Justice Should be for All"

. The famous statue of Lady Justice, which dates back to antiquity, pictures her as blindfolded, holding the scales of justice in one hand and the sword of judgement in the other. This communicates that justice must be equal, fair, and indifferent to either party in a dispute. There should ultimately be concern for the good of all persons. One would question the presence of justice and fairness in the choice of a current nominee for the Supreme Court, but especially in the timing of the procedure to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the ninth member of that court.

In a perfect world members of all parties would make justice for all central. The Supreme Court would be apolitical. Since we do not live in a perfect world, it is understandable that justice, as well as the choosing of those who arbiter justice, would be imperfect. But what about fairness? What about members of either political party choosing to respect the other party with putting forward a nominee just weeks before an every-four year presidential election? Concern for fairness seems to have “gone off the rails.” Some would say, the other side would do that as well, if they could. However, it was ten months before the last presidential election when the previous nomination was made. Proportionality certainly is not there in terms of the two nominations. And I would hope that the Democratic Party, if they had control of the Senate, would refrain from doing this at this time. We do not know what the case would be.

There is the question of justice being ultimate. In this case the rush to nomination and approval of a new Supreme Court justice may ultimately prove to be the doom of the President and the Republican party who are rushing through the process. Children even may instinctively know that when they do something totally wrong to another child there will be consequences. They simply want to do it and take their chances. Adults who should morally seek fairness and justice for all certainly ought to consider their consequences either in their time, or ultimately at the last judgement. In this time, it may lead to a political failure of the party in power in this and subsequent elections. It may also lead to their rushed choice of justice to either not going in the way that is intended or changing the law in a direction that leads to society abandoning that party as a dominant force in our country.

Finally, should not all members of our government seek justice and fairness for all? One is astounded by how far we have gotten away from that norm. Even in this imperfect world, we should increasingly put politics aside so that the scales of justice may be balanced toward all. Jews and Christians believe it shall be so. As the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."