A reader who is a lawyer at a bog Wall Street law firm and a practicing Catholic sent along a very thoughtful email that captures very much of the mood I'm in these days:
... having gone through law school and paid close attention to politics, I have never had much faith in the courts. It was painfully obvious in law school that Supreme Court decisions had no basis in reason, and were just masks for getting a justice's personal policy preferences. Lawrence and subsequent decisions have verified that to me. I read Scalia's speech regarding the recent death penalty case and thought it was a warning over the future of American democracy. When was the last time a justice gave such a speech before? And what does it portend? ...
Terri's case has, for me, sealed the deal on the morality and also the rule of the judiciary in American life. ...
I've been around long enough and read enough cases to see judges twist the meaning of words far enough to suit their own personal desires. ...
I have no faith in the courts at all. None. ... If men were more strongly committed to their own sovereignty, as they were in earlier ages, these judicial acts of callousness would inspire a Revolution.
It's bad enough that I'm sad over what's happening to Terri. But compounding that is the fact that I now consider 1/3rd of our government, the unelected, permanent system of the courts, to be hostile to the good ....
Yeah. What could I say? I had no words of comfort to offer. About the best I could do was suggest that he take a look at The End of Democracy, which remains for me the seminal work on judicial activism for folks like us.
