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Cultivated Patriot

“Judge” Accept nothing more. Accept nothing less.

Lauren Gideon




What is a Judge? I submit relevant excerpts from Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. A judge is:

“A civil officer who is invested with authority to hear and determine causes, civil or criminal, between parties, according to his commission” and ”One who has skill to decide on the merits of a question, or on the value of any thing; one who can discern truth and propriety.”.

Using this as our foundation, to be a judge is a high calling. Think about it; a judge is one who can discern truth and propriety. What higher calling is there in this life? In truth, it is a calling we are all partakers in, but there are roles in our culture and state that require an unwavering devotion to this pursuit. The supreme court nominations are often a contested and polarizing piece, linking both the executive and legislative branches to the judicial. We influence judge nominations by who we collectively consent to (via our vote) as our president and members of congress. Politicians make promises, the media fabricates labels, and well-intended activists describe nominees in ways that are intended to place them in polarizing boxes. The punchline to this article, that I hope to unpack in a clear and uncomplicated way, is that we ought to reject the toxic practice of placing judges in any box, except that of “judge”. Any modifiers of their role should be limited to the quality and merits of their ability to “judge”. Examples of the labels/boxes I propose we reject; republican/democrat, liberal/conservative and whatever other name’s we employ that reinforce any semblance of tribalism. I will unpack this assertion with 4 arguments.


Using partisan words dilutes justice.

Justice as defined by the same dictionary says that justice is:

“Impartiality; equal distribution of right in expressing opinions; fair representation of facts respecting merit or demerit. In criticisms, narrations, history or discourse, it is a duty to do justice to every man, whether friend or foe.”

To use partisan words to describe those that execute justice implies that facts or the merit of those facts can also be partisan. Are there two (or more) versions or facts? Are there multiple versions of justice?

Using partisan words is insulting to worthy justices.

The visual artistic embodiment of justice is a blindfolded lady with scales in one hand and a sword in the other. True impartiality is an essential virtue of true justice. Therefore, to accuse a justice of belonging to a particular group would be, and should be, insulting when his/her life’s work has been in pursuit of loyalty to the law and discernment of truth alone.

Using partisan words is detrimental to the cause of impartiality.

When we box in a justice with partisan words we are either identifying them as allies or opponents, friends or foes. We create unnecessary threats to the cause of impartiality. No matter what ideas or people are on trial, the law should be applied exactly the same way. You might think that is obvious, but to my point, we learned back in Article II that the highest law in the land does not give provision for the vice president to anything other than ceremoniously opening and counting the states’ certified electoral votes. People who claim to be constitutionalists, in the heat of the moment, were literally calling for the execution of a key person whose crime was literally following the document they claim to support. Remember, even those of us who don’t hold the title of judge are called to be discerners of truth and propriety. Justice Scalia still speaks caution to us though this timeless quote: “If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.”


Using partisan words creates inappropriate expectations.

Anytime you belong to a group, there are expectations. There are words thrown around like “loyalty”,”allegiance”. Those words are not passive, they are married to action or in this case expectations. Justice with strings attached, literal or perceived, is no justice at all. To illustrate this point I will compare justice with keeping the law. James 2:10 says “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” If you break the law once, you are a lawbreaker. To be mostly “just” and only compromised in one way is to be completely corrupt.

Does this mean when we see a compromise we abandon ship? Should we “Defund the Justice System?” I jest. But when we pursue the high calling of justice in a fallen world, the best offense is good defense. We must reject the idea that there are “versions” of justice, we should honor the intentions of good justices who have made it their life’s work to be impartial and reject boxing them in with partisan words. We should reject words and ideas that create a hostile environment for impartiality to dwell in and lastly we need to unchain our justices from our tribes and our expectations. When we talk about a judge, let us choose words that speak to the merit of how well they incarnate the virtue of justice. It’s a high calling which will be diminished both by addition and subtraction. Expect a “judge”; nothing more, nothing less.


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