The late
Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described our increased tolerance for morally deviant behavior as "defining deviancy downward." Now
Thomas Sowell is arguing that judicial activism constitutes a similiar sense of "defining democracy downward." The painful irony, he suggests, is that while democracy is increasing abroad, it is shrinking at home. For Sowell, the heart of the issue is this question:
Are the people to have the right to elect their own representatives to decide issues or are unelected judges to take over an ever-increasing share of the power to rule?Sowell writes:
An aging Supreme Court means that there is now a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop the erosion of democratic self-government by putting advocates of judicial restraint, rather than judicial activism, on the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
Well said.
