Newt Is Both Right and Wrong

Calling Sotomayor racist...

Her statement isn't racist. It's stupid and wrong, but not racist. Racist is such a loaded word and in my circles it can't really be used without a touch of irony. I mean, as long as we're going this route, I can't say in my personal experience I've really encountered or had much interaction with a died-in-the-wool racist. I've heard stupid slips and mean jokes and all that sort of stuff, but never anyone who actually came out and said - "oh yeah, of course this so-and-so group is an inferior breed of people and aren't deserving of rights, etc." To be honest, the closest out-and-out racism I've witnessed are attitudes towards Arabs expressed by hardcore Israeli sympathizers who have literally argued Arabs are inferior for x,y,and z reason. Of course, this is not an excuse, but it is pretty obvious a lot of Arabs feel the same way about Israelis. I suppose I met this Russian girl in college who though Asiatic people were not to be trusted...but I'm veering off course here. These are impotent people I'm talking about.

Newt is trying to play the reverse-race game and excite the Republican base, who I could care less about. The point, however, is this:

What Sotomayor's speech reveals is that she believes (as many people on both sides of the ideological spectrum do) that issues in this country concerning ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation etc. cannot be appreciated or understood by people who do not identify with the group in question.

This dangerous and very prevalent mode of thinking means that any judge who does not have a background in one of these areas is less capable of making judgements concerning a civil liberties case than someone who can identify with the affected group. It automatically calls into question the decision making process of any judge by suggesting that their ability to make correct decisions is not based on an objective analysis of the law but on past personal experiences.