What makes a hero? Who is a hero? All of you who read this blog are my heroes. I continue to be impressed and humbled by so many readers and your comments and your caring and sharing. Your being here and your comments always make my day. 🙂 Thank you!
That reminds me, in fact, that I want to remind all of you to be sure and go back to each blog post several days after it was first posted and read the latest comments. Some people don’t write comments until two or three days after each blog post … and then I don’t reply until a day or so after that. So go back and check them out. See what people have written and add your voice and thoughts ANY time you’d like.
But this blog post isn’t about you or me. It’s about one particular hero of mine.
I think all of us will say that fire fighters, emergency medical personnel, someone who jumps in the river to save a drowning child, and people who work for organizations like the Red Cross who go into parts of the world where there are dire, extreme, medical, and earth-shattering problems are heroes … people who put their lives on the line. I think all of us believe those people are heroes. They are.
There is also one particular woman who is a super hero to me … Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She has spent her entire adult life working inside the law, with the law, for the law, attempting to correctly interpret the law, and sometimes trying to correct the law, in order to assure every person (not just US citizens) equal protection (equal rights) in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the USA. [Photo right is circa 1977.]
The Constitution of the USA includes very specific language about citizens of the USA and what applies to them. But … but, the language of the Constitution (the 14th Amendment) changes when it comes to “equal protection”. The language in that Amendment says equal protection under the Constitution applies to every “person”, not just to citizens of the USA. It applies to every person, NOT just to USA citizens … every person. The language very specifically changed right there. Justice Ginsburg is a stickler for details like that and for what those details mean.
As well, a number of times in several online videos, she addresses the difference between “sex” and “gender” when used with the word “discrimination”. “Sex” can be anything that happens between any two (or more) humans, it’s a physical act. Anyone can do “sex” anytime they want, for the most part. But “gender” is the physical difference between men and women (and others), and that’s what the law and the Constitution say we cannot discriminate against. It’s “gender” equity … not “sex” discrimination that the law and the Constitution apply to.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sometimes known for “women’s rights”, but she works equally for men’s rights, for children’s rights, for everyone’s rights … the right of men, who have custody of their children, to receive child support from the mother … the right of men to earn child care payments from Social Security when it’s the man who is the sole parent. She works for human rights; she works to make everyone equal under the law. She does not work to make women and men the same as each other, as a famous jurist once tried to belittle her and criticize her about … she works to be sure that women and men are treated equally and fairly.
Besides admiring her lifelong dedication to that idea of equal protection under the Constitution, I also love her detailed, legal mind. She’s so exacting. She’s so detailed. I’m sure that, as a human being, she has her own personal and political ideas, but she appears to put that aside when she’s working on legal issues. She absolutely focuses on the law and on the USA Constitution, the wording and the intent. She’s brilliant, and fair, and determined, all at the same time. I’ve read some of the briefs; I’ve read some of her decisions (majority and dissenting). She’s brilliant.
I was raised in a household where my father was an attorney, and was a Washington State Legislator, and was the Head Adjudication Officer (head of the legal department for the Veterans Administration) immediately after WWII in the Philippines. That office in the Philippines handled all manner of legal issues for all of Asia. At that time, in the 1950s, that VA office in the Philippines was the largest VA office in the world, second only to the VA office in Washington, DC. After my father retired, and we moved back to the USA, he was elected to be the county Prosecuting Attorney where we lived in the USA. Needless to say, over many years, I heard all manner of legal arguments at the dinner table most every evening. As an adult, I took college classes, and then the Washington State and Oregon State exams, to become a Paralegal in both states, and worked as such for many years. I worked for one set of lawyers whom I admired more than I can say … I worked for another set of lawyers, tho not for long, who taught me what the term “shyster lawyer” means. I understand the law and what it can/should do for all people. I’m sure I don’t understand the law as well as Justice Ginsburg does, but I understand it enough to know that Justice Ginsburg is right on target. It has nothing to do with politics (or Politics) … it has to do with the Constitution and the law.
If you don’t know much about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, here are two videos you can watch about her …
RBG … the movie. A trailer is HERE. The movie is available on Hulu, and may be available on other online/movie channels as well. I highly recommend it.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: My Life on the Supreme Court … available on YouTube. This is an excellent CNN video/movie/documentary.
There are also dozens of shorter YouTube videos with interviews of Ruth, videos of Senate hearings for her Supreme Court Justice Nomination, and presentations she has given at colleges. Here’s one video that shows a portion of the hearings when she was a Supreme Court Justice nominee …
And here’s another short, more recent video interview …
There are also many books written about her, and a few written by her.
Likely the most popular book is one written by her … My Own Words. Another book written by her is … I Know This to Be True. Both are excellent. Another excellent book about Ruth’s legal practice back in the 1970’s, before becoming a Judge or a Justice, is Raising the Bar.
One of the best books about Ruth Bader Ginsburg is Notorious RBG. Read this one!
Not long ago, I mailed a “thank you” card with a hand-written note to Justice Ginsburg. I know she gets so much mail that she doesn’t read everything she receives, but someone in her office does read everything and then relays the basic info to her, the number of thank-you cards received, etc. It’s the least I can do, to thank her, not just for me, not just for women, but for all of us.
My three careers (and the education to get there) … a certified/registered Paralegal in the State of Washington and in the State of Oregon … a diesel/gas truck mechanic with Portland General Electric and then with Federal Express and a Ford warranty mechanic and a Detroit Diesel warranty mechanic … and a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and an IT computer technician and manager with the State of Washington at the state-wide service of the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library … not one of those careers would likely have happened without the prior work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Hero was a woman, a priestess of the goddess Aphrodite. But I think a hero can be anyone who helps us aspire to be more than what we thought we could be, who helps each of us be a better person because our hero was the best that she or he could be, because our hero inspired us to be better.
Who do you admire? Who would you like to meet if you could? Whether it’s someone who is alive today, or someone from history. Who makes you a better person?