[Superman]

Island, someone once asked whether a person who used to be a SC justice, but is now an elected legislator, would be viewed differently by me in those different roles. The answer is yes.

One of the most important lessons I have learned professionally is the ability to tell the difference between my job and everyone else's. I can even tell the difference between my job at L&I and my job now. My job at L&I was to protect workers. And it so happens that even the employers seem to have developed some good respect for me, though they understood that I was serious about protecting workers. That has worked well for me, as it turns out, now that I have a different role.

Let me put it yet another way. I see a fair number of people who are confused about their roles. Consequently, they try to make everyone happy all the time. If I were considering filling an important executive position, I would eschew those candidates who seem to have lacked a clear vision in their former positions. Even when I disagreed with the thrust of the previous role of a candidate, I would seriously consider hiring that candidate if I could verify that his or her outstanding performance was related to their clarity of vision.

Now, here is where I might as well respond to the other fellow's suggestion that supreme court justices wring their hands and make greedy and ideological/parsan decisions from the bench. Sure, I'm not naive. They're human. But you what else they are? They're justices on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. They didn't get there by being ass-kissers. They got there with their clarity of vision. No other way. If they step down (yeah, right) and get elected to a legislative position....there could only be one purpose for why they did that. And it has everything to do with the difference between the role of a justice and the role of a legislator.

And one last thing. I hang it out here in a rather caricaturized way, for a purpose. In reality, as the people who actually know me are aware, I don't really have horns and I don't breathe fire and I don't suck blood out of peoples' necks. I may be somewhat less rabid than I come across here. I hang it out there, knowing that my remarks are going to, shall we say, heighten the discussion. That's deliberate. And I know that I'm going to take some heat and some abuse because of it. That comes with the territory. But what I do not appreciate is some guy coming in here for the purpose of ripping me a new one, personally. That's for you, Colin. If you've got a burr under your saddle blanket, then go beat up a dog or something. If you've got something constructive to interject, then great. I have invited you to do that several times. But if you're only interested in whacking on Superman personally, then the gloves are going to come off and we'll go bare knuckles. I'm offering actual ideas here. If you're not, then don't just chime in for the purpose of goading me. That will not work out smoothly.