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<DIV>I would like to submit one very simple principle for nominations and
confirmations to the United States Supreme Court:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No person who has taken a public position that any precedent of the Supreme
Court <EM>must</EM> be retained without change, or <EM>must</EM> be overturned,
is qualified to sit on the court.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>That means, e.g., that any lawyer who has actively worked to promote,
retain, expand, or aggressively apply, <EM>Roe v. Wade</EM>, should not be on
the court, they too should continue to serve in the advocacy bar.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Likewise, e.g., any lawyer who has actively worked to overturn, curtail,
denounce, or find a way around <EM>Roe v. Wade</EM>, should not be on the court;
they too should continue to serve in the advocacy bar.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If nominations and confirmations are all about how a justice will vote on
this or that pet issue, then we as a people and a nation have already lost. The
court by definition is no longer an independent arbiter and guardian of the
supreme law of the land, but a pliant instrument blowing in the winds of
political preference.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The first thing all the advocacy groups "gearing up" to demand a justice
exactly to their own petty preference should do is shut up. All of them. From
every viewpoint. Nobody will have any good reason to respect a court assembled
by catering to such a debate. Fat chance they WILL shut up, but let's shame them
a little by pointing out how good it would be for the country if they did.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV></BODY></HTML>