Today's political thought

[gsh]

The recent question of "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Federalist Society" seems awfully close to the McCarthy question of "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party".

Of course that doesn't stop some people from blasting card carrying members of the ACLU.

Comments

[scarlettj9.livejournal.com]

Are you now, or have you every been:

Poly, Pagen, Gay, Lesbian... the list is endless. Why does it really matter anyway?

[dckermit.livejournal.com]

When you have a candidate for a lifetime appointment who apparently is as bland as oatmeal, you look for hints of what his inner beliefs are. Discovering that he's listed as a member of a radical right-wing group isn't disqualifying, but it might tell you something about him that he doesn't want known. Or it may mean that the organization granted him a "free" membership without his permission.

I'm not one of those folk who believes that he should be disqualified because he, as an attorney, represented viewpoints that he doesn't hold himself. Anyone who can claim to have never been in this situation lives in an idealistic fantasy world. But it would be nice to have some idea of what he's likely to do on the Supreme Court before his confirmation goes up for a vote.

[wotw]

It seems to me that when the goal is to ascertain a
person's beliefs, memberships in organizations
constitute perfectly relevant and useful information.

The "are you now or have you ever been..." question is
viewed as disreputable because (in many people's
opinion) it was asked on occasions when the beliefs
in question were nobody's business.

But once you've decided that someone's beliefs are fair
game for an inquiry, I don't see why you'd want to
exclude useful information from that inquiry.