5 ms·
That's quite true, although not totally invalidating my point, because the terms "liberal" and "conservative" as they apply to the Supreme Court tend to be too
by jawns 6y ago
That's quite true, although not totally invalidating my point, because the terms "liberal" and "conservative" as they apply to the Supreme Court tend to be too one-dimensional. Gorsuch and Roberts are definitely conservatives in some respects, but when it comes to social issues, they're more moderate/libertarian, in the vein of Anthony Kennedy.
In fact, if you look at all of Roberts' opinions on social issues, outside of maybe abortion stuff, it's a little surprising that Roberts did not join in with Obergefell. Given that he _did_ dissent from Obergefell, it's also a little surprising he didn't dissent in Bostock. His rationale in Obergefell was that regardless of what he would like the law to say, he did not find that it said what the majority wanted it to say. That's essentially what Kavanaugh said in his dissent today. And to the extent that both cases could be characterized as determining that a right has been hidden in plain sight this whole time, I'm not really sure why Roberts went one way with Obergefell and the other way with Bostock.
- erichocean 6y ago> when it comes to social issues In a society, those are the only issues that actually matter.
- pdonis 6y ago> In a society, those are the only issues that actually matter. Only if your definition of "society" ignores individuals and says that only society itself matters. Lots of individuals (including me) strongly disagree with that.
- erichocean 6y agoLiterally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Not sure what you're on about.
- pdonis 6y ago> Literally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Yours appears to since you say only social issues matter. You are ignoring that individuals have issues, and those issues matter too, because society has to respect individual rights, and that includes the individual right to resolve individual issues without micromanagement based on some busybody's beliefs about "social issues".
- erichocean 6y ago> because society has to respect individual rights That hasn't been true since the 1960s when the bulk of our Civil Rights legislation was passed. The prior legal regime already supported individual rights for all people; "Civil Rights" was about putting the health of society ahead of those individual rights. Actual 1st Amendment rights like "Freedom of Association" were severely curtailed by Civil Rights legislation; indeed, that was the entire point. Now, I probably agree with you about respecting individual rights. I would have liked (as far as I can tell, having not lived through it) the pre-Civil Rights legal regime because I'm a White, straight male. The culture back then was designed to work well for someone like me (and according to all historical evidence, it did). But that's no longer the culture in the US, and we're coming up on 60 years now since the rules were changed. I'm not sure what you want me to do about it, assuming I even could change things today (or would want to).
- jakkyboi 6y agoRespectfully, this is the hugest flaw with small c conservative thought, it's hyperfocused on the individual and ignores any larger social context or wellbeing to the detriment of a nation, state, etc
- erichocean 6y agoI think your "small c conservative" thought is actually more like libertarianism, but otherwise I agree. (When I think of actual "small c conservatives", someone like G. K. Chesterton is what immediately comes to mind…)