“I’m not the only person who could do this job, but I was asked. And it would be difficult for anyone. So why should I say someone else should do the difficulty? If the difficulty is the only reason to say no, I should serve my country.”
— Amy Coney Barrett , If the difficulty is the only reason to say no, I should serve my country.
“I’ve tried to be on a media blackout for the sake of my mental health. But you can’t keep yourself walled off from everything. And I’m aware of the lot of the characatures that are floating around. So I think what I would like to say in response to that question is that, look, I’ve made distinct cho…”
— Amy Coney Barrett , I have a life brimming with people who’ve made different choices. And I’ve never tried, in my personal life, to impose my choices on them.
“To say that one always interweaves roots endlessly, bending them to send down roots among the roots, to pass through the same points again, to redouble old adherences, to circulate among their differences, to coil around themselves or to be enveloped one in the other, to say that a text is never any…”
— Jacques Derrida, To contradict at once the concept of system and the pattern of the root.
“Judges are not elected and they have life tenure and can’t be voted out of office. So if judges miscontrue statutes or bend them to the judge’s idea of what would be good public policy then it deprives the people of the chance to express the policies that they want through the democratic process.”
— Amy Coney Barrett , amy-coney-barrett-senate-confirmation-hearing-day-3-transcript
“I don’t have an opinion and have never expressed one about the scope of legislature’s authority to take away felon voting rights. What I said is that there is a history of such provisions and state constitutions and in the federal constitution, but I did not intend and if my words communicated that…”
— Amy Coney Barrett , amy-coney-barrett-senate-confirmation-hearing-day-3-transcript
“But what if the individual – and individualism – is part of the problem? It makes a difference to understand ourselves as living in a world in which we are fundamentally dependent on others, on institutions, on the Earth, and to see that this life depends on a sustaining organisation for various for…”
— Judith Butler, Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”
“Democracy requires a good challenge, and it does not always arrive in soft tones.”
— Judith Butler, Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”
“By gender freedom, I do not mean we all get to choose our gender. Rather, we get to make a political claim to live freely and without fear of discrimination and violence against the genders that we are. Many people who were assigned “female” at birth never felt at home with that assignment, and thos…”
— Judith Butler, Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”
“It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality.”
— Judith Butler, Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”
“A judge needs to have an open mind every step of the way. So as I said, I’ve changed my mind at oral argument, even after reading the briefs. I’ve changed my mind at conference, after consulting with my colleagues. So if I were to just say how I thought I would resolve a case just because I saw the…”
— Amy Coney Barrett , WATCH LIVE: Judge Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court confirmation hearings
“The reason we have life tenure, as federal judges, is to be insulated from the pressure that such things like focus groups, or polls, or public opinion, the pressure that it might apply for a court to decide a case a particular way or the other. That’s why we decide it according to the text.”
— Amy Coney Barrett , WATCH LIVE: Judge Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court confirmation hearings
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett cites 'Ginsburg rule' that Ginsburg didn't follow