They should ask, “What would Reagan do“?
Conservatives are dismayed and baffled at the sight of Obama’s Latin American-style personality cult and at poll results showing astonishing erosion in public support for free markets and limited government. “This is a center-right nation,” conservatives continue to insist. To be sure, Reagan and the conservative movement stoked the populist flames from the 1970s through the 1990s, with considerable success. But conservatives became too comfortable with the thought that populism would remain a reliable conservative force in American politics, and largely lost or disdained the art of constitutional argument.
Madison and Tocqueville knew better (as Mansfield has warned us repeatedly over the last two decades), and would not have been surprised by the present crisis. The other person who would not have been surprised is Ronald Reagan. This sunny optimist also warned repeatedly that “freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” Reagan’s greatest frustration as president was his inability to control spending. In contrast to Pres. George W. Bush, Reagan vetoed several “budget-busting” bills in the course of his presidency, only to see many Republican members of Congress join Democrats in overriding his vetoes. This led Reagan, late in his second term, to recognize the wisdom of Mansfield’s Razor and to embrace a bold constitutional strategy that no one much remembers today.
We need to get people to talk about the Constitution much more.
…liberals have been effectively able to amend the Constitution simply by reinterpreting it (or essentially ignoring it).
Isn’t it time to do something about that? Liberals get to ignore the law of the land and anyone that makes a peep about it is run out of town on a rail? .or marginalized as some sort of quack?
I’d like a super-majority to pass any law, including taxation and spending, but only a less-than-majority (maybe 1/3?) to revoke any law. That plus a single-subject restriction ought to straighten out 90% of the mess.
Real conservative’s wouldn’t have gone running to federal court to
solve the 2000 election.
Er, jack, are you forgetting that it was Gore who initiated the legal contest of the results? Bush was certified the winner of Florida both in the original count, and by the recount. It was Gore who was dissatisfied with those results and insisted on some more recounts — that’s the Democratic Way, you know: count and recount until you get the result you like. The decision against him at the district level was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in Gore’s favor, and then Bush appealed that to the Supreme Court, which very wisely put a stop to the whole charade.
Fact is, when the electorate splits so perfectly evenly between two men, there is no “choice of the people,” and any method of choosing the winner is equally arbitrary, whether you recount (i.e. adjust) the vote in certain key counties (as Gore wanted to do) or you just let the accidents of how it turned out originally stand (as Bush and SCOTUS wanted), or you just flip a coin.
Anyway, on the general issue you are, as usual, full of shit. Historically, conservatives have been much more likely to appeal to the judiciary than liberals, for the very reason that conservatives tend to distrust the popular fad o’ the moment. The popularly-elected legislature tends to be subject to the whims of the mob. The judiciary is more likely to be a brake on the fancies of the moment, and not subject to being suddenly purged by an enraged and short-sighted popular movement.
At least, that’s the way it used to work, until the rise of Caesarism in American politics made the Left realize that even the American judiciary could be used like Roman tribunes, to more or less make law directly, instead of being constrained by the letter of what the legislature (or Constitution) actually said.
In a funny kind of way, the modern liberal judiciary run amok, with all its penumbras and emanations, is a vicious karmic retribution for the conservative’s Marbury v. Madison that so dismayed the Jeffersonians. Had the Supreme Court be limited to interpreting statute, and forbidden to peer into the Constitution further than its written text allows — or had each branch kept, in Jacksonian tradition, the right to interpret constitutionality — there’d be none of this making stuff up out of whole cloth that has plagued the judiciary since the 60s.
Marbury was one of the worst decisions ever. Besides that it has lead us to where we are today it doesn’t even make any sense if you read it; it’s full of self-justifying logic. There has to be a balance struct between mob rule and tyranny, and Marbury took it too far towards tyranny. We just lucked out and got enlightened tyrants until the precedents forced by FDR were written.
Brock, Carl, and anyone who doesn’t like Marbury v. Madison :
Do you think Marbury himself should have been allowed to take office without any impediment? If not, why not? If so, but you still think Marbury was a bad decision, how should Marbury’s situation have been handled?
Geez, Bob-1, who gives a hoot? The problem of Marbury himself could easily have been solved by Marshall without arrogating the immense power to the Supreme Court that he did. That’s like saying the only way to decide how we should split the tab for pizza and beer is for each of we participants to submit our 1040s to the check-splitter, and submit to a full cavity search to be sure our wealth is accurately totted up.
