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.
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.
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.
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.