitutionality of something changes with the evolution of man's intelligence. Just as slavery went from a business to an unconstitutional practice.

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The public opinion (at the time) were strongly behind recounting the votes. Thus, it was also an issue public will.

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To be free from answering to the public is to be free from public will.

Ebowed, we could go back and forth like this for days, but we would still be trailing off course. We are here to discuss TexasGurl, not the priorities of the generic SC Justice.

[adam]

Nay.

I can't say that it's an easy decision, but I am here to make good decision without the influence of friendship.