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The law is reason unaffected by desire.

Yeah, Bond is basically correct here, aside from the inherent homophobia and racism. A courtroom is a place for objectivity and decisions based on the equal application of the law. I have an aunt who served as a judge and while she has stories of hearing cases that would tear your heart out, the nature of the job is such that one is constrained by specific legal limits.

Again... a fact that Obama agrees with. (It is a fact that I agree with and have argued for years.) The law is the law and laws that are constitutional are inflexible by design.

So Bond is 100% wrong about Obama's position on that.

But the other reality is that our courts are not without compassion, sympathy, outrage or anger. "Judges who have a heart," not judges who change the law because they have a heart.

Don't get caught up in the blur that this Senator did. We must want sympathtic, compassionate people in the system. People are innocent until found guilty. People are going through a system. And someone who mocks a generous spirit from the powerful is someone who doesn't understand being weak.

This is the the inherent (intentional) misunderstanding between the iconic Republican vs the iconic Democrat... it's not asking for a handout or a way around the law or something that others don't get. It's seeking equality and compassion from the machine.

But all of that is arguable. What is not really arguable is that this speech is not about legal issues, but about separating these groups - the handicapped? really? - as somehow not worthy of compassion or sympathy because they are somehow, by way of Obama, demanding what is not due them.

It's hate speech.

"it's not asking for a handout or a way around the law or something that others don't get."

I don't know. You see something like what happened in Durham, North Carolina and you start to think that maybe that's not the case.

I agree that the rules of law should be followed in such a way that results in the proper and fair outcome. The "throwing the book at them" mentality has very often backfired, resulting in a number of people who would probably be better served (and society would be better served) in other programs being sent to prison for long, sometimes outrageous, sentences.

There are also programs that judges can currently take advantage of that probably result in a better return to society than prison time does, and it's a shame that more judges don't take advantage of those programs.

I guess I wouldn't think of that as being sympathetic, though. I'd look at that as looking at the situation and doing what's best for society as a whole. It doesn't serve anyone to imprison someone who would be better served without prison. It doesn't serve anyone to presume guilt prior to guilt or innocence being determined.

And just as there are plenty of law and order types on the Republican side of the aisle who twist the law for political gain (by being "tough on crime" or what-have-you), there are those on the other side of the aisle who seek to twist the law for political gain, as well (by rigging the system in order to try to send people who committed no crime to prison for life).

Personally, I'd prefer no one twist the law at all, regardless of their motives.

I would note, too, that it was sympathy that got Dustin Camp probation for murdering someone for being different.

Hey, he was a high school kid. Kids make mistakes. There was a fight. He's a good-looking boy who played football and that guy he killed had a mohawk which obviously means he was up to no good.

That whole purposely driving over him with his Cadillac was just a brief lapse in judgment. Let's buy him a present.

(I'm paraphrasing, but only slightly, the sympathetic views of those involved with the case).

"It's seeking equality and compassion from the machine."

Equality and compassion don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.

If you treating somebody different because you're compassionate to their situation, you're very clearly fostering inequality. The law is designed to be objective to all of us, providing true equality.

I am repeating myself, but Obama said that the Warren court would have been radical had it been an activist court, reaching beyond the law itself.

The law is the law.

But we, as a nation of laws, must still be a nation of compassion... not having judges change law on a David E Kelley whim because of either compassion or anger... but to hear people arguing against compassion in general... not for me...

"If you treating somebody different because you're compassionate to their situation, you're very clearly fostering inequality."

UNLESS you are counteracting a pre-existing inequality.

Speaking of pre-existing inequality, the Prop 8 battle in Cali brings us one of those world-class losers. He wouldn't have been charged except he got picked up on a warrant.

"UNLESS you are counteracting a pre-existing inequality."

Well, if you are doing so, you are using the laws to make things equal. Compassion should really play no part in that as far as upholding the law goes. Feeling it is a human trait is unavoidable, of course, but it shouldn't play a part in the process.

It is mostly politicians that use the law to treat citizens subjectively, and that is a major reason we're in such a fractured partisan state today.

"Let's get past the part where Bond completle misstates what Obama said in that 2001 PBS radio conversation as a matter of fact, not interpretation."

Let's not get past the part where you've incorrectly identified the source of Obama's quote. :p It wasn't a quote from the radio interview, it was from a speech he gave to Planned Parenthood in July of 2007.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/alexmaccallum/CtN5

"Well, if you are doing so, you are using the laws to make things equal. Compassion should really play no part in that as far as upholding the law goes."

And that's where we differ, in terms of policy goals, as the case may be, of course.

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