This week the Senate Judicial Committee is holding hearings concerning Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. I've been listening pretty regularly. The man seems very well spoken, and I'm sure he's a decent guy.
But during his response to a question on the application of foreign law in regards to our own constitution, Alito talked about human rights, probably alluding to the torture issue or our treatment of enemy combatants. Now, I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of...
"The U.S. has led the world on human rights. When the Bill of Rights was written, there were really no other countries in the world who protected human rights the way we did."
True dat, Samuel Alito. True dat. The U.S. was like that older sibling who sets the younger siblings straight on the important things in life. Like freedom and democracy and liberty and more freedom. We were the global big brother.
Who owned slaves.
Yeah, those were humans we didn't really give proper rights to. But according to our constitution, they weren't actually considered
whole people at the time. So, no harm done, bro-ham!
And the Native Americans, too.
But, heh, what are
they going to do, give us back our old, disease-filled blankets? Nice try, Native Americans. We're not falling for it.