Legislatures are radical; legislatures are planning committees

Judges would be assisted by neutral expert witnesses and guided by evidence-based practice guidelines. Unlike juries, they would issue written opinions that establish precedents and standards of care, removing much of the uncertainty physicians now practice under.

One of the weird things about philosophical Conservatives: opposition to Judge-made law.  There are understandable reasons for why Conservatives have seen the Supreme Court as the enemy of the Constitution (though I tend to think the Courts are forced to fill in the blanks left with the transition for state to national sovereignty).  But thinking that yearly legislatures are preferable to Courts just doesn’t seem all that consistent to me.

3 thoughts on “Legislatures are radical; legislatures are planning committees

  1. Jim

    Actually, there’s a fairly large “conservative” academic literature (mainly coming from the law-and-economics folk, but earlier from Hayek) that celebrates the evolution of judge-made common law relative to legislative action.

    Of course, you go to an academic conference that focuses on legislation, and judicial review is the salvation of the state. You go to one that focuses on judicial review, and everyone complains about judicial activism, and judges substituting their judgments for those of the legislature.

    There’s a tension there.

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  2. mark Post author

    Jim, I ran into it quite by accident (I ordered a book out of pure curiosity) through LibertyPress. I wasn’t sure it it was really “conservative” or more “pure libertarian.”

    It hasn’t filtered down into grassroots conservatism.

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  3. Jim

    Yeah, I’d say that the more recent stuff is libertarian, but the “spirit,” as it were, seems to be pure Burke (Edmund, of course, not Kenneth). Organic development & etc.

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