A couple clips I did see were pretty disgraceful. Most notably Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) fawning all over Sotomayor, talking about the judge's wonderful background and all that. So syrupy, so condescending and patronizing. If I was Sotomayor, I probably would have got up and walked out.
In the book, Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell says that liberals treat blacks -- and apparently other minorities, too -- like mascots. And, by the way, I totally recommend this book. I don't have a copy anymore because I gave it to someone else, and they tell me that certain phrases and thoughts from it keep coming back to them. Same with me. It's a terrific outline of the differences between liberals and conservatives.
Anyway, Feinstein at least treated Sotomayor like a mascot. Worse, even. More like a cocker spaniel puppy. "Isn't she cute? Isn't it marvelous that she came so far?" I didn't see too many of the other sentor's statements. Maybe Sessions offering his version of being a ruthless interrogator or something. The real hearings don't start until tomorrow. Today was just get-your-face-on-TV for the senate.
Been thinking all day about how disgusting Feinstein acted. I just can't imagine talking to someone the way Feinstein talked to Sotomayor in public. Feinstein looked so.... bigoted. Like she was overcompensating for her bigotry by going way overboard in the other direction. Yet I don't want to feel sorry for Sotomayor.
In fact, I kinda wonder about the richness of Sotomayor's experiences as a Latina woman, or the authenticity of them. After all, how many Latino kids from the projects in the Bronx get a scholarship to Princeton and then go on to Yale Law School? I mean, is that typical? Does Sotomayor's background reflect any particular hardship? More like she had enormous good fortune and, as Jefferson would say, the harder you work, the luckier you get.
And I really don't think Sotomayor had that difficult of a background to overcome. My dad died when I was a kid, leaving my mom with two young daughters (I was 11, my sister was 12) and three sons who were grown and out of the house with families of their own. My mom had to work, too, and had never worked before outside the home. Her jobs were not exactly executive level, but we got by. We were never on welfare and didn't live in the projects. I went to school on a scholarship, graduated cum laude, but didn't go to law school. Didn't want to be a lawyer, really. A lot of people come from a similar situation, and I would guess that most don't qualify for racial or minority affirmative action programs.
So what's the big deal? Where's the "richness of experiences" that sets Sotomayor's judgment apart -- and puts it above -- a white man's?
Very few people actually get anything easily in the USA. It's a rich country, sure, but there's no free lunch, either. Drop dead in the street and you can count on the fact that most people will probably just step over you.... if they don't empty your pockets first. No matter what color you are. In the cities, anyway.
The big flap over Sotomayor's background seems to suggest that being a Puerto Rican woman is a difficult thing to overcome. And that seems to reflect a really nasty prejudice. Why shouldn't Puerto Ricans and/or women succeed?
Every nationality who arrived here got dumped on one way or another. The Irish were mistreated very nearly as bad as the blacks. The Irish were Catholic, for one thing, and rowdy for another -- forever joining unions and involving themselves in politics.
The Poles and other Eastern Europeans, Italians, Jews, Chinese -- just about any nationality or other type of minority that arrived in the USA in numbers large enough to have any kind of impact were treated like dogs, exploited, abused, ripped-off, etc etc. What's new? And I must add, the mistreatment only lasts as long as the people put up with it. Once they figure out that they have as many rights as anyone else -- that is, assimilate -- they do just fine. As long as you're free, it doesn't matter if others accept you. You could still do what you wanted for yourself.
The thing is, you have to be free. You have to work with that, not stand on line and wait for a hand-out.
Success is not extraordinary in the USA. What is extraordinary is allowing others the same freedom and independence to rise or fall on their own instead of trying to make them your pets.
It's mainly liberals like Feinstein who would find something amazing in the fact that someone who doesn't look like her (Feinstein, that is), talk like her, etc. etc., someone who doesn't understand that freedom works for all people -- only the stupid biased liberals would be surprised that nearly anyone can find or create opportunities for success in America.
Feinstein doesn't strike me as being overly bright, anyway. She was mayor of San Francisco when the Night Stalker, a really scary serial killer, was on the loose. The Night Stalker would break into peoples' homes when they were there and rob, torture, and kill them. He wasn't particular about his victims, they were men, women, kids, adults, and he'd killed maybe a half-dozen people and had left no clues to his identity whatsoever.
Finally at one crime scene -- the Night Stalker had tried to break into a cop's home, if I recall correctly -- he left a footprint in soft soil. The footprint showed the design of the sole of a particular type of running shoe, and the cops were trying to track him down through that. So Mayor Diane Feinstein gets on TV and blabs all over the Bay Area that anyone wearing this particular type of gym shoe was being sought by police.
The Night Stalker tossed the shoes. The cops had to start over.
Anyway, I really don't have such a great opinion of Feinstein anyway. But it's still rather sickening to watch her make a fool of herself the way she did today. And I imagine it made Sotomayor want to retch. It did me. I empathize.
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