As high-minded as that sounds, I do not elevate that narrow and arbitrary ideal above the lived experience of the people.
Say what you want about judicial activism, or whatever you want to call it, labels aren't important. I'd rather the risk of destabilization than perpetually reaffirming all the injustices and shortcomings we carry with us.
You may say the judiciary has no role in that process, but I say no other ideal is as important as human/animal lived experience. And judicial conservatism is antithetical to that ideal when the base is unfair, in whole or in part.
Obviously many rights should he conserved, but if I have to choose, I think conservatism beyond those key rights only serves the already priveleged, and limits what is possible (obviously, that's the whole point).
Well, I guess that's a difference in philosophy then. I find myself agreeing with him that sometimes, people can be quite wrong and bad, and that's in fact a greater danger than the benefit of people being right and good.
And protecting society from going down the wrong path -- which often leads it towards permanent irrecoverable damage -- is as important, if not more important, than enabling people be able to so quickly fix something that temporarily solves it, but sets up the society for greater disorder in the long run.
Perhaps judges could have fixed injustices faster. Or different styles of democracy could have. But they could also cause injustices faster too.
Take a different example. People are in some no small measure in approval today that abortion should be legal, when it involves (in some other people's opinion) the killing of human beings. (Just to avoid any controversy /s)
How would you handle that one? Is that to be given the same process as what you just proposed to cure that injustice?
You see the point about having a system that does well across many issues, not just one, right?
This absolutism is what causes more harm, because people fail to appreciate any progress when things haven’t gotten 100% of the way there.
The reason it causes harm, is because it discourages people from going after real incremental steps, because they see the mountain that is in front of them.
E.g. there are currently more slaves in the world than at any time in human history. With that mentality, we could have said, ‘oh, we can’t stop all the slavery in the world, so it’s not worth ending it here’
Say what you want about judicial activism, or whatever you want to call it, labels aren't important. I'd rather the risk of destabilization than perpetually reaffirming all the injustices and shortcomings we carry with us.
You may say the judiciary has no role in that process, but I say no other ideal is as important as human/animal lived experience. And judicial conservatism is antithetical to that ideal when the base is unfair, in whole or in part.
Obviously many rights should he conserved, but if I have to choose, I think conservatism beyond those key rights only serves the already priveleged, and limits what is possible (obviously, that's the whole point).