NYT Magazine: How to judge a judge

On Sunday, I started out my day in the Mission in CA and said to Sarah and a friend, "The NYT Magazine is the only thing worth reading in the Sunday paper!"

Ok, so I’m full of crap. 

You should read the whole paper, especially the wrangling about the constitution in Iraq, because it’s going to go down in flames.  But more on that later.

The article I think you should go back and read carefully is Roberts v. the Future, by Jeffrey Rosen.

It talks about how there are a lot of key decisions coming up for us as a society that will severely impact our quality of life and the value we place on people.  Decisions that measure the fine balance of surveillance and civil liberties, genetic screening and discrimination, and intellectual property protection and free speech.

However that’s not how our process screens judges.  We tend to screen them looking backwards, making sure they won’t overturn previous decisions we do or don’t agree with.  Rosen’s argument, and I think it’s a good one, is that this is myopic.  These future decisions are just as, if not more important, as the the precedents they examine.

The article is worth it’s weight if it only tutors you in the emerging issues that will affect our lives in the next 100 years, however it will give you some insights into what you should expect out of your Senators as well.