The American Way? (The high court "battle" began back in 1935)

"Yes, we should be knowing their judicial philosophy, we should be knowing their legal form of reasoning. There are lots of questions that are legitimate. . . . What's your view on the right to privacy, which was established in Griswold 40 years ago?"

I recently attended a legal symposium in Philadelphia organized by Philip K. Howard of Common Good. It ended a day or so before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her resignation, followed by much praise for her 24 years on the Court. At the symposium, Mr. Howard's organization released a poll done for it by Harris, which found that only 16% of Americans expect the legal system to protect them against baseless claims.

Setting aside for a moment the public's view of what Sen. Schumer calls "the legal form of reasoning," the Common Good meeting brought its participants literally shoulder to shoulder with the men who made the original, but now expanded, Constitution. In a room at Philadelphia's new National Constitutional Center is a mesmerizing, if eerie, life-sized tableau in bronze of the participants at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. One can walk among and bump into the diminutive Hamilton and Madison, a seated Franklin, the towering George Washington, Jefferson (in Paris at the time), Gouverneur Morris, George Mason and the other Founders.

Would that it were possible to summon Madison's shade before Sen. Schumer during the coming advise, consent and demolition hearings to offer his thoughts, in retrospect, on the right to privacy created in Griswold v. Connecticut 178 years after his signature dried on Constitution 1.0? Why, Mr. Madison, didn't an explicit "right to privacy" make your original cut?

The Tempting of America (Vanity)
Posted by nathanbedford to Racehorse
On News/Activism 01/01/2005 8:37:30 AM EST • 2 of 2

About two years ago I published the following comment, I think it stands today:

1. The battle over states' rights, 138 years after Appomatox and 49 years after the court ordered school integration, is finally, conclusively, over. There are no more states' rights and it is only a matter of time until the court gets around to picking off the remaining vestiges of states' powers one by one.
2. The idea of the written constitution as a social contract is dead. It has now morphed into a manifesto which can accomodate groups' rights as they come into favor.
3. The idea that law, constitutional law, should be dominant in ordering the affairs of men is now dead and in its place we will governed by a coctail of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and pop culture.
4. The unwritten Confession of Faith shared by our Justices for generations in which they conceive themselves in spirit to be LEGAL arbiters operating within a LEGAL system and according to its rules has been tacitedly abandoned, although its vocabulary has been retained to conceal the metamorphis, and the Justices now have assumed a new role as Shamons, Priesters, Oracles or something quite different which has yet to be fully revealed.
5. The legal system will cease to be a place where rights are vindicated and become a source for the establishment of INTERESTS. To attain the establishment of his interests, the clever advocate will see that the Gods of the new system will have to be propitiated. Theis means that sucessful advocates will have established their cause as the flavor of the month in a ever changing menu of fads, movements, and the like.
6. Resort to the Constitution will be an empty exercise resorted to by fools who do not know how the real game is actually being played.
This is what is a stake in the coming battle over the Courts.

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