Sotomayor's dissent from the other judges in Pappas v. Giuliani (2002) seriously creeps me out:
http://1stam.umn.edu/archive/fed...tapp/
Pappas.pdf
This is a ruling on whether or not the NY Police could fire a New York city police officer who sent hate literature to an auxilary police association that solicited him for donations.
In contradistinction to what the other four judges had to say, Sotomayor's opinion was that the police officer's right to free speech had been violated by the NY Police.
Here's some of what Pappa's right to free speech entitled him to say, according to the lone dissenting opinion of Sotomayor:
"The materials included printed fliers
9 conveying anti-black and anti-semitic messages. The fliers asserted white supremacy, ridiculed 10 black people and their culture, warned against the “Negro wolf . . . destroying American 11 civilization with rape, robbery, and murder,” and declaimed against “how the Jews control the 12 TV networks and why they should be in the hands of the American public and not the Jews.”"
[Yeah, that's the kind of maniac I want working in my city's police force.]
For the interested, here is a round-up of summaries of her "notable opinions" according to Scotus:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com...9_05/
018353.php
Her recent controversial comments are troubling, IMO, and so is her dissent in the case above.
I haven't read the decision in Pappas, but from the Internet commentary, the key fact for her was the racist employee did not have a policing role, and he did not make the racist comments at work.
From Pappas:
"LEVAL, J.:
2 This appeal raises the question whether a municipal police department may, without
3 violating the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, terminate a police officer by"
It would appear that he was a police officer, even though he had a desk job. He was solicited for donations by an auxillary police association, because he was a police officer. He replied by stuffing the requests for donations with hate mail, and he sent them back anonymously - which indicates to me that he knew his acts would be considered 'wrong' by his community.
He had responsibility for the maintenance of the NY Police computer systems. It may be reasonably inferred from the contents of the materials he sent that he's a white supremacist.
A white supremacist blew up a government building and little children in Oklahoma. I can certainly picture one being willing to 'blow up' a police computer system in the name of starting a 'race war.' Would you really endorse someone like Pappas having control of sensitive police data, Pithy?
I think I'd side with the majority, but I'm sympathetic to her point that there has to be a tie between the beliefs and his job duties.
fair enough, Pithy.
I wonder what it feels like to live in a country that has freedom of speech.
I bet it feels nice.
"A white supremacist blew up a government building and little children in Oklahoma. I can certainly picture one being willing to 'blow up' a police computer system in the name of starting a 'race war.'"
Wow... I've read fallacious reasoning before but... wow!
@ Watertight re your: "Wow... I've read fallacious reasoning before but... wow!"
Oh, is it? Well, could you teach me a little, how to reason like you, by working out for me step by step how the reasoning is fallacious, - to the degree of "wow" ??
That would be very kind of you. And I thank you in advance, because I know that, as this will be easy for you, you won't say 'no.'
I'd never refuse a lady's request.
I suppose I might illustrate your conclusion by way of an example from your side of the political street:
Devotees of Bakunin have done some beastly things, therefore a government clerk who sends out anarchist literature deserves to lose his job.
Please feel free to run the simulation with "Marxist", "environmentalist", "Fanonist", or "Muslim" instead of "anarchist", according to taste.
You seem to be advocating a totally unprincipled, results-oriented approach to critiquing legal decision-making. There may be a job for you as a Critical legal scholar at one of Canada's finer universities.
Thank you for your reply, Watertight. It's very kind of you to help me out on this.
How would you define "anarchist literature," then, if I may be so bold? And, do you see a difference between "anarchist literature" and "hate literature," - if so, what do you see the difference as being, if I may ask?
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Of course, I meant "confusion" when I wrote "conclusion". I seem to have pulled a Sotomayor:
http://theamericanscene.com/2009...-and-
banalities
Ms. Tunay,
Is this some sort of Fabian-type strategy to exhaust me with a succession of requests for clarification until I drop from exhaustion?
I don't quite grasp the import of your question but I'll attempt to answer it anyway. "Hate literature" is a contentless expression. The materials you cited express rude opinions about the law-abidingness and probity of a couple of "progressive peoples"; let's say our "anarchist literature" actually calls for propaganda of the deed, which is to say violence, against identifiable groups (police, lawyers of the AG's office, people who earn over $200,000 p.a., it doesn't matter). Let's say it's a Malatesta tract.
Wouldn't that be rather worse than the statements you so breathlessly quoted? And yet I imagine your reaction to this hypothetical case would be rather less indignant.
Now justify your law-free critique of the decision. Do you really feel that good decisions are ones in which The Good Guy wins and The Bad Guy loses, wholly in isolation from any consideration of the relevant law or its application to the facts?
I'm not sure Watertight's example is watertight. Even in the United States, with its strong free speech protections, the NYPD could fire an anarchist who advocated anti-state terrorism. That's a particularly easy case, becasue there aren't a lot of innocent explanations for why an anarchist would take the job in the first place.
to Watertight re your question to me:
"Do you really feel that good decisions are ones in which The Good Guy wins and The Bad Guy loses, wholly in isolation from any consideration of the relevant law or its application to the facts?"
In a word, no. A decision may be legally sound based on what was known to the judge at the time of his/her ruling - and still be the wrong decision. That's one way well-intentioned judges end up convicting the wrong person.
Your other questions were rude and hostile in tone and do not merit a response.
Here's an interesting article from today's NY Times giving info on J. Sotomayor's legal history:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/1...dge.html?
ref=us
PL,
You're right. The Muslim example works rather better, particularly given Ms. Tunay's predilections.
The latest re Sotomayor:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/...-Fire.html?
_r=1
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