John Roberts, the Supreme Court, and Affirmative Action

There's really not a lot of new stuff except for tail chasing, but I found a couple of things.



dKosopedia's entry on John Roberts is surprisingly factual and readable.



I knew it was too good to be true department: Michelle Malkin uncovers a rather large fly in the John Roberts ointment: He appears to be in favor of preferences rather than color-blindness. Mind you, he was the lawyer involved in the the case, and so had to represent his clients best interests publicly from start to finish, and his quote does start with the words, "It could have been worse."



President Bush, who will apparently do almost anything in the quest to move another state into the Elephant column, has come out in favor of self-government for indigenous Hawaiians. Just what we need: another Bureau of Indian Affairs and another set of tribal governments.



Let me make one thing perfectly clear: colorblindness in the law is a good thing, indeed, a necessary thing if we are to continue living together indefinitely as the United States of America. Tribal Spoils systems are a large part of why Yugoslavia split apart, why sub-saharan Africa is so so screwed up, and why we are having so many problems in Iraq. This may be a long-term concern but we have had people trying to force us to live in the hispanic States of America or the Black States of Afro-America pretty much from the instant the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act became law forty years ago. The idea was to demolish racism, not set it up with new beneficiaries. The idea was to abolish discrimination not set it up in favor of those previously discriminated against because "Hey, they're an organized interest group now!" When I hear people claiming to be philosophical children of Martin Luther King supporting segregated college dormitories, I cannot help but marvel at the disconnect from I have a Dream.



We're a lot closer in the United States, and have more in the way of common experiences than the tribes of Africa prior to Independence (What names have I heard in the news over the last forty years?), or the ethnicities of Iraq (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, Chaldean - where have I heard those names in the news since 1991?), or even the six republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro - where have I heard those names in the news since 1991?) and two autonomous areas (Vojvodina and Kosovo - where have I heard those names in the news since 1991?) of Yugoslavia. It will take us longer to fly apart than it took them. But fly apart we will, and until it is imminent nobody except "crackpots" like me will believe it can happen.



So I happen to think real colorblindness in the law is important. I heavily oppose anything that smacks of a Racial Spoils System or so-called Reverse Discrimination. When people feel that their skin color or gender prevents them from getting ahead, they opt out of the system that produces such feelings. This is about as surprising as the law of gravity, but we cannot stop them and we cannot afford for them to go. Our federal government has personnel practices in place such that if you are a member of group A, and you think you've been unfairly treated in your yearly evaluation, the burden of proof is on the supervisor, even if that supervisor is the same ethnicity and gender as yourself, to prove that the evaluation was correct, and the supervisor will not be praised if the supervisor wins the case, indeed, giving good evaluations to members of group A is part of what they are rated on. If you are of group A, the hiring authority must document why somebody not of your group was clearly better qualified, and hiring persons of group A is part of what they are evaluated on even if they are members of group A themselves. If you are of group A, you are to receive first priority for all career enhancing training, and getting you that training is part of what your supervisors are evaluated on. Group B has no such advantages. The burden of proof is on them to prove their evaluation was flawed. They can be passed over without documentation, and if they never get career enhancing training, hey, that's money saved for the taxpayers! It's great if you're a member of group A, but if you're a member of group B, you want out. And if anyone needs me to sketch out the historical flips in polarity of this, you haven't been paying attention.



So I am not happy about the prospect of John Roberts favoring "Hawaiian only," and I'll be less happy about it if it bleeds over to other racial (and gender) issues. I do hope it was the consummate lawyer speaking his professional case, not his personal convictions, which is one reason why I have decided that I still support him. This will change if I lean of personal convictions favoring affirmative action. This is a lot more important to the long term health of our country than Roe vs. Wade or Kelo vs. New London. We can survive either of them indefinintely. People will be upset, not the least of whom is myself. What violence they have caused or may cause is individual, small scale. But when you play with a racial spoils system, or anything that advantages one group at the expense of another (and you cannot give advantage to one without giving disadvantage to another), you are playing with dynamite that could cost millions of lives, tear the country apart into fragments, and depending upon who becomes the greatest power in the world after us (most likely China), undo all of the progress towards democracy and human rights that we have made these last two centuries. We have to very pointedly stop this and turn our backs on it for all time.



We are a nation of individuals, some worthy, some less so. Those who climb to the top of the ladder deserve to know that they didn't get there based upon what group they were a member of. And those who go nowhere should not be allowed the illusion that it was because they were born a member of some group, and the only way to ensure this is to actually give all people an equal opportunity, no matter what group they are a member of. Failing to do so is not an option. That way lies more civil wars, and more destruction, than anybody except dedicated historians can really tell you. It can happen here - it'll just take a little longer. The true test of our society is not whether we've got (or had) a woman president, a non-white president, or a congress or supreme court that happens to always be represented exactly in the proportions they exist in the population. We will have arrived where we want to be when nobody gives a damn, when it is unacceptable for anyone to support or oppose anyone because of what group they were born in, and when the question that's important is "What kind of a job will X do?"



Supreme Court John Roberts Affirmative Action politics