If it is good for the goose it is good for the gander

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177230,00.html
As unfortunate as it is, the truth remains that much of the current legal field in this country relies on strategies more than common sense. Why then is it a "smoking gun" that Alito had a strategy? I fail to see that as a legitimate complaint and will never vote for any Senator, Representative, or other individual who uses it as leverage against Alito...or, for that matter, any other individual who has a strategy to work towards overturning what they believe is spurious precedent.
The law of this land is constantly changing. For a person to actively work to make it change to conform to their belief of what it should be is commendable whether the position they seek is or not. A lot of back alley shenanigans went on to get Brown v Board of Education in place to overturn Plessy v Ferguson. I don't know anyone that would argue that change, accomplished in large part via legal professionals backdooring what they believed to be an unjust precedent, was a bad thing.
However, there is a horrible, horrible statement that might go unnoticed. "Its position was that abortion is a subject that can be the subject of modest, reasonable regulations to protect the health of women, and to protect the state's interest in unborn life." I cannot aptly verbalize or communicate how odious that phrase "the state's interest in unborn life" is.
The state does not own children. The csd or whatever stupid acronym they go by now might claim otherwise...social workers in every state, country, continent, and world in the universe might claim otherwise but that statement goes contrary to every principle this country was founded on.
It sickens me the idea, the hypothesis, the theory, the thing treated as fact, that the state claims ownership of the children and claims the parents merely keep them in trust. Grade a bullsmurf.
You want to find a "plank" that will get me not just voting against you but actively campaigning for your defeat? Back the idea that children are state property.
Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Schumer makes a pretty counterintuitive statement. For him to question the "objectivity" of Alito because Alito might hold an opinion that disagrees with his indicates Schumer has inalienable truth and right on his side, that he IS objective and therefore anyone who disagrees with him is not objective...uh-uh. Not that he is my rep, but if he were...he would have just lost any chance of me ever voting for him.
I will barely mention Kennedy. A more partisan, disconnected piece of smurf I have seldom seen. His comments carry as much weight in a strong, informed discussion as...oh, I don't know...Willy? From Free Willy...you might remember him as the whale who starred in a movie about the need for whales to be free while himself being a captive whale.
Alito instantly got my support when he said, "I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law." Of course, the agenda-driven media quantifies this as him "distancing himself" from pro-life views. Okay, whatever. What this country needs is more judges who ignore personal views in favor of merely interpreting the law.
As for the Specter questions about the right to an abortion in the Constitution...it was not there. That is a created piece of legislation from a time period with a completely different mindset just as...say...Title IX. That is not to argue it should or should not be there, merely to point out the source of power for the law is not what Specter is assuming it to be.
Alito's comments on the need of judges to avoid activism should be taken by every judge in this country.
And the concluding paragraph really strikes at the heart of one thing that is wrong with this countries judicial system...the overbearing reliance on precedent.
People make mistakes. Judges make mistakes. When they do it is important those mistakes be rectified. If not for judges overturning mistakes Native Americans might still have no standing before the law. It took a brave judge to overturn precedent and declare Standing Bear a person. http://darthweasel.blogspot.com/2005/07/standing-bear-is-person.html
Ha, I just used myself as a source. Go me!
It took some wise judges to overturn nearly a century of precedent in Brown v Board of Education. It took brave men to overturn precedent and make the death penalty illegal and then to make it legal again.
Not all precedent overturning is right...but not all precedent is right. I really had no opinion on Alito for quite some time but I always like a person who sets aside personal desires to do what is right. And what I saw here looked pretty good.
Naturally, in this country that means he probably has no chance, but...whatever.