In a speech delivered to the San Juan chapter of NOW, Sotomayor said, “I want to be perfectly clear about this next comment so that there is no mistaking my words to mean something other than what they plainly say: the time has come to end white male oppression by castrating every white male until they are no longer dominant in Western culture. That means forcible removal of their testicles. I realize the brutality of my comment, and I don’t know how to say it more clearly.”

That shows a warped mind and seriously questions her capacity to be a fair, reasonable judge. Her diabetes is actually more likely a symptom of her mental/spiritual dysfunction than a cause of such. She hasn’t dealt with her personal issues and is likely to project them into some of her judgments.

Diabetes does not effect ones mind. Kudos to VoC for pointing out this obnoxious man and his narrow narrow mind.

Besides – diabetes? That’s one of the most common diseases in the USA. The effects of juvenile onset diabetes (Sotomayer’s type) and the much more common adult onset type diabetes are pretty similar, with the main difference being a greater incidence of eye problems with juvenile onset diabetes.

His remarks actually remind me of Gordon Libby’s comment on Sotomayor’s judgement being impaired by menstruation. Both men mark certain bodies as inherently less rational. Not to mention, Adam’s connection of body “health” with nation “health” has fascist undertones. (And did he forget FDR, considered one of the best US presidents, was confined to a wheel chair?)

Is he suggesting that disabled people not play a role in government because of their failure to take care of themselves or because of their essential inferiority of mind and body? Should those with health illnesses not have someone in office representing them as someone who has lived with those illnesses?

The problem with his argument is not just one of oppression but one that ignores history. Many of the U.S. Presidents and/or VPs have served with similar or worse conditions. Cheney (who granted was Voldemort) had chronic heart problems, Eisenhower had a heart attack while in office and ilietis, and suffered a serious attack from the latter while running for his second term, then in his second term had a stroke that resulted in a permanent speech impediment. FDR was in a wheel chair from a bout with polio as a child, he had hypertension, heart disease, and was diagnorsed with a left ventricular cardiac failure before such things could be corrected w/open heart surgery during important summit talks with Russia, Grover Cleveland had mouth cancer and had to have 2 invasive surgeries that could have left him permanently mute or dead from complications in the middle of an economic crisis in the U.S., Andrew Jackson (most famous for massacring the indigenous population) had chronic depression, complications from bullets lodged in his body from the war, including: chronic pain, several bouts of internal infections, bleeding in the lungs, etc., Chester Allen Arthur had chronic depression and a terminal illness,. The list of N. American presidents and vice presidents with similar issues is quite long. In fact, Warren Harding had high blood pressure and was borderline diabetic.

If white men can serve at the highest level of our government with these issues, than why can’t a woman of color serve on the Supreme Court with a chronic health problem that many N. Americans also have? To me it seems like they are raising the spectre of ablism (especially right after she fell while rushing to the airport, implying she may have had a diabetic episode) in order to dodge the spectre of race that didn’t work for them. Ultimately, that move makes his comments ablist, racist, and sexist. But who is counting?