Okay, I ain’t thrilled by the Harriet Miers pick for the Supreme Court, but I have to disagree with a lot of the conservative critics out there. They talk about her not having distinguished qualifications, and that just means they are falling into the trap of making the job of a Supreme Court seem more complex than it is.
So what is the job of a Supreme Court Justice? It’s to interpret the Constitution. And what is the Constitution?
A FOUR PAGE DOCUMENT!
Think about it: the job of a Supreme Court Justice – his only job for his entire life – is to understand four pages of text. Why do you even need a legal degree for this? I’m not even sure you need a high school diploma. The two times I took the SATs, I got a 770 out of 800 on the verbal. One of those times, I got every single reading comprehension question right. I think that more than qualifies me to be an excellent Supreme Court Justice. In fact, I might be too qualified.
Really, if you look at it, this job is just barely too difficult to have a Chimp do it. It ranks slightly higher in complexity than the guy who rips your ticket in two when you enter the cinema complex and tells you what theater to go to.
Four pages, people. And it’s your only job to understand them. For most people, that would take less than an hour, but, as a Supreme Court Justice, you have your entire life.
Okay, it’s slightly more complex than that as there are like twenty-seven Amendments (none of them very long) and some of the S’s in the document look like F’s, but this ain’t brain surgery people. It’s not even taking someone’s blood pressure.
But, people have to act like it’s so much more complicated than that. There’s a big academic debate out there whether the Constitution gives an individual or collective right to bear arms, but the average citizen is completely unaware of that debate. Most know there is an individual right to bear arms because THAT’S WHAT THE DOCUMENT SAYS. Really, a level-headed twelve-year-old could do a better job than some of the academic pinheads now serving. And the President could appoint a twelve year-old (if you don’t believe me, read the Constitution – it’s only four pages!).
And, no, I don’t want the job. I spent four years in college learning digital circuitry, and thus I find the simplistic job of a Supreme Court Justice beneath me. If you want a new pick, I’d say check the fry cooks at the local McDonalds. Just don’t take one from the McDonalds next to my house, because it’s already understaffed. Actually, if Souter quit his current job and worked there, he’d being doing a lot more good for his country.
first for the first time
And the four pages weren’t written by constitutional scholars from Harvard either.
They weren’t even U.S. citizens!
Umm…spacemonkey? Remember the Articles of Confederation? Our first government here in the USA? That means that the people who wrote the Constitution (our second government) WERE US citizens…..barely, but still.
Sugarplum,
They weren’t American born, that’s for sure.
No, they were not born as American citizens. That is true. But I think they were technically citizens, even though they didn’t have Social Security Numbers or Green Cards. I could be wrong, though.
And take a look at page four. It’s mostly signatures. So make that a three and a half page document.
Man, couldn’t even write our own Constitution. Had to contract it out to a bunch of illegal immigrants.
They were legal immigrants. It was the whole war thing that was illegal. As far as George III was concerned. Not as far as the legal immigrants were concerned.
Mountain Mama,
The then natives of North America might have had some dispute on the legality of the immigration 🙂
Probably not, Frank. The then-natives of North American didn’t have much idea of what a country was. Bear in mind that nobody who lived in the Americas prior to 1500 or so, except for a few in the Yucatan peninsula, could write.
sugarplum –
I had the same thought as you, but when I checked the Articles of Confederation, I didn’t find anything about what it takes to be an American citizen.
The overall point about constitutional law being difficult, however, is absolutely correct (and I’ve studied it). Particle physics is hard. Neuroscience is hard. Constitutional law is just complex, because lawyers and judges have made it that way. It isn’t really hard. One of the real tragedies of the United States over the past forty years or so is tha hundreds of thousands of (usually) smarter-than-average people have gone into the practice of law instead of doing something productive.
I’m confused. They weren’t born in the U.S.? Hadn’t we (they) established colonies looong before 1776 or 1789, since we’re refering to the Constitution?
Did all our founding fathers sail over here in the years immediately prior to the Declaration & Constitution being written?
I’d appreciate a (somewhat—I know this is IMAO) serious response. But I won’t hold my breath.
I stand corrected.
Article I. The Stile of this Confederacy shall be “The United States of America.”
The U.S.A. was created/named by the Articles of Confederation which if you’ll read the end,
“…ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America.”
that means 7/9/1778
The “Third Year of the independence of America”? Well, 7/4/1776-7/3/1777 are the first year.7/4/1777=7/3/1778 are the second year.7/4/1778=7/3/1779 are the third year, so it was in the third year.
None of the signers were likely zero.
Chris,
I don’t think the dispute is over where the authors of the Constitution was born. It’s more a matter of the status of the places in which they were born. Very likely, most of them were born in the Colonies, as opposed to England, but they weren’t technically born in the United States, because that hadn’t become an independent nation yet. Does that make sense?
Also, I’m html-stupid and need some help here. I’m trying to add a link here by putting it in the URL box and this is what I have and it’s not working. Advice?
Sugarplum
The constitution itself IS pretty easy to understand…but remember, that isn’t the supreme court’s only job…they also have to be the last stop in the legal chain, which has to interpret all the laws made by congress. That still wouldn’t be that big of a problem, if the people in congress were sane…(laws like, “don’t kill people” are somewhat straightforeward)
But you guys are forgetting a very important fact…the people in congress aren’t sane…and they are now more sane than they were when most of today’s relevant legislation was being written. Up until ’94, the dem’s controlled most of the law-making in this country…and you know both how crazy they are, and how much they like to complicate the law…for example “don’t kill people, unless they are really, really sick or aren’t born yet,” (I’m not saying this is a paraphrase of an actual law, but I think you guys know what I’m talking about) only much, much worse, and dealing with things like jurisdiction over cases, procedure in the judicial branch, and corporate law/regulations…and there is a lot of that kind of law out there.
The majority of the cases before the supreme court are really complicated, and only got there for that reason.
So, while Miers could be extremely qualified, she hasn’t proven it yet, and the fact that Bush appointed her instead of someone who was obviously qualified, is pretty disappointing. Especially since they haven’t defended her by bringing out her qualifications, because they aren’t enough. This republican administration is resorting to what ammounts to afirmative action, not only for women, but also for religions, and I (as a conservative) am not happy that Bush wants to use afirmative action to justify any of his picks.
It’s possible for me to be convinced that Miers is the right pick, and it will probably happen when she testifies, but it’s still disappointing that Bush didn’t appoint someone who was more easily defendable, and who we could pin down on beliefs more easily.
I think we deserve that much for our support, and I don’t like having to wait to get confirmation of it.
Frank,
I cited your post in my blog. I tried to trackback, but I got a message that the trackbacks weren’t working. It might be me.
I was just having this rant the other day. Of course, it was just the voices in my head arguing but still, I made similar points. However, I advocated that POTUS nominate a dog-catcher to SCOTUS. Cause a dog catcher would know what to do when people started foaming at the mouth.