"I’m just a process girl living in an outcomes world."
This is a great line, and it matches with your description of her as Never-Trumper, since they're essentially the last process-lovers still around. But they're fading, and for good reason.
John Locke was looking for a way out of the European wars of religion. To achieve that, he left questions of ends (morality, outcomes, etc...) out of his "liberal" society. He dethroned God and morality and deified procedure instead. Justice was no longer a "good" outcome but a set of rules to be followed. (Lady Justice statues go blind in the 17th century; the ancient Roman Goddess Justitia features scales but no blindfold.)
Even at the time, Edmund Burke warned him this wouldn't work, that society could only exist within a shared moral framework which Locke's own system was going to destroy. That justice and goodness could never be separated. But no one listened. They were too high on "life, liberty, and property".
It worked fine for a long while. (Well, save that little moral skirmish over slavery -- and it's worth noting that the Lockeans were the Confederates) But it looked like Burke had been up a tree. He figured we'd devolve into a monarchy within a few decades (the French did, so perhaps we just got lucky or got rid of Thomas Paine at the right time.)
Over the centuries, a few people mentioned Burke's insistent contradiction (Tocqueville, Lord Acton, T.S. Eliot, Russell Kirk, MacIntyre, even Dostoevsky), but no one really paid much attention until Patrick Deneen resurrected it a few years ago.
The Left gave up on Locke in the 90's. The Democratic Party is now run by people who don't give a hoot about the process (means) as long as they get the outcome they know it right (ends). It took the Right another few decades, but they've also given up on Locke now. MAGA is entirely outcomes based as well.
2020 was the last hurrah for the procedural institutionalists on both Left and Right. (What, exactly, is Nikki Haley doing now?) It's Nietzschean world. I wish it wasn't. I wish every major political decision wasn't made by 9 unelected, black robes. But that's where we are. I'd prefer a Congress that started legislating again, but absent a shared moral framework, I don't think that can happen, so I guess I'm going to have to settle for effectively electing a king every 4 years who will govern by CR's and EO's.
In case you can't tell, I'm a conflict theorist. And also a civics teacher. :-)
However, thanks for a great book review. Even though I expect to disagree with her, I will put the book on my library checkout list.
An interesting book review on a very interesting topic!
I frankly doubt the Founders would recognize the Supreme Court any more than Congress or the Presidency. But a lot of its changes go back to John Marshall (who pioneered its deciding constitutionality, though the Founders might well have understood this), and a lot more go back to William Howard Taft (who convinced Congress to let the Court determine its own docket).
That said, it’s certainly changed in a very different way than the other branches - and this review shows some of how.
I thought about those same things. She does go into Marshal quite a bit, and also talks about Taft and the changes in how the docket works.
I think the steelman of her case is that the Court is the one branch that is operating according to overarching principles envisioned by the founders. Plugging the hole or providing the balance in the system they might have imagined. But I would be curious as to your thoughts after reading it (but no pressure).
Thomas Jefferson wrote. "The Judiciary of the United States is a subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working to undermine the foundations of our constitutional fabric." The Federal Judiciary: an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.
I would say Jefferson really hit the nail on the head, telling us from after only a few years of our government's operation, what was already slowly happening, and it hasn't stopped.
I can go down the list of the Bill of Rights and point out the numerous usurpations, as well as show you what unlawful abrogations they made, affecting their ability to usurp them. Once you realize Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code, and Title 27, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are Not "positive" law, you than should then realize it was the Courts who have allowed their unconstitutional enforcement. Many legal scholars have noted the erroneous uses of the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses by the Courts to defend their usurpations, so there are many others who have been paying attention to their high crimes, and one could argue treason. By unlawfully abrogating the intent of the Constitution, allowing for greater and greater usurpations of rights, does that not, in reality, void the Bill of Rights portion of the Constitution, allowing an oligarchy of private and public actors to form and take over the governance of our country? Doesn't Peter Thiel's secret Dialog group recently outed pretty much prove I'm right? How about the Epstein mafia with its paws in just about everything and every industry?
On the last point, I'm happy for a mix that favors reviewing books a bit later than everyone else; throw a bit of hindsight and context on them.
