ON JUDICIAL ACTIVISM



First Things, in the October issue, presents an insightful editorial by Michael M. Uhlmann on the history and calamity that is judicial activism in the United States:

The academics' Constitution, which has willy-nilly become the Court�s, is commonly described as a framework for democratic aspiration, by which is meant a Constitution that is in a constant state of becoming. Toward what end the proponents do not precisely say, at least for public consumption, but they remain confident that the Supreme Court should be the preferred instrument through which the details are implemented in beneficent fashion. The living Constitution should be a protean artifact, changing shape in response to the impressions made upon it by what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called �the felt necessities of the times.� For reasons that have yet to be adequately explained, the Supreme Court has been vested with the authority to determine just what those necessities might be.

You can read the entire thing here.