This is in response to Ms. Bzymek’s “Roberts unfit to represent nation”column last Friday, September 7.
When talking about John Roberts, you have to wonder about any of Bush’s nominees.
Often they contributed either a lot of money or time to his campaign and are probably not the right men for the job – i.e. FEMA chief Mike “Brownie” Brown, ambassador John “I will destroy you” Bolton and Don “Don Rumsfeld” Rumsfeld (don’t even try to defend him).
Roberts is no exception – having helped the Bush 2000 team scale democracy down to the nine people on the very bench he is now nominated to serve on.
Roberts is not evil but he is definitely an economic Republican – thus, I believe, making his views out of step with most of America.
From “www.savethecourt.org”:
“Roberts played an important role in an unsuccessful Reagan Administration effort to make it harder to prove violations of the Voting Rights Act. …
Roberts criticized the Supreme Court for overturning a Texas law designed to keep undocumented immigrant children from getting a public education. …
While in the White House, Roberts urged that the administration should ‘go slowly’ on proposed fair housing legislation, claiming that such legislation represented ‘government intrusion.'”
These are all examples of what the GOP is really about: staying in power and consolidating wealth – by cutting taxes, social programs and poor people’s odds of succeeding in half.
Throw in some “family values” – like those guys really have any (Giuliani, Gingrinch, Packwood, etc.) – and some fear and it sells to the masses. Roberts exemplifies the Republicans.
I also think people have a hard time deciding what an activist court is.
When it’s time to overturn women’s reproductive rights, is that not an activist court? Or maybe the recent landmark decision upholding loose interpretation of eminent domain laws – by this decidedly conservative court – qualifies?
The liberal courts of years past were activist as well. They expanded civil rights and individual rights – such as desegregating our society – by correctly and morally deciding controversial cases (Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, Plessy v. Ferguson).
This man, Roberts, doesn’t think like that – he is not a friend of freedom, only free markets. He may very well be screwing us all well after G.W. retires from that duty.