"I’m just a process girl living in an outcomes world."
This is a great line, and it matches with your description of her as Never-Trumper, since they're essentially the last process-lovers still around. But they're fading, and for good reason.
John Locke was looking for a way out of the European wars of religion. To achieve that, he left questions of ends (morality, outcomes, etc...) out of his "liberal" society. He dethroned God and morality and deified procedure instead. Justice was no longer a "good" outcome but a set of rules to be followed. (Lady Justice statues go blind in the 17th century; the ancient Roman Goddess Justitia features scales but no blindfold.)
Even at the time, Edmund Burke warned him this wouldn't work, that society could only exist within a shared moral framework which Locke's own system was going to destroy. That justice and goodness could never be separated. But no one listened. They were too high on "life, liberty, and property".
It worked fine for a long while. (Well, save that little moral skirmish over slavery -- and it's worth noting that the Lockeans were the Confederates) But it looked like Burke had been up a tree. He figured we'd devolve into a monarchy within a few decades (the French did, so perhaps we just got lucky or got rid of Thomas Paine at the right time.)
Over the centuries, a few people mentioned Burke's insistent contradiction (Tocqueville, Lord Acton, T.S. Eliot, Russell Kirk, MacIntyre, even Dostoevsky), but no one really paid much attention until Patrick Deneen resurrected it a few years ago.
The Left gave up on Locke in the 90's. The Democratic Party is now run by people who don't give a hoot about the process (means) as long as they get the outcome they know it right (ends). It took the Right another few decades, but they've also given up on Locke now. MAGA is entirely outcomes based as well.
2020 was the last hurrah for the procedural institutionalists on both Left and Right. (What, exactly, is Nikki Haley doing now?) It's Nietzschean world. I wish it wasn't. I wish every major political decision wasn't made by 9 unelected, black robes. But that's where we are. I'd prefer a Congress that started legislating again, but absent a shared moral framework, I don't think that can happen, so I guess I'm going to have to settle for effectively electing a king every 4 years who will govern by CR's and EO's.
In case you can't tell, I'm a conflict theorist. And also a civics teacher. :-)
However, thanks for a great book review. Even though I expect to disagree with her, I will put the book on my library checkout list.
That's a great summation of the eternal problem. I'm very interested in hearing what you think about the book!
An interesting book review on a very interesting topic!
I frankly doubt the Founders would recognize the Supreme Court any more than Congress or the Presidency. But a lot of its changes go back to John Marshall (who pioneered its deciding constitutionality, though the Founders might well have understood this), and a lot more go back to William Howard Taft (who convinced Congress to let the Court determine its own docket).
That said, it’s certainly changed in a very different way than the other branches - and this review shows some of how.
I thought about those same things. She does go into Marshal quite a bit, and also talks about Taft and the changes in how the docket works.
I think the steelman of her case is that the Court is the one branch that is operating according to overarching principles envisioned by the founders. Plugging the hole or providing the balance in the system they might have imagined. But I would be curious as to your thoughts after reading it (but no pressure).
I've put it on my list!
Thomas Jefferson wrote. "The Judiciary of the United States is a subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working to undermine the foundations of our constitutional fabric." The Federal Judiciary: an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.
I would say Jefferson really hit the nail on the head, telling us from after only a few years of our government's operation, what was already slowly happening, and it hasn't stopped.
I can go down the list of the Bill of Rights and point out the numerous usurpations, as well as show you what unlawful abrogations they made, affecting their ability to usurp them. Once you realize Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code, and Title 27, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are Not "positive" law, you than should then realize it was the Courts who have allowed their unconstitutional enforcement. Many legal scholars have noted the erroneous uses of the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses by the Courts to defend their usurpations, so there are many others who have been paying attention to their high crimes, and one could argue treason. By unlawfully abrogating the intent of the Constitution, allowing for greater and greater usurpations of rights, does that not, in reality, void the Bill of Rights portion of the Constitution, allowing an oligarchy of private and public actors to form and take over the governance of our country? Doesn't Peter Thiel's secret Dialog group recently outed pretty much prove I'm right? How about the Epstein mafia with its paws in just about everything and every industry?