O'Connor Makes Catchphrase Law of the Land

Chicago Sun-Times (SomeTimes) ^ | 29 June 2003 | Mark Steyn

[mylife]

Usually a Steyn column is so good it requires a cigarette at the end of the reading. This one, however, is smokin' all by itself. (Heart. Be. Still. ;^)

Thanks for the Steyn interview Annaz!! Im looking forward to the next one!

[LibertarianLiz]

That is with out question, but "compelling state interest" is infinitely worse and more destructive to liberty as a legal concept than "diversity."

Both suffer from the same problem of being amorphous. "Diversity" is definitely in the eye of the beholder and can be interpreted in just about any way the colleges need to in order to advance their agenda.

I am so glad that Steyn decided to focus on the "diversity" ruling (let's stop saying this is an "affirmative action" ruling -- the rules of the game have changed and it is now "diversity") vs. a column on the sodomy ruling. Both are outrages, really; but, with the "diversity" ruling, my "equal protection under the law" constitutional right has been taken away from me for the purposes of college admission (and employment I imagine). The same with my children, and (because Sandra decided to arbitrarilly pull a number 25 out of the air) perhaps my grandchildren.

Okay, so I don't have a college education, so perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but isn't that the practical effect of this ruling --- to remove the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution from certain ethnic groups?

[iconoclast]

One of Steyn's best, BUMP!

[Wolfstar]

One of Steyn's most brilliant, biting pieces. Last week's two Supreme Court decisions on race and homosexuality left me profoundly discouraged about the direction our society is taking — more discouraged than I have ever been before in my life. Even Steyn's perfect writing fails to lift my spirits, because I don't see how we can ever turn back from the road the court has sent us down. Sigh.

[AnnaZ]

Thanks for the Steyn interview Annaz!!

No problem at all. Thanks have to go out to diotima as well. Trust me, the pleasure was alllllll ours!

 

;^)

[tet68]

and knew that not only was life as we know it at risk, but maybe even civil war. Who wants to be blamed for that, when proclaiming Diversity to be a higher good than the Constitution itself.

And looking back we can now see that indeed, it WAS the cause of the Second Civil War............Opps, you never read that...........at least not for another 10 years.

The Tetminator68.........I'll be back!

[Jesse]

"No matter how high they soar, the assumption of white liberals like Miss Dowd is that it's because of white liberals making allowances for them."

"Liberal Facism at its finest."


The pathetic "aging schoolgirl" of the NYT, as Steyn recently characterized Dowd, once again skewered and roasted by the master chef himself.

[mrustow]

Liberal Facism at its finest. Yet try to point out the inconsistencies in the way liberals behave and they go ballistic - "what, moi?"

That's why Ann Coulter's books hit such a raw nerve - the truth is painfull.

Socialists stay up nights, figuring how they can devise hate crime laws that will eventually make Annie's books criminal acts -- and how they can maneuver spineless, "me, too" Republicans into going along with it.

[xp38]

Does that dinner invitation extend to other pro American Canadian conservatives? :)

[mrustow]

Okay, so I don't have a college education, so perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but isn't that the practical effect of this ruling --- to remove the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution from certain ethnic groups?

Yes, Liz. Even some of us with college educations are still able to read that.

[weegee]

Hundreds watch rare gay parade in Kolkata, India

[weegee]

They will probably model such laws on existing French and Canadian laws.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Good article. Thanks Pokey.

My point is that laws ought to be about clearly defined acts and a high court should be concerned with the legal principles at stake in those acts.

I couldn't agree more.

[AnnaZ]

Oh, yes. There is, and always has been, an open invitation to all visiting and resident FReepers.

 

;^)

 

(Are you in/coming to L.A.?)

[proud American in Canada]

"As usual, a fine piece of work by Mr. Steyn. In a day or so I'll finish a detailed write-up of the two Michigan cases for a legal website. I'll link that for those Freepers who want 18 pages of legal twaddle, but I personally recommend Steyn's analysis as shorter, and funnier."

Steyn is on a roll, but when isn't he? :)

I'd love to read your legal analysis.

[xp38]

Outside possibility later this summer...I'll let you know :)

[knighthawk]

Ping

[stands2reason]

Agghh!!! I'm sooo jealous..... you lucky lucky girls....

D'you think he'll ever visit us here in Freeperland? That would be nice. Do you know he lurks?

[spodefly]

The correct term is ''racial quotas,'' but that's too bald, too clear. So its proponents came up with the coy evasion of ''affirmative action.'' But over the years that also became tarnished. Hence the invention of ''diversity.'' Who could be against ''diversity''? Who wouldn't want to celebrate it? It's the perfect enlightened vapidity.

Homerun.

[ontos-on]

Succintly, if the state has a compelling interest to have a "diverse" result, so long as it is done in the backroom and not by the numbers, then the state now has license to discriminate against whites, jews, asians, and men, just so its done with smoke. And this is done without self-awareness of the principle that has just been enacted!

The only explanation is to start with the following examples of quota and stealth appointments to the court itself---most markedly the female ACLU lawyer quota [Ginsburg] and the republican fluff head woman from a western state quota-first female on the court--does it make you proud, girls [O'Connor]; and then the quota for how can a republican appointment to the court be made when the president appointing him will not have a clue as to how leftist his positions will actually be--yeah that quota--thank you, Warren Rudman, you sanctimonious snaky blowhard[Souter].

We really should save a fair share of the blame for Orrin Hatch-who has been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for far too long and had a hand in Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer. I guess the Mormon numbskull quota had to be served --but, at least, here it is voters not the intelligentisia giving us the mediocrities [though it is the elite judiciary committee that elects him its feckless chairman, on quota principles of some kind, no doubt] Talk about simpering airheads!

It all started with the Nixon administration trying to appear "mainstream" with quotas for blacks and women. This has destroyed intellectual life in the universities and the resulting generation has now had its effect. One by product has been that young men are no longer going to college because the whole education game has been rigged against them into a feminist fantasy playland from pre-K through graduate school. Wouldn't you really like to be a young boy starting your educational career in these times when fanatical feminst haters of males have been in positions of influence for a generation and have adopted educational principles that "celebrate girls" in order to let "girls rule". That is the situation now, folks, like it or not. A well-meaning teacher cannot even turn the tide. That is why the rules curriculum has to be enforced with such a heavy hand. This is our current diversity delivered to you from a hand behind closed doors. This is the mechanism that has just been enshrined as constitutionally permissible as a compelling state interst to merit the use of suspect race classifications in educational admission decisions! All because swign vote Sandra Day O'Connor felt this is the murky way to go.

Well, when you have quotas and loss of principle up and down the line, you end up with this kind of s_ _ t.