Trent Steele wrote:TenuredVulture wrote:Really interesting blog from Richard Posner.By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.
Posner's analysis seems spot to me.
It's a shame that Posner is not a Supreme Court judge.
I don't know if he'd be such a great justice. He has a pretty idiosyncratic view of the law, the law and economics movement is really interesting from a philosophical perspective, and there are certainly legal issues that lend themselves to such an approach--stuff like cell phone use in cars, intellectual property laws, trans fat bans, and the like--where you'd be nuts to assert some kind of "right" to do certain things, but where you'd still want to be wary of excessive government intrusion. But I'm not sure I would want to see that approach tied to constitutional interpretation.
