Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor: ‘Sometimes You Have To Do the Unexpected’

Der Spiegel ^ | April 02, 2014 – 12:43 PM | Samiha Shafy

[Olog-hai]

“You know, it’s almost a life motto (‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’). If you read the book (My Beloved World), you know I’m very law abiding. But I make it very clear that, like all people, there are exceptions. I like driving fast. I’m a pure New Yorker and I jaywalk. None of us is perfect. Sometimes you have to do the unexpected.” […]

“In the United States, certain segments of society played with quotas for a number of years. What ended up happening is that the larger population got angry. And the Supreme Court ultimately said that quotas were not acceptable under the US Constitution. I think that some of it is driven by the American concept that success should always be based on merit. The problem with that concept, I think, as most people know, is that success is not always about merit.” […]

When the Supreme Court takes a case, it’s because there is a disagreement among the courts below. It means that the issues are not clear under existing law. All of that lack of clarity is usually around issues that are important to the society—like Obamacare, same-sex marriage—and every decision we make is final. Every time we decide, even when I’m in the majority and I think we’re right, you know that there’s a loser. There is another side who is going to feel something negative about what has happened. And that makes this job harder. Once we decide, there is no more hope. …

[1010RD]

success is not always about merit =

sometimes it is political cronyism.

[faithhopecharity]

Even if success is not always about merit (like a certain occupant of the WH), merit is still the primary goal. The state has no right whatsoever to undermine this core American principle by force of arms. It’s extremely destabilizing, it causes great damage to millions of innocent citizens, and it undermines our economic prosperity ( or, given we lost that four or five years ago, it impedes our another to recover if so many jobs are forced to be occupied by less than capable or meretricious people ).