Re: Ronald Dworkin
R.W. Dworkin wrote:This election will decide whether a radical politics succeeds in the United States.
So far I agree. But I disagree with the implication, expressed in the tone of the following paragraphs, that radicalism is necessarily a bad thing and centrism necessarily a virtue. As evidence to the contrary, I would point out that the "War on Drugs", the "Patriot Act", and the war in Iraq were all supported by a broad, bi-partisan minority -- and that Lincoln's freeing of the slaves, the forced desegregation of Southern schools in the 50s and 60s, as well as Reagan's "Mr. Gorbatchev, tear down that wall" were all extremely divisive partisan initiatives in their time. As these examples demonstrate, the important distinction isn't who is centrist and who is radical, it's who is wrong and who is right. Dworkin obviously believes Mr.Bush and his allies are wrong on the issues -- and I would agree with that as far as Mr.Bush is concerned -- but he writes a 850 word article without really explaining
why he believes that. This bothers me.
Quote:The alliance with the religious right has already proved a serious threat to America's commitment to social inclusiveness. Bush urges amending the Constitution to outlaw gay marriage; he calls for federal support for religious projects, and condemns millions of Americans to unnecessary suffering by forbidding stem cell research.
I don't see how any of Mr.Dworkin's examples supply evidence of "a serious threat to America's commitment to social inclusiveness" -- whose alleged existence is the claim he is defending here.
Ronald Dworkin wrote:The crucial court, of course, is the Supreme Court. America is very lucky to have survived one Bush administration without a single new Supreme Court appointment, but a second term without more than one new appointment seems unlikely. Even during the last few years, when the Court has been dominated by relatively conservative justices, it has done more than any other national institution to protect American principles of equal citizenship and individual fairness. It has refused to abandon affirmative action; it has insisted on rights for homosexuals; and it has held that even aliens whom the President declared to be enemies of the United States are entitled to the due process of law.
In my opinion, that makes one wrong decision (on affirmative action), two right ones (on the enemy combatants and on the privacy rights of gay people). Hence, Dworkin's examples don't persuade me that another Scalia, Thomas, or Rehnquist would be an obvious step back.
I tend to agree with this line -- not because I disagree with abortion rights, but because I disagree with the liberal justices' notion that the constitution says anything about them.
Quote:A Bush Court would probably have an entire generation in which to destroy constitutional rights that the Court has built up over decades, rights that have helped to define Americans' sense of their own public values. Even if we came to our senses after a second Bush term, that terrible damage would have been done and could not soon be undone.
Here we get to the core of my disagreement with Dworkin. The Supreme court plainly isn't in the business of building up constitutional rights. This is Congress's business. The business of the Supreme Court is to apply the constitution as written by Congress, not as the Supreme Court majority believes it ought to have been written. What Dworkin sees as "that terrible damage" is really a return to the process as defined in the constitution.
I agree the war in Iraq was a bad thing, but Dworkin's points about "America's ideology", "theological terms", "crusade" and "Spanish Inquisition" are scaremongering pure and simple. Even though Dworkin carefully hedges his points with "much of" and "sometimes".
A disappointing, misleading propaganda pamphlet that produces more heat than light, though I happen to agree with about half of its politics. I don't like it.
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