Further Emanations and Penumbras in this Brave New World.

Lane Core comes out swinging and calls for the impeachment of Sandra Day O'Connor. Along with the helping of hyperbole, he also provides a link to Mark Steyn's post on Sandra Day O'Connor. Steyn fairly asks why its tyranical for Dick Gephardt to rule by presidential fiat, but legitimate for O'Connor to construct unchangeable legal policy for decades by a swing vote and a catch-phrase. Per Steyn:

But, speaking personally, I can't see why rule by Dick-tat would be worse in principle than the present system, whereby the nation's course for the decades ahead is effectively set by executive orders from Sandra Day O'Connor, the Supreme Court's eternal swing vote and tiebreaker-in-residence. Poised between opposing ideological quartets, Swingin' Sandra inclines not to black and white but swims in the murky gray in between. The trick for those appearing before the court is to decide the precise degree of murk at which Sandra will jump.

This last week provided some useful guidelines, with Supreme Court rulings on diversity and sodomy. Whatever your position, sodomy is a precisely defined act. It means--Well, let's not get into that, as the choirboy said to the--oh, never mind. My point is that laws ought to be about clearly defined acts and a high court should be concerned with the legal principles at stake in those acts. Whether or not you dig it as a personal philosophy, ''diversity'' makes a poor legal concept. It was not intended to be precisely defined, but instead woozy and fluffy and soft-focus. It makes a fabulous bumper sticker: ''Celebrate Diversity.'' But it makes a poor legal concept to enshrine at the heart of the U.S. Constitution, which is where Swingin' Sandra's vote put it last week.

Yup, now Democracy has to steer clear of any act that might intrude on the razor sharp lines that define conduct that constitutes the sweet "mysteries of life" or "diversity." Oh, and by the way, legislation that has a moral purpose is per se irrational and illegitimate. And, further, "diversity" isn't a "moral legislation." [Can't everyone see that programs to promote "diversity" are not based on reshaping society to some a priori model of what a just society looks like? Such a project could never stem from a person's moral imperatives; such a project is simply flinty eyed realism and logic, but never would it be merely based on a person's subjective view of what is moral.] And, finally, by the way, "diversity" doesn't mean everyone. Certainly, a law school and its students would never benefit from programs that seek to further the admission of more evangelical Christians or working-class ethnic Catholics because those people wouldn't make the educational process more diverse.