To Serve of Not

This entry is for yesterday, January 11, 2006. I was not able to post it in time due to extenuating circumstances.

This train of thought was brought on after viewing Alito’s hearing in the Senate. I happened upon the feed on CNN and the following is an excerpt of the dialogue between Graham and Alito:

http://lgraham.senate.gov/index.cfm?mode=presspage&id=250378

GRAHAM: … Are you really a closet bigot?

ALITO: I'm not any kind of a bigot, I'm not.

GRAHAM: No, sir, you're not. And you know why I believe that? Not because you just said it -- but that's a good enough reason, because you seem to be a decent, honorable man. I have got reams of quotes from people who have worked with you, African American judges -- I've lost my quotes. Judge Higginbotham -- I don't know where they're at. But glowing quotes about who you are, the way you've lived your life; law clerks, men and women, black and white, your colleagues who say that Sam Alito, whether I agree with him or not, is a really good man.

You know why I believe you when you say that you disavow those quotes? Because the way you have lived your life and the way you and your wife are raising your children.

Let me tell you this: Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you're sitting. And we're going to go through a bit of this ourselves as congressmen and senators.

People are going to take a fact that we got a campaign donation from somebody who's found out to be a little different than we thought they were -- and our political opponent's going to say, Aha, I got you!

And we're going to say, Wait a minute. I didn't know that. I didn't take the money for that reason.

And you know what? I'm going to believe these senators and congressmen for the most part, because that's the way we do our business. We meet people here every day. We have photos taken with people -- and sometimes you wish you didn't have your photo taken.

But that doesn't mean that you're a bad person because of that association.

Judge Alito, I am sorry that you've had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.

End Excerpt.

I think it was when Graham commented on Alito’s personal character and presented other statements regarding his tenure that Alito’s wife lost it. She was in tears and had to leave before Graham finished his session.

And the statement “I am sorry that you've had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.” basically sums up the entire notion of serving in public office.

As participants or perhaps a better word is “entities” of a society, I believe we have a moral duty to serve. However, when a person is willing to undertake his or her responsibilities to that society in the form of service, yet has to undergo such treatment, whether it’s loaded statements or pointed attacks at his or her own personal character and associations prior to and even after that service; or when it is vile and disgust comments made regarding his or her profession (usually happens to military personnel); not to mention, having the entire family under close scrutiny, it just seems that it is never worth it, at least to me.

But there are those who can look beyond such treatment and endure it with dignity and those are the people that form the pillars of society. Whether that is something that I am willing to do is a question I have yet no answer for.

On a lighter note, class was okay. In macroeconomics, we covered Arrow-Debreu and sequential market equilibriums in greater detail. We learned that the two equilibriums could be considered equivalent under certain conditions and that Arrow-Debreu could be used to solve sequential market equilibrium conditions due to it being more “solvable”.

As for the econometrics course, Dr. Schmidt continued on with the introduction of estimators and related material. He talked about the Best Linear Unbiased Estimator, or “BLUE” and other measures of estimation. Throughout the class, he cracked jokes on various things and quite a few of them were genuinely funny.

However, the class could be better enjoyed if I were in a better seat. I did arrive to class a bit early to get a better seat, but apparently almost everybody thought the same. As a result, I had to settle for row three on the side. Not that I had any hard time following the class (I can still read the blackboard fine), but it just didn’t feel “optimal”. I guess next time I’ll camp out or something.