New video added

Editorial: The Ginsburg-Scalia lesson — even enemies can be friends

Posted 2/2/18

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an iconic figure in U.S. judicial history. The second woman ever appointed to the country’s highest court, Justice Ginsburg has spent a lifetime overcoming and …

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New video added

Editorial: The Ginsburg-Scalia lesson — even enemies can be friends

Posted

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an iconic figure in U.S. judicial history. The second woman ever appointed to the country’s highest court, Justice Ginsburg has spent a lifetime overcoming and changing social barriers, particularly in the arena of women’s rights.

She is lauded by liberals as a beacon of social good, which often invites mockery from conservatives, who can dismiss her as a left-leaning partisan on all social issues.

In her “fireside chat” at Roger Williams University Law School this week, Justice Ginsburg talked about America’s recent history of contentious Supreme Court nominations and overall divisive political discourse.

She also talked about her charming relationship with her polar opposite, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Ginsburg and Scalia were at opposite ends of the bench philosophically, and their opinions frequently differed. Yet Ginsburg and Scalia were fast friends. After his death, she called him her “best buddy.”

They shared a love of opera, and a new opera (“Scalia/Ginsburg”) actually celebrates their relationship. They also shared a love of law, and they frequently proofread each other’s draft opinions, always with an air of respect for the other side.

She told the audience on Tuesday, “I disagreed with a lot of what he had to say, but I loved the way he said it.”

That spirit seems lost in 2018 America. This is an age where political opposites scream at and insult each other on nightly cable news shows. Millions of people log in daily to social media streams where “friends” and “followers” scream, threaten and insult without end. Normally sane people post comments and type emails, alone with their keyboards in the dark, in ways they would never say if standing face to face with the recipient.

Divisiveness these days is not limited to the U.S. Congress. It is omnipresent in all forms of communication on a daily basis.
This is a larger social commentary than can be addressed in this small space, yet it deserves attention. As Americans communicate more than ever before, it seems they communicate less effectively and with less civility. And as they have more control over who they listen to — if you don’t like what they say, just unfriend them!!! — they have less tolerance for anyone who does not share an identical view of the world.

Ginsburg/Scalia showed America a better way. Agree, disagree, or agree to disagree … just do it with respect for the person. Even enemies can be friends.

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.