60% Agree With McCain on Judges
September 6th, 2008 at 12:39am Mark Noonan
From Rasmussen:
During his acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, John McCain told the audience, “We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don’t legislate from the bench.” Most American voters (60%) agrees and says the Supreme Court should make decisions based on what is written in the constitution, while 30% say rulings should be guided on the judge’s sense of fairness and justice. The number who agree with McCain is up from 55% in August.
While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.
In terms of how the Supreme Court currently makes decisions, just 42% of voters think the justices rule from what is in the Constitution. Thirty-percent (30%) say they are guided by a sense of fairness and justice. Democrats are more likely than Republicans and unaffiliated voters to believe the justices base rulings on the Constitution.
It is unsurprising, but still flabbergasting, that only 29% of Obama’s supporters believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution - showing how monumentally foolish liberal voters are; they don’t understand that what 9 justices give, 9 justices can take away…if we got a situation where a solid majority were activists from the right, then liberals would find themselves behind the 8 ball. Much better if we just have judges who look at the written law and apply it, and if its unclear they direct the legislative branch to clarify.
Meanwhile, this is yet another issue McCain/Palin can use to hammer Obama/What’s His Name - the people want judges who enforce the law, not make it up as they go along.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, General Government, Justice System, Republicans
10 Comments
1. Danish Artist | September 6th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Decisions based on the Constitution????
Someone should tell Ruth Buzzy Ginsburg that! She has written in her briefs that some of her more controversial decisions have been based on foreign laws.
Use the Constitution? How utterly amazing!
Well, that would hurt Obama and the leftists.
2. JS | September 6th, 2008 at 9:07 am
what is a “sense” of justice? which judges “sense” is right? one judge says yes, another says no…and still another is divided between the two…there is a conflict there…so making legal decisions based on some “sense” of justice is not the duty of the judge…the constitution is the framework for what is right and what is wrong…and that is what congress does…not courts…to deny the duty that congress has in creating the law…is to say the peoples choice in leaders, and the morals they bring with them to congress, is irrelevant…which is far from what america is all about…
3. neocon | September 6th, 2008 at 10:13 am
After voting against Robert and Alito, Here’s Obama’s criteria for SC judges:
Obama opined that deciding the “truly difficult” cases requires resort to “one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.” In short, “the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.” Indeed, in setting forth the sort of judges he would appoint, Obama has explicitly declared: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old–and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.” So much for the judicial virtue of dispassion
Can you say: Legislate from the bench?
4. kimberly4victory | September 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am
No comments on this thread from Liberals? Not surprising. What say you CO, Casper, SAR?
When I saw this, I thought, WTF, and came to one conclusion … 40% of those polled have lost their brain cells.
And, they think Sarah Palin is dangerous and scary???
We have to do whatever we can to get McCain-Palin elected. Volunteer … Donate …
5. kimberly4victory | September 6th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Still crickets from liberals?
6. Magnum Serpentine | September 6th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Yet another Rasmussen poll
next
7. rich | September 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I though I smelled desperation. Hello Magnum.
8. kimberly4victory | September 6th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Still crickets on the SUBJECT of this thread from our resident Liberals … 10 hours and counting …. tick tock tick tock ….
9. What? | September 6th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Okay Kimberly,
Say tomorrow our government banned birth control. Would you be opposed to this?
Better yet, say that tomorrow our government limited the number of children one family could have. If the mother became pregnant with another child, the state could have that child aborted. Would that be okay with you?
How about forced sterilization?
The Constitution says nothing about protecting your right to have children. It says nothing about birth control or keeping your reproductive organs.
Yet the state cannot force you to have an abortion or hysterectomy. Why is that? It is because our Supreme Court has taken the vague dicatates of the Constitution and extrapolated them into concrete rules of law. Their understanding of the text grants you the right to be free of the horrors set out above.
The poll question reflects the underlying misunderstanding of what the justices do, including Scalia.
You can’t base decisions on what the Constitution says because it is not written in terms that can be applied to specific facts. It is written in broad terms. The justices must put meat on the bones.
Scalia tries to stick with what the Framers meant when they wrote the Constitution when he interprets it. This assumes the following:
1. All framers had the same understanding of what the Constitution said; and
2. Scalia knows this despite the fact most records made during the framing period were destroyed.
Scalia gets to his conclusion the same way all the other justices do. He bases it on HIS own understanding of the text. If he wants to believe he is doing something else, fine.
In essence then, the poll is misleading because it offers a false choice. The jusitices cannot base their decisions strictly on the text of the Constitution because the Constitution does not spell out the outcome of every case before the court.
The proper question is as follows:
Should the court interpret the Constitution liberally or conservatively? (this assumes the public could disregard the political meanings of the terms “liberal” and “conservative”)
This is the correct question because this is what the Court is doing. Those on the left are reading the document broadly while those on the right are reading it narrowly.
10. What? | September 7th, 2008 at 3:04 am
And now the right wing is silent. . . Oh kimberly, where are you? Neocon?
Okay, I’ll even accept Danish Artist on this one.