Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

[Vanity question] Whom did Ruth Bader Ginsberg replace? The question never asked or examined.
My magnificent brain | Sept. 26, 2020 | fwdude

Posted on 09/26/2020 3:02:42 PM PDT by fwdude

Leftist/Democrats currently are in an absolute panic over the death, and very probable replacement by a Republican president, of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. They are now promoting the unsubstantiated and wholly strange ideology that a justice - no, just THIS justice - should be replaced:
- with a woman
- with a person of similar judicial philosophy
- by a Democratic President, purportedly the next president

Where did ANY of these bizarre demands have their genesis?

As far as the last demand, it has been emphasized in several rational recent public discussions how that the appointment of a Supreme Court justice in the last year of a president’s term has been the overwhelming RULE, not the exception. There is nothing untoward about the president fulfilling his constitutional duty, no matter where it occurs in his administration. This has even occurred as recently as the Obama administration, when he nominated a replacement justice well less than a year from the end of his term.

As far as the replacement justice being a cookie-cutter judicial mind of the predecessor, I’d like to ask how and why this is now some kind of hard-and-fast rule. A simple question that drops a nuclear bomb on that insistence is simply: Whom did Justice Ginsburg replace? What was the judicial philosophy of the previous Justice? What was the sex?

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was nominated in 1993 by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Byron White, a long-serving justice nominated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. In case it isn’t obvious, Byron White is a man, a white man to be exact. A former highly recognized football player, he played pro football for the Detroit Lions until his career was cut short with the advent of World War II, when he entered the Navy to serve. After the war, he opted to use the money he earned in pro football to attend law school, where he excelled as a law student at Yale, graduating magna cum laude and first in his class. A jock with a brain is virtually a Renaissance man.

White was decidedly conservative in his judicial philosophy. Along with William Rehnquist, White was one of the only two dissenters in the infamous Roe v. Wade case, characterizing the majority opinion as “an exercise in raw judicial power, and “ interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life.” While being a champion of the judicial philosophy of stare decisis White nevertheless never stopped opposing abortion and voted several times in cases to limit abortion.

White also wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which upheld Georgia's anti-sodomy law against a substantive due process attack.

The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.... There should be, therefore, great resistance to ... redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority.

Bowers was overruled over 15 years later by the pernicious Lawrence v. Texas, a decision joined by Justice Ginsburg. So much for stare decisis.

On many other social and personal freedom issues, White took a middle approach, but never lost sight of the ultimate consideration of personal freedom. He voted to strike down state contraception bans in Griswold v. Connecticut, though he refused to join in the majority opinion of “right of privacy” foundations for the decision. White supported the death penalty as long as the penalty was applied proportional to the crime.

It’s not hard to observe that Justice White was hardly of the same legal mind as Ginsburg. However, Ginsburg sailed through judicial confirmation hearings with a final vote of 96 to 3 a modest month-and-a half after nomination.

So, a Jew for a Christian (Episcopalian.) A woman for a man. A rabid abortion advocate for an abortion opponent. An ivory-tower academic elite for a Bronze Star-awarded war hero. A homosexual-“rights” Nazi for a homosexual acts opponent. A stare decisis hater for a stare decisis respecter.

It doesn’t get any starker than this. I’d say it’s time, in the interest of “equal time,” to switch back to a true conservative, which we largely see in Amy Coney Barrett.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: byronwhite; corruption; rbg; ruthbaderginsberg; supremecourt
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-56 next last

1 posted on 09/26/2020 3:02:42 PM PDT by fwdude
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: fwdude

WOW!

This article needs to go stratospheric!!


2 posted on 09/26/2020 3:05:20 PM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Byron White


3 posted on 09/26/2020 3:06:16 PM PDT by DLfromthedesert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Very well argued, thanks.


4 posted on 09/26/2020 3:06:58 PM PDT by Orosius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DLfromthedesert

Oops. Should have read the article before I posted.


5 posted on 09/26/2020 3:07:13 PM PDT by DLfromthedesert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: fwdude
Byron White

In office - April 12, 1962 – June 28, 1993
Nominated by John F. Kennedy

6 posted on 09/26/2020 3:08:21 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Nice essay great points.


7 posted on 09/26/2020 3:08:46 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Great points. The Rats are like Muslims - what they take is theirs forever


8 posted on 09/26/2020 3:09:49 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is EVIL and needs to be eradicated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fishtank

Just wrote in on the fly. Hope there aren’t too many errors in it.


9 posted on 09/26/2020 3:10:17 PM PDT by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DLfromthedesert

Ditto. 8>)


10 posted on 09/26/2020 3:10:25 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: DLfromthedesert
Oops. Should have read the article before I posted.

I thought that was the rule?

11 posted on 09/26/2020 3:12:12 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is EVIL and needs to be eradicated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Great post.


12 posted on 09/26/2020 3:13:28 PM PDT by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Justice Byron White.

13 posted on 09/26/2020 3:13:28 PM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Byron White. The last Democrat appointed Justice that was conservative and actually cared about the law.


14 posted on 09/26/2020 3:16:01 PM PDT by TexasGurl24
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Liz

The name’s important, but WHO Byron White was is what’s pertinent.


15 posted on 09/26/2020 3:16:50 PM PDT by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

I’ve passed your thoughts along to some of my friends who run big sites. I’ve asked that they give you, along with Free Republic, credit for the topic. It may be in either The Gateway Pundit or another similar site.


16 posted on 09/26/2020 3:19:22 PM PDT by Theo (FReeping since 1998 ... drain the swamp.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe

I’m posting a reference to this at some of the leftist sights where I sometimes lurk. BarfFeed first!


17 posted on 09/26/2020 3:19:36 PM PDT by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Theo

Appreciate it. Ive never been published before. The piece needs a little expansion and work, though. Still haven’t found my voice.


18 posted on 09/26/2020 3:20:33 PM PDT by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Robert DeLong
Some highlights.

White was from Colorado, played football for and graduated from C.U.

Lt. White wrote the Navy investigative report on the sinking of PT 109, but by then he was already an old friend of Jack Kennedy.

After law school and a Supreme Court clerkship, White returned to Colorado to practice law.

He decided to chair Kennedy's Colorado campaign when his friend decided to run for President. He was rewarded with a high Justice Department position and later a Supreme Court appointment.

There is a small museum to White in the 10th Circuit Courthouse in Denver, the Byron White Courthouse.

19 posted on 09/26/2020 3:20:50 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

Thanks. 8>)


20 posted on 09/26/2020 3:23:17 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-56 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson