I find the positions that the local talk show-folks are taking concerning Harriet Miers
to be totally mind boggling. I am hearing them say that her nomination is great, and that they are taking the "glass is half full" position. How can that position in any way represent a half full glass?
Clearly, Miers is inexperienced on the subject of the legal system from the point of view of being a judge. Therefore, she will most likely have to depend to a large measure on her "gut" reactions or opinions to things. That, of course, means that she will be depending upon her personal morals and mores in her decision making. That might be OK with me if they happened to align with my personal morals and mores, but I suspect that they won’t. We know that she sides very closely with Bush's opinions. We know what those are, and they don't fit into any 1/2 full model that I am aware of. She is almost certainly a very strong, probably fundamentalist, Christian (evidenced by the crosses that she wears). My guess is that she is probably a “born again” Christian with a very conservative, fundamentalist, point of view.
So we know that she doesn't have the necessary background, she is probably a fundamentalist "born again" Christian and is almost certainly extremely conservative (otherwise she would not be friends with Bush or his administration). The contention that because she has no track record, and that she will probably not give Congress much information about her beliefs, means that she will be OK is absurd. I have heard no reason to assume that she will be anything other than a very right wing, highly religious, opinionated judge. I think it is necessary to probe much more deeply into her points of view before we blindly accept that she will make decisions that are good for the country.
The local media has the audacity to imply that no matter what her current beliefs are, they might change for the better. Sure it is possible that they might change for the better, they might very well change for the worse. Assuming (or maybe it is hoping) that a person might change in ways that we like doesn't make sense to me. I think it is absurd to chose someone who appears to have what we consider to be negative attributes without finding out for sure what we are getting. Hoping that they might possibly turn out to be good, or that the person might change their point of view in the future, doesn’t make sense to me. Why not find out what she thinks and what makes her qualified for the job, and then make a decision based on that?
I am interested in what is meant by the administration’s statements that she will strictly uphold the laws, and not make them, means. “Harriet Miers will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from the bench," Bush said. This sounds great, but what does that mean? Does that mean that she will interpret them from the “Christian” point of view? Maybe it means from the point of view of the time when they were written as opposed to today. This could be just what we need, or it could be just what we don’t need. The reason that we need a Supreme Court is to help interpret the Constitution in light of our present needs. The Constitution needs to be interpreted because it gives general guidelines and goals, rather then specific details, of our rights and freedoms. To strictly interpret the Constitution in terms that were in the minds of the original authors means that we will be losing centuries of learning and growth. Our society has changed over the years. The interpretation of the Constitution must be flexible enough to keep up with those changes. A “strict interpretation” may not be what we need to help guide us into the future.
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