from the ca gay marriage ruling.

The 136-page majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, noted that it's not up to the court to determine whether the ban, known as Proposition 8, "is wise or sound as a matter of policy or whether we, as individuals believe it should be a part of the California constitution," but rather "is limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values."

i just want to point out that this discourse of transcending one's own opinions and values is completely routine and central to the law. but it is just obviously absurd. who is, actually, reading the proposition or the law or the constitution or the precedents? who is responsible for the words coming out of your mouth and their actual effects? you can't just rest your whole system of government on a contradiction - can you? - my opinions aren't my opinions, my interpretations aren't my interpretations, my actions aren't my actions. or is the claim really to have literally transcended all human limitations, to have become an abstract object like the number 7 or a little god or something?

you have got to do something like this: i'm trying from an actual human perspective to read the law as plausibly as i can, speak the truth, and do justice. that has to be enough, since it's all any actual human being can claim without lurching into insanity. if that's not enough to give the law and the people practicing it enough prestige to command allegiance etc, then it has to do without.

every time during the sotomayor process some senator says something that is just obviously absurd, impossible, and contradictory along these lines, i assign you to sit on your couch and shake your head.