05/20/2009
In what might possibly be his most important posting yet on his invaluable Occidental Observer website, Kevin MacDonald discusses this morning the process by which the candidacy of Obama’s Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the vacant Supreme Court slot is being promoted.
Elena Kagan: Jewish Ethnic Networking Eases the Path of a Liberal/Leftist to the Supreme Court May 20, 2009
was provoked by a recent Los Angeles Times Infomercial for Kagan Supreme Court candidate Elena Kagan has admirers left and right By David G. Savage and James Oliphant May 14, 2009.
Professor MacDonald is mainly focused on the process of ethnic loyalty and tribal ambition which has enabled this objectively undistinguished woman to be showered with so many glittering prizes — Law Professor at the University of Chicago, Dean of Harvard Law School, U.S. Solicitor General (and quite possibly her elite university admissions in the first place):
In her entire career at the University of Chicago and Harvard — the very apex of elite academic institutions — she has written a grand total of 9 articles. Actually, her scholarly output is even less than that because two of these publications are book reviews and one is a tribute to Thurgood Marshall. When she received tenure at the University of Chicago in 1995, she had exactly two scholarly articles published in law journals — a record that would ordinarily not get her tenure even at quite a few third tier universities much less an elite institution like the University of Chicago.
This poverty of actual work is glossed over by The Los Angeles Times:
Kagan, 49, is not widely known for legal writings or for taking a stand on a controversial issue. And she has never argued a case in the federal courts. Yet, in her career in academia and in the Clinton White House, she has worked with nearly everyone who counts inside President Obama’s legal circle, including then-professor Obama at the University of Chicago Law School.
Although he does not mention it, MacDonald’s insight explains something which has puzzled some in the blogosphere — the sudden and brutal attack on Hispanic rival aspirant Sonia Sotomayor in The New Republic by Jeffrey Rosen (The Case Against Sotomayor May 04 2009).
All this of course is of general interest to VDARE.com readers — as is MacDonald’s remark
the only White Protestant left on the court is the superannuated Stephens, who is 89 and will doubtless be replaced by an ethnic minority if he retires during the Obama administration. (White males need not apply.) When it comes to playing help-my-tribe battles, White Protestants are completely inept — in fact, they don’t even play at all.
But infinitely more urgent and alarming is that what little public record she has reveals Kagan to be a dedicated enthusiast for repressing free speech:
Her 1993 article "Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography After R.A.V," (60 University of Chicago Law Review 873; available on Lexis/Nexis) indicates someone who is entirely on board with seeking ways to circumscribe free speech in the interests of multicultural virtue: “I take it as a given that we live in a society marred by racial and gender inequality, that certain forms of speech perpetuate and promote this inequality, and that the uncoerced disappearance of such speech would be cause for great elation.” She acknowledges that the Supreme Court is unlikely to alter its stance that speech based on viewpoint is protected by the First Amendment, but she sees that as subject to change with a different majority…Clearly, she does not see the protection of viewpoint-based speech as a principle worth preserving or set in stone. Rather, she believes that a new majority could rule that “all government efforts to regulate such speech” would be constitutional. All government efforts.
Meanwhile, Elena Kagan has been busy:
she advocates finding ways to rationalize restrictions on free speech within the current guidelines of the court. Her article proposes a variety of ways that “hate speech” may be restricted without running afoul of current Supreme Court guidelines. For example, she supports the constitutionality of “hate crime” laws that enhance penalties for crimes motivated by racial bias — precisely the sort of law recently passed by the House and now being considered by the Senate.
As Kevin MacDonald recently pointed out, Free Speech is not a Jewish tradition. And the Community is motivated. Given, as Nicholas Stix documented yesterday, the willingness of the judicial proletariat to read black as white in support of foreign free speech suppression laws, the outlook is ominous.
(E mail alerts on the Hate Crimes legislation can be signed up for at the top of this site)
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