The Problem With Liberal Judges

I've been reading Mark Levin's book "Liberty and Tyranny" and came across an old but timely quote from Justice Thurgood Marshall when asked about his judicial philosophy:

“You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

Now I'm sure some of you are wondering what could possibly be wrong with that? After all, should it be the goal of all of us to "do what is right"?

Of course, but the problem when it comes to judges is that "what is right" is very subjective, depending on your political philosophy. In many areas there is no clear-cut definition of what is right, except as defined by the law.

Let's take for instance, murder. We all agree that murder is a bad thing, but do we all agree on how murder is defined? No.

According to the latest Gallup survey on Values and Beliefs, 51% of Americans identify themselves as pro-life. (By the way, that's the first time in the history of that poll that a majority of Americans responded that way. Don't ever think the culture war has been lost.) That means that a majority of Americans at the very least think abortion is wrong, and at the worst think it is murder. Therefore, conservative judges, doing what is "right", would be expected to rule that abortion is murder.

On the other end of the political spectrum you have people who think that all war is murder and that there's never an appropriate time to take the life of another, even if he attacks you first. Judges operating from that pacifist pursuasion, and again doing what is "right", would be expected to rule against anything that took a life, whether war or capital punishment.

You can see the kind of confusion that relying on a subjective standard can cause.

Following Marshall's political philosophy yields results that are not grounded on anything more firm than the shifting winds of political correctness and personal opinion. The law should not be something that's decided at the whim of one man's "feelings", but rather should be based on the codified language so that there is some degree of reliability in how outcomes are determined. Supreme Court decisions should never be a surprise to those well acquainted with the law, but when liberals are in charge, results are a crapshoot.

Unfortunately, the next appointment to the court will likely share Marshall's approach to the law and we can expect future decisions to be as unconnected to our actual written laws and the Constitution as they have been in the past.