"Years ago, I knew two kids. One was a tall and wispy twerp whose arrogance exceeded his stratospheric brilliance."

"The other was a squat punk whose beautiful mind spewed quips like switchblades."

By three orders of magnitude, these two were far smarter than the rest of us.

It was on the playground where they struggled. The twerp found that being haughty prompted a vigorous ass kicking. The punk learned that being mouthy got you pantsed in front of the girls. But, over time, the playground changed them. Each kid started to act normally. With that, the rest of us came to respect and even appreciate them. More importantly, their socialization prompted us to consider what they had to say.

Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps Posner and Scalia (and their snarly stand-ins) should visit a playground.

The writer of that snark is himself a federal judge, I note — with a nudge to a colleague of mine who was chastising me for analyzing the psychology of judges. (How do I know their motives? I don't. I speculate!)

But I'm fascinated to see a judge opine that other judges are guys who failed to get enough bullying when they were kids! Who's exercising the momentous power to say what they law is and inflict their opinion on the rest of us? Abnormal people who could've used a good ass-kicking... a good pantsing in front of the girls.