Posted on 08/27/2005 8:23:18 PM PDT by neverdem
I. The Future Is Not the Present
Three years ago, in a small conference room at the offices of the law firm Hogan & Hartson in Washington, I had the chance to talk with John G. Roberts Jr. At the time, Roberts was a lawyer in private practice, unsure whether Senate Democrats would hold a hearing on his nomination to be a federal appellate judge. (After being nominated three times, in 1992, 2001 and 2003, he would finally be given a hearing and confirmed in May 2003 after Republicans took control of the Senate.) In a conversation over cookies and coffee, Roberts spoke candidly about a wide range of topics, and I was impressed by his modesty, intelligence and sense of humor.
Now that Roberts has been nominated to the Supreme Court, something else about our conversation strikes me: he was acutely sensitive to the unpredictability of history and the surprises that the future tends to bring. At one point, the conversation turned to the thesis he wrote in 1976 as an undergraduate at Harvard, in which he analyzed the fate, decades earlier, of the British Liberal Party. After winning one of the biggest landslides in British history, in 1906, the Liberals appeared to be destined for a long period of dominance. But in fact the party never won another election because of a series of political miscalculations. The lesson of this particular episode of history, Roberts seemed to suggest, was that politicians -- and judges, for that matter -- should be wary of the assumption that the future will be little more than an extension of things as they are.
Roberts's point might be useful for senators to keep in mind as they prepare to question him at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which are scheduled to begin on...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Thanks for the ping!
A little more background:
http://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/
Rosen's "futures test" as a litmus test for nominees is outrageous. All he needs to do is consult Hillary. She is great at predicting cattle futures, or he could dial 1-800-Miss Cleo.
A legal twit with a twisted mind.
The short answer is that the protector of these rights, as Thomas Jefferson said, is the people, not the Courts. There are perils on all sides, but Scalia is right: trust state governments, accountable to the people, rather than a cabal of 9 unlected lawyers in D.C. Rosen is kidding himself to suggest otherwise, just cuz it's gone his way with the Courts in recent history...
Interesting article, but the above aside is rather snarky -- I suppose most conservatives are supposed to not be intelligent, able or judicious of temperament?
So New York or Massachusetts should be able to outlaw Christianity? Or, for example, Judaism? If it were not for the courts, the Jim Crow-laws would still be in place. The "people" took really good care of those rights for a long time. Don't toss out the baby with the bathwater. Get rid of the excesses, not of judicial review entirely.
I don't trust the Supreme Court to trust me. A million dead babies a year don't trust it. Give me the people, through the legislatures, instead, if possible...
Sorry, that should read, "...don't trust the Supreme Court to protect me..."
Great link. Thanks.
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