Sonia Sotomayor is candid enough at times to let her judicial philosophy be known. Anyone who has the slightest idea why lady justice is blindfolded has to be horrified by her stated convictions. I heard someone complaining that 105 of 109 (or thereabouts) Supreme Court justices have been white men. Imagine if complaints were made about the racial balance of the NBA or any other industry dominated by a particular people group. The profound confusion here is between equality under the law (which recognizes that only the most qualified people get promoted regardless of race and that the law sees no skin color) and egalitarianism which demands that certain people groups be promoted over others, merit notwithstanding.

Think this is too harsh? Consider New Haven firefighter David Ricci who was denied a promotion by Sotomayor simply because no minority colleagues scored high enough on exams to get promoted as well, so all promotions were denied by the city. At least in this case it looks likely that Sotomayor’s ruling will be overturned. What is more difficult to set straight is an entire judicial system that thinks this way–judges who make decisions based on what they think the law should be or mean rather than what it does. To find out what something means, you actually have to understood who said and what they meant when they did so; you have to be an originalist. Otherwise, you can disregard any law (the Constitution, for example) because they people who wrote it down were white or black or racists or rich or not enlightened in whatever current sacred identity or idea you think is important. Sotomayor confesses she knows the judicial branch is supposed to only apply and enforce laws made by the legislative branch, but she can’t help doing otherwise. Afterall, it wasn’t a bunch of enlightened minorities who came up with that idea.