"I think it has already been explained to you, and you stubbornly simply insist on simply being French about it:
SCOTUS is constrained by (1) prevailing mores within the Guild; if it just went wild, the institution would lose prestige where it counted, and that would not be a good long term power retention strategy for SCOTUS, (2) the power of the president to nominate and the senate to confirm justices carefully chosen to reflect more popular views when court decisions become controversial (FDR did that, and got a SCOTUS more to his liking, which reminds me that the power to pass laws to "pack the court" is also lurking out there), (3) the power to pass laws restricting SCOTUS's jurisdiction, (4) the power of Congress to impeach, convict and remove, and (5) the ability of parties to not petition SCOTUS for certiorari (that often happens when a losing party at the lower court level, chooses not to petition, because they think they will lose at the SCOTUS level, and create a "bad" precedent.
Just because some of the above constraints rarely manifest themselves in action, does not mean that they do not exist as constraints (the Robes know that they are there)."
Alright, so there are all of those constraints.
What have they constrained the US Supreme Court from making law?
Not on the taking of private property.
Not on limiting what can be regulated.
Not on abortion.
Not on homosexual issues.
Not on segregation and busing issues, historically.
Not on telling farmers that growing crops for themselves was interstate commerce.
I do not see any real constraint at all.
I see a phantom of a constraint which is fervently believed to be there, but which for all practical purposes, isn't.
And I see Americans like yourself very passionately hating all of these laws, and equally passionately screaming at me that the system is wonderful, properly constructed, and has all the limits that anything requires.
What I see among Americans on this point is the sort of stubbornness that I see in the French when it comes to any reform of labor laws. What exists doesn't work and makes many, many people very unhappy. What exists, in a different light, is sacred: "the Constitution", or "la solidarite sociale", and must be defended in all of its sacred honor.
The result is cognitive dissonance. Terrible labor law that cannot be changed because labor law is sacred and "for the public good". Terrible concentration of authority that cannot be changed because "the Constitution is perfect in every way".
I acknowledge that it stirs up trouble to say: French labor law stinks, and the American constitutional order is misaligned.
I acknowledge that the French start pulling up paving stones and the Americans start brandishing the bloody flag when you put either the blessed "solidarite sociale" or the sacred "Constitution" in a critical light.
The truth hurts.
But at the end of the day, if anything is ever going to change in the worst aspects of either country, the root problem must be faced squarely and honestly and altered.
French labor law and the US Constitutional structure must be changed for the worst aspects of each society to be fixed.
Things aren't bad enough yet in either country to force the change of faith - for that is what is really involved -required to effect reform.
By the way, what limits France from regulating whatever they want? My impression, is that it France is regulation city. Granted, the Germans are worse.