Impatient with the three branches of government established at the nation’s founding, the left routinely takes its politics to the streets now to demand remedies for “inequality” or “injustice.” Yet these inchoate demands have become so disconnected from the normal mechanisms of politics that no Congress, representing 535 elections, could possibly turn them into legislation.
…
Shortly after the Obergefell decision, something else of cultural and political significance happened. Within months, the left began to agitate for transgender rights, another moral claim whose substantive meaning is a mystery to most Americans.
Liberals remain incredulous at Mr. Trump’s election. But nearly half the electorate voted for him, and among the reasons is that today a lot of people—across all income classes—feel they are really being jammed by the culture. Progressive jurisprudence had a lot to do with this. Liberals won their share of court decisions, but at a price: The courts in America became an agent of social discord.
It would be good for the country’s stability if a Kavanaugh Court disincentivized the left from using the courts to push the far edges of the social envelope. This is not about turning back the clock. It is about how best to resolve bitter social and cultural disputes in the future. It is about no longer using the courts to make triumphal moral claims against the majority.
In the Kavanaugh Court, extending rights claims beyond their already elastic status is going to require more rigor than appeals to a judge’s personal sensibilities or a theory of social organization developed in law journals.
Advocates for social change involving race, gender, identity and such will have to convince representative majorities, elected by voters, to agree with their point of view. Unlike in the past four decades, the high court will more often weigh in after, not before, the political process has happened.
The United States needs to settle down politically ….
Daniel Henninger (emphasis added, paywall)
I’m less convinced than Henninger that the Roe v. Wade line of cases can survive a court that shows rigorous respect for the Constitution. Here’s why.
Not too long ago, I got into an internet dust-up with an progressive ignoramus who claimed that the purpose of the Constitution was to establish “rights.” I tried to correct him, and was treated as a monster for denying his dogma.
He was wrong, but he’s far from alone. It’s widely overlooked these days (though probably not widely ignored when mentioned) that the Bill of Rights are ten amendments to the constitution, the core purpose of which was to set up the rules for governing a new nation (duh!).
Among those rules were separation of the national government into three branches, with checks and balances among them, and with limitation on their overall power because states and the people would retain all powers not delegated to the national government.
So when an overreaching court seizes an issue from the States, although the Constitution left that issue to the states, that seizure is no less a violation of the constitution than when Congress makes a law, say, respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The Supreme Court Justices swear to uphold the Constitution, and take no oath to advance rights claims without Constitutional roots. Doesn’t that oath oblige justices to undue the mistake of a prior court that improperly wrested an issue away from those to whom the Constitution left it?
It’s pretty well known among legal scholars that the constitutional underpinnings of our abortion jurisprudence are somewhere between shaky and fanciful. There was a veritable cottage industry of attempts on the legal left to re-write the defective Roe v.. Wade opinion in law journal articles from 1973 to 1992, when Justice Kennedy replaced all the trimester crap and other Roe detritus with the equally risible “mystery passage” and invocation of stare decisis to avoid a “jurisprudence of doubt.” (“Shut up,” he explained.)
Perhaps a “Kavanaugh Court” would demur from overruling the Roe line of cases because frank overruling would increase an already-dangerous level of political discord. I suppose that could be justified on a “lesser Constitutional evil” theory (e.g., “If we honor federalism and return abortion laws to the states, where they belong, the whole Constitutional edifice could be toppled in the aftermath”).
In an era of Constitutional outrages, I don’t think that would be at the top of the outrage list, but I could fairly easily see it going the other way, too, especially if our political discord dies down before an appropriate case reaches the court.
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The waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god.
(Sir James Fitzjames Stephen)
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
(Philip K. Dick)
Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes. Where I glean stuff.
Follow me on Micro.blog, too, where I blog tweet-like shorter items and … well, it’s evolving. Or, if you prefer, those micro.blog items also appear now at microblog.intellectualoid.com.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 