"America," from West Side Story. Would Judge Sotomayor have empathy for an assertion that the New York Jets football team has a racist name? They’re obviously named after the white gang in West Side Story, not the aircraft.
UPDATE:
Here’s video from the 1961 movie. The Judge, like Obama, seems to be singing the boys’ parts, not Rita Moreno and the girls’ parts.
There is absolutely no connection between the New York Jets football organization and West Side Story.
The Jets derived their name by following the failed Continental Football League Titans into the Polo Grounds, which had been defaced by the bolted appendix of a massive plywood rocket.
The Jets were also formed in the same era of professional sports expansion that gave NY the baseball Mets, the basketball Nets, and the advertising claim that those who frequented the city's off-track wagering establishment were the "New York Bets."
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The football helmet clearly has a jet(aircraft) on it. If Judge Sotomayor had empathy for the assertion that the New York jets football team was named after something having to do with theatre it would probably be a question of discrimination against the homosexual community. Either that or someone hacked off at the fiasco with Brett Favre deciding to get digs in on teams that decide to take him. I mean in all honesty the damn Vikings have to be a racist team if any team in the NFL is. Just look at how often Viking symbolism comes up in neo-nazi material...plus Favre should just retire, and playing for the Vikings of all teams is just plain wrong(Bush) to his legacy as a Packer(which might have a homosexual connotation).
I think empathy comes into play for a judge in terms of distinguishing the grounds of judgement that others employ. Ironically without empathy one would never be able to talk of anything but ones own thoughts, so it serves as a bridge that allows one to attribute a reasoning to another group or individual. A recent example would be the post by Dr. Lawler concerning American Idol. It was apparently consensus among the experts that Adam was better, but the people sided with Kris Allen.
I predicted some sort of politization and with Kris Allen showing up on the Huckabee show and Adam Lambert comming out as gay in Rolling Stone it looks about par for course.
So Sotomayor might have sided with the expert judgement and gone with Lambert, she might have also attributed a latent anti-homosexual bias to the popular vote.
If you could somehow quantify who was best, then you might be able to isolate out the anti-homosexual bias. Of course I think this is just about impossible, and I don't think Judge Sotomayor would stoop so low as to opine about american idol, but that essentially her use of empathy would function and come into play whenever determinations of this sort are required.
In other words proper use of empathy(which will vary from refinement in tastes) is the only real means of ever reaching judgements that aren't simply self-refferential.
But in attributing her thinking on Empathy to the teachings of David Hume or Adam Smith I am simply guessing/speculating and giving her a theoretical basis that I also think is also compatible with the general philosophical outlook of Barrack Obama.
If I am guessing wrong, then I still gain insights from the practical reasons I give myself for reading Hume and Adam Smith.
In other words empathy is her means of conjuring up an impartial spectator?