"I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black female who hasn't lived that life."

Guess which US Supreme Court judicial nominee came up with this racist statement?

You'd be wrong, because what she actually said was:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

She also infamously declared:

"(the) Court of Appeals is where policy is made"

Obama's nominee for leading lawmaker, Sonia Sotomayor, is female, Hispanic and has empathy but she is not a lesbian, which will disappoint those progressives who were hoping for a quadrella.

The doctrine of the separation of powers attempts to prevent absolute power from absolutely corrupting.

Should unelected, unaccountable, affirmative action judges be given carte blanche to legislate from the bench?

Or is it OK because activist judges are by definition progressive and the end justifies the means?

Straight from Little Green Footballs, via Andrew Bolt to OLO, courtesy of KMB - complete with the same cherry-picked, out of context quotes.

Yawn.

You're surprised there are Judges that have personal agendas?. lol

I've heard of a Judge - who happens to be female - that has zero sympathy for Police Officers being assaulted. She calls it part of the job.

What about the young copper in WA that was headbutt from behind and partially, but significantly, paralysed?. The assailant and his participating brethren were let off scot free. Make sense to you?.

Believe it or not there's actually cases of Clergy raping children too!.

It's funny how people think things are tickety boo till something pops up on their own little agenda radar...

And the gullible and deceitful want to give unelected judges more power through a charter of 'rights'. No wonder we are self destructing.

runner: "And the gullible and deceitful want to give unelected judges more power through a charter of 'rights'."

That is the line being trotted out, runner. So far I haven't seen an explanation of it that makes any sense to me.

Maybe that is because I don't understand a Bill Of Rights is. I always think of it as limiting the power the government has over its citizens. As in, the government can't pass laws discriminating against a person on the basis of religion, or skin colour, and they can't pass laws that interfere with political speech, nor can it torture its own citizens, and it can't throw a person in jail and keep the reason secret from it citizens, and it can't hide it activities from its citizens.

Yes, implementing rules like that does give the judges more power over the government, as presumably they can strike down laws that don't conform. But it doesn't give the judges more power over you and me, as the judges don't make laws. Only the parliament can make laws, and ultimately it is only laws that restrict what you and I can do. Since the power judges do have us comes from implementing the law and a Bill Of Rights means there will be less laws, surely that means having a BOR gives both the government and the judges less power over us, not more.

Also, there is an inconsistency in the argument. We already have a lot of laws in the constitution. Nobody arguing against a BOR argue we would be better off without a constitution. Ergo there must be "good" or "necessary" laws in the constitution now, so obviously not all laws are bad. So why are the sort proposed for a BOR universally bad? In fact how could they know, given as far I as I know no proposals have been written yet.

I am sure will be lots of argument about what should go into a BOR, but this blanket "it gives more power to judges" sounds like a complete furphy to me.

Yes life would be much better if Judges were all old white men with receding hairlines.

Good grief.

Please define exactly what is an activist Judge? Is it a judge that seeks some equality under the law for minority groups?

It would help if we knew exactly what you mean.