By Alan B. Sternstein

Until recently, the social and political institutions of the United States long enjoyed, largely, the respect and the fealty of its citizenry. Though their raison d’etre vary, our institutions – our schools, houses of worship, courts, legislatures and more – all serve a common and fundamental function. They facilitate the conduct of orderly and rational discourse aimed at achieving consensus of purpose, in, importantly but not exclusively, matters of education, worship, governance, and commerce. Plainly, however, institutions do not guarantee discourse having such quality and effect. That depends, instead, on the character of each institution’s members. Given their essential function and the vital purposes, how is it that our most important institutions, those of government, have fallen so far in function and repute? Certainly bearing responsibility, at the federal and even state levels, has been the Supreme Court’s insensitivity to, if not abdication of, the unique position it occupies to protect our democratic form of government, which judicial proclivity is the subject of this post. We start first, though, with some political theory.