Liberal Principles Exist for a Reason

Carving out exceptions for assholes doesn't work

The Ketanji Brown Jackson hearing is the most boring thing I’ve ever watched that isn’t George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky. Inquiries from Democrats are basically just: “Tell me about a time you were awesome.” Republicans are showing Al Bundy-esque levels of living in the past by mostly rehashing grievances from the Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett hearings. Judge Jackson is, in my opinion, doing quite well. Honestly, she deserves massive credit just for staying awake — if I was in her shoes, it would probably go something like this:

One of the main Republican lines of attack involves Judge Jackson’s work as a public defender. Both Mitch McConnell and the RNC suggested that her time as a defense attorney indicates sympathy for criminals, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. I find this logic phenomenally dumb; I think the principle that everyone deserves a defense has been basically settled since John Adams/Paul Giamatti defended British redcoats/the guy who played Pius Thickness in Harry Potter way back in 1770/2008.

And yet, I managed to hear the “how dare you defend that person” argument twice in one day. At roughly the same moment that Judge Jackson was being sworn in, Aaron Sibarium was publishing an article on Bari Weiss’ substack recounting numerous instances of defense attorneys getting flak from left-leaning law students. The law students were basically asking the same question as Congressional Republicans: How could you defend that person? And, of course, that question has an answer: You defend that person because if a right exists, then it exists universally, or it doesn’t exist at all. I think that’s easy to understand. But I’m struck by the number of people on the left these days who appear not to understand that, and how they also don’t seem to realize that continually carving out exceptions to liberal principles will almost surely come back to bite them in the ass.