Judge John Roberts warned that the bitter partisan battles over Judge Kavanaugh need to cease. He said that the job of the Supreme Court was to interpret the Constituion and "obviously requires independence from the political branches." Of course, the Left media will have none of that. If the Court keeps making pro-GOP decisions, clearly it is a partisan Court and Roberts is a liar. Roberts clearly needs to "stem the torrent of 73 partisan 5-4 decisions benefiting big Republican interests."
To me, this is similar to the "too many black people in prison" argument. Clearly the fact that there are black people in prison means that the entire nation is racist. Or it could be that black people are doing crimes. Now, it could still be that there is racism in play here. I'm not denying that (as some do). Is it the suggestion of the "anti-racist" folk regarding the disproportionate number of black people in prison that a disproportionate number of innocent black people are in prison? Or is it just that a disproportionate number of white criminals are not being caught? It would be a grand injustice if the vast majority of black people in prison were innocent. But if they're guilty, then the problem isn't that they're too many in prison; it's that there aren't enough white people in prison. That's a different problem. Which is it? Do we need bigger prisons and more arrests and convictions of white criminals, or do we need to overturn the entire judicial system of "a jury of your peers" and start over ... with whatever the black community would deem "just"?
In the SCOTUS question, then, I have a similar question. The Court, numerically it seems, has been handing down a lot of "pro-GOP" decisions. Is that because the Court is pro-GOP, or is it because the standard GOP positions on these questions are in line with the Constitution? Here, let me ask this another way. If we were to grab the founding fathers of our nation -- the ones that laid down our constitution -- and brought them in today and asked them, "What did you have in mind?", would they have a predominantly Left or Right-leaning view? Would they be more in line with modern Democrats or the GOP? Because if it is clear that they were more of the view that the modern Republican party is, it would make perfect sense for an independent Court, reviewing constitutional questions, to come to more modern Republican conclusions. That wouldn't be because they were partisan; it would be because they were following the Constitution.
Well, don't worry. No one will ask these types of questions. We are no longer capable of thinking through things like this. We can only evaluate in terms of "what suits me best," "how I feel about it," and "where my group stands" than by any reasoned perspective. I'm pretty sure that all sides will respond to each other in a partisan fashion with heat and fight because, after all, reason and common sense appear to be dead in our current culture.
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Another one in that arena is women's pay scales. They say women make something likea third of what men do, but i have to ask, what are the variables that go into that equation? In all the jobs I've had, I've been on even keel with my female coworkers as far as I know. Is it only in larger companies that this isa problem? Are they taking into account maternity losses? Are they taking into account the size and profitability of these companies? Necessarily, a female CFO of a small company is going to make less than a male CFO of a large company. So many variables that I don't know are being accounted for, but the only argument being heard is that women make less than men, period.
Statistics is a whole other mess. Women, they say, make about 80% of what men make (last time I looked). "Equal pay for equal work" is the mantra and it even seems reasonable, and when they look at "equal jobs", it doesn't look good. When they look at equal work, on the other hand, it comes out closer to 93-95%. Longer hours, higher productivity, less absences, etc. The bald "80%" changes when all factors are considered, but this is almost always true with any statistics you wish to examine.
I always suspect statistics, nearly 85% of the time.
Seriously, it's never really a good idea to statistics in any argument unless you can fully articulate all the parameters. Others the opposite opinion will just nit-pick it to death.
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