A question about Obama's selection process....

I am a little confused about this Obama quote:

"If we can find people who have life experience, and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that's the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court."

What exactly does life experience have to do with interpretation of the constitution and deciding if an action, treaty, and/or law is constitutional?


"We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize — the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Again where does empathy play a role in deciding the constitution?

tend to affect the life of regular Americans.

If one has had a real life, then they will understand that much better
how Supreme Court decisions can directly alter the lives of those without say.
In addition, empathy means putting yourself in the place of others, and
Barack Obama strongly believes that judges should always think about the people
who will have to live under the laws that they render a decision on.

One without empathy normally don't dwell on how what they do affect others....
and without real life experience, one might also not consider the lives of
ordinary Americans in putting forth a decision.

Hence what our President believes are qualities that are important
in making judgments that directly affect the lives of many.

but it seems that judgments that are based on emotion or empathy are exactly the type of decisions that shouldn't be made in any court particularly one that has so much of an impact on society. The real life experience and empathy should be skills we should be looking for in elected officials not members of the court.

Far as she's concerned....Brown vs. the Board of Education had nothing to do with people, and considering Jim Crow laws, the shit could have just been left as it was.

What you miss is that the law is not Black and White only....it isn't one dimensional, and neither should those who determine and judge be so either.