Balancing the Scales

As anyone here would probably know, President Bush just nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. You may wonder why anyone would care about this. I can tell you exactly why— the stability of the court's future is in question.

Imagine you're in a room with eight other people, and you're all talking about pets. Two of the eight agree with you that cats are the best animal to walk on four legs, three others are dog people, and the remaining three don't even own pets. With so many different positions, how is it possible to decide which is the best animal to have as a pet? Simple. Your side presents your opinions, your opponents present their opinion, and then the people with no particular opinion work with both sides to reach a compromise. And the end result is that pot-bellied pigs is determined to be the best pet.

Neither side got what they originally wanted, but both sides got the satisfaction of knowing their opponents also lost. Why can't the Supreme Court be that way? Instead of having three liberals, three conservatives, and three moderates, we've got at the very least one swing vote. When people stop making compromises, extreme elements start setting in. That isn't conducive to a consensual level-headed judiciary. After all, what's the point of watching a movie when you know the ending?

And that's my Halloween rant.