I wouldn’t mind if the Supreme Court had the only power to decide constitutionality if there were also forbidden (somehow) to make stuff up, i.e. if it isn’t there in black and white, it isn’t there at all, full stop. There’s nothing wrong with a backstop against the wilder flights of fancy of a representative legislature, or an imperial President and a whorish Congress that bends over for his every notion. It’s the making of law from the bench to which I — and, indeed, any good Jeffersonian — strongly object.
Generally I’m in favor of the proposition that laws should be hard to construct, easy to destroy. Because the law says so is just another way to say a man with a gun says so, and I personally regret each and every use of force in the way we deal with each other, necessary as some uses may be.
I understand. I’m even sympathetic. I was just wondering how, in particular, Marbury should have been handled.
” Bush appealed that to the Supreme Court, ”
Hence, my statement a real conservative would not have gone to federal court. The issues in 2000 were state level issues. If there were
constitutional matters they would be addressed in the electoral college
and the certification.
Well, maybe the GOP can rebuild itself, between maybe conveniently rediscovering financial discipline and conveniently rediscovering federalism and maybe even Cheney conveniently discovering the right for gays to marry, well who knows maybe there is hope.
But I kind of doubt it.
There is plenty of hope for the GOP jack.
It may not be the best thing for America but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
They just have to be a bit better than the dems and the dems keep lowering the bar a bit every day.
When the Florida Supreme Court DISOBEYS STATE ELECTION LAW by allowing certain counties to turn in their counts past the deadline (after multiple recounts), what in the hell do you expect law-abiding people to do??? You don’t let crooks get away with it. No freakin way. County officials and courts don’t get to change election laws after the election is done. Changing those laws is the legislature’s job, anyway.
That’s typical Jack, you want your enemies to play by the rules while you don’t. Yes, enemies, and it’s time they figured that out.
I was just wondering how, in particular, Marbury should have been handled.
Narrowly.
“When the Florida Supreme Court DISOBEYS STATE ELECTION LAW by allowing certain counties to turn in their counts past the deadline”
Actually the florida supreme court defines State Election law.
In Florida, the Supreme court is the law.
A real constitutional conservative would have accepted that, and
carried any fight to the Electoral College or the House as specified in the
constitution.
Actually the florida supreme court defines State Election law.
No, it doesn’t.
A real constitutional conservative would have accepted that, and
carried any fight to the Electoral College or the House as specified in the
constitution.
No constitutional conservative would accept that kind of judicial activism. You continue to flaunt your appalling ignorance of both conservatives, and the nature of a constitutional republic.
I would really like to hear conservative commentators use the word liberty more. For example, the “conservative” arguments I typically hear against, say, a proposal to increase the minimum wage are almost always economic arguments, espousing the merits of the free market and such, which is all fine and good, but the problem with that approach is that it implicitly concedes the more fundamental and much more important question of whether or not the government should be tinkering with wages at all, regardless of the economic impact.
What about the fundamental liberty of people who might be considering entering into a business contract? Why should a business owner and a potential employee not be free to agree to any wage they want? So what if there might be some public good to a minimum wage law? Under what conditions does such a public good rise to a level that it justifies curbing fundamental liberties?
I don’t mean to imply that these questions are easily anwered or even that there is only one conservative answer. But these are the ones Republicans need to start *raising*. These are the issues that should be at the center of our political debates, rather than at the periphery, which is where they seem to be now.
Lately, when I hear a Repub say that their party needs to return to core principles, that is what I hope for, but I’m afraid they’re just talking about placing more emphasis on the “right” side of economic theory, which, after all, is not a governing philosophy at all, but just a different point of view of what “pragmatic” means with regard to economic policy.
Is the “new” Republican position that the country is better off with right-wing czars running the economy than with left-wing ones? If so, it is hardly a difference at all, if you ask me.
notanexpert – What about the fundamental liberty of people who might be considering entering into a business contract? Why should a business owner and a potential employee not be free to agree to any wage they want?
You assume that the employer and employee have equal power to negotiate. Alas, the entire history of wage and labor relations in the US prior to the minimum wage laws shows that the employer has significantly more power, and will use that power to force wages down.
Why should a business owner and a potential employee not be free to agree to any wage they want? So what if there might be some public good to a minimum wage law? Under what conditions does such a public good rise to a level that it justifies curbing fundamental liberties?
I agree that this is where the argument should be made. Once the Republicans start arguing about the appropriate level of the minimum wage, rather than whether or not it should exist at all, they have already conceded the argument. It’s like the old joke — we’ve already established what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price.
You assume that the employer and employee have equal power to negotiate.
No, one need not assume that at all. Sometimes the employer has the upper hand, sometimes the employee does (e.g., in a time of labor shortages, when the prevailing wage is often above the minimum). In neither case does it justify the government interfering in voluntary contracts.