April 22, 2008

And I thought I was cynical

But I got nothing on these characters. WisOpinion.com doesn't like me anymore, but they sure link to some ridiculous junk commentary in the meantime. Here's another dazzling gem from the geniuses at the Republican "think tank," the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute:
Judges are part of an industry, the legal industry. It is set up by lawyers, for lawyers, and to benefit only lawyers.
That's intriguing, because I read this somewhere:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
And I recall this uncannily similar provision:
The judicial power of this state shall be vested in a unified court system consisting of one supreme court, a court of appeals, a circuit court, such trial courts of general uniform statewide jurisdiction as the legislature may create by law, and a municipal court if authorized by the legislature.
Now I'm sure many of the Framers of both the United States and Wisconsin constitutions were lawyers, but not all of them. Nor do constitutions protect only lawyers. Mark well also that in each document, the judicial power is assumed to be preexisting.

Nobody "set it up," although plenty of other conservative Republicans will tell you that God did, and not lawyers, whom God dislikes.

Apparently our profoundly cynical masters at the WPRI and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce don't see things quite the way the Framers did. The latter thinks the U.S. Constitution is a "needless technicality" and now the former claims both "benefit only lawyers."

While they may harbor a deep and abiding respect for their corporate self-interests, they obviously have little for their country's or their State's foundational premises and documents.

That takes a Canadian, evidently.

2 comments:

Scot1and said...

Here's my favorite:

"Being a judge is more than a political plum; it comes with money, trappings and a work schedule that would only exhaust a professor."

Perhaps, if your a judge from Burnett County. But some of us expect more from the judiciary. Is it too much to ask for a judge that is capable of understanding issues?

Since our friends brought up Annette Ziegler, I couldn't help but comment that I have watched quite of few oral arguments since Ziegler has been on the Court. I think she might have asked a single question. She was elected to be nothing more than a Rubber Stamp for WMC.

The article is correct that the issue that voters have been deciding justices on is crime. The problem is, and as you've pointed out, there is no truth to the empty "tough on crime" pledges. Although, the Puppet sure is tough on traffic violations.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

How exhausting would James H. Miller find it, I wonder, to write a piece of academic research publishable in a top journal?

I suspect we might wait a long, long time while Mr Miller exhausted himself attempting to write something cogently argued.