Is Conservative A Dirty Word?

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Media
Posted on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 12:03:01 PM EST
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Ann Althouse implies so:

"Those favoring, say, prosecutors and employers are said to be conservative, while those favoring criminal defendants and people claiming discrimination are said to be liberal." If you can get past that sticking point, you can code everything into an immense database, produce some amazing-looking charts, and reach conclusions like "Court Under Roberts Is Most Conservative in Decades."

(Emphasis supplied.) Strange. Althouse seems really upset that the Roberts Court was called the most conservative court in decades by the New York Times. I am not at all sure why. Of course the Roberts Court is the most conservative in decades. That is what Republicans wanted -- what President George Bush wanted and what the Republican Senate that confirmed Roberts and Alito wanted. And what all conservatives wanted. Why whine about the NYTimes reporting that Republicans achieved their stated goals?

I think the article is rather silly, in that it is like reporting that the sun came up today. The more interesting and important reporting should be about how the Roberts Court is the most activist in decades.

Speaking for me only

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Is Conservative A Dirty Word? | 19 comments (19 topical)

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Don't Be Silly (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by The Maven on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 12:33:12 PM EST

Everyone knows that "conservative" courts can't possibly be activist, because "activist" = extremely liberal! I mean, that's what the traditional media tells us, and since they never distort matters so as to suit their predetermined notions and conventional wisdom, it must be so.

Really, to think of the Roberts Court as activist, one would have to believe that it frequently overturns duly enacted legislation or its own precedents -- and we all know that a "conservative" court would never, ever engage in such things. All they do is call balls and strikes as per the immutable Constitution; that's perfectly fine, of course, as everything in America is exactly the same as it was in 1787.

</snark>(in case anyone missed the point)

lol... (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by squeaky on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 05:53:22 PM EST

Soon the Conservatives will be faced with the same problem liberals faced, in that it was a dirty word. Liberals shifted to the new term Progressives, in order to distance themselves from an unpopular term.

If the logic stays the same we can expect that those Conservatives uncomfortable with their pejorative label will rename themselves the Regressives.

Teabaggers (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by jondee on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 06:26:56 PM EST

or should I say "the Tea Party"? is obviously part of that (dishonest) we-never-supported-Bush/Cheney right wing cosmetic makeover. They're not necessarily right or left wing; they're a completely new movement of honest, hard working Americans who're just plain fed up..(with poor immigrants, secularism, big government with it's socialist schemes etc) :)


joke (none / 0) (#12)
by diogenes on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 06:40:06 PM EST

If pro is the opposite of con then what is the opposite of progress?


: Hardly a Joke (none / 0) (#13)
by squeaky on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 06:56:21 PM EST

Is conservative a dirty word? (5.00 / 2) (#16)
by tworivers on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 08:40:03 PM EST

It's a dirty word in my house. But that's just me

It sounds like they (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by JamesTX on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 09:09:02 PM EST

are now trying to get out from under their most prized accomplishments. Naturally, at some point, the public will begin to realize what their electoral carelessness has led to, and they will become unhappy with the concept of authoritarianism and conservatism. The conservative attack on government of the last three decades was one of the best examples of political strategy in our history. They deceived and distracted while stealthily implementing the most far-reaching and enduring modifications possible, most of which the dawdling baby boomer public didn't even notice or understand at the time they were doing it.

Before the liberal blogosphere educated people to the importance of these appointments, most Americans didn't really understand federal judicial appointments as being for life. You have to admit, it is not intuitive that such a structure would exist in our system, so those who didn't specifically know it would have never guessed it. The apolitical baby boomers were peddling along with what they thought was temporary tolerance of the conservative political machine which in many ways served their temporary interests, assuming they could dismantle it all quickly if it got out of hand. While they lived in their dreamworld, the Alito and Roberts appointments sealed the fate of two generations, and possibly irrevocably ended what most Americans intuitively understood as our American philosophy of government.

The conservatives knew what they were doing, and they pulled it off with precision and effectiveness. No reason to complain now. The milk is spilled. It's over, and we are now hopelessly alienated from one of the three branches of government for as long as most of us shall live. Yes, when the baby boomers figure out what they have done, conservative is going to be an ugly word, and the thugs are smart enough to start backpeddling now in an effort to keep their one-sided, ignorance-based relationship with their base. Like everything else, they will try to blame this on "liberals"!

Help me understand the foundation (none / 0) (#2)
by Peter G on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 01:02:13 PM EST

for your observation, BTD, that "the Roberts Court is the most activist in decades." The Liptak story does have two passages on this point, which claim to contradict you. Near the top: "The Roberts court is finding laws unconstitutional and reversing precedent -- two measures of activism -- no more often than earlier courts. But the ideological direction of the court's activism has undergone a marked change toward conservative results." Then, further on, elaborating: "In some ways, the Roberts court is more cautious than earlier ones. The Rehnquist court struck down about 120 laws, or about six a year, according to an analysis by Professor Epstein. The Roberts court, which on average hears fewer cases than the Rehnquist court did, has struck down fewer laws -- 15 in its first five years, or three a year.

"It is the ideological direction of the decisions that has changed. When the Rehnquist court struck down laws, it reached a liberal result more than 70 percent of the time. The Roberts court has tilted strongly in the opposite direction, reaching a conservative result 60 percent of the time.

"The Rehnquist court overruled 45 precedents over 19 years. Sixty percent of those decisions reached a conservative result. The Roberts court overruled eight precedents in its first five years, a slightly lower annual rate. All but one reached a conservative result."

For those who haven't read it, the NYT story is not "silly" in the sense of being purely subjective or superficial. It is expressly based "an analysis of four sets of political science data." The methodology may be questionable, or the criteria, or whatever, but it does make a claim to objectivity and expose its methodology (including some criticisms of that methodology). Your comments?

Tell me what you think of as activist (none / 0) (#3)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 01:24:42 PM EST

Why are you challenging me? (none / 0) (#5)
by Peter G on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 02:02:27 PM EST

It was you who used the term, without explanation or definition. Liptak used it also, chose to use an "objective" definition which he disclosed (striking down a statute or expressly overturning a precedent), and reached the opposite conclusion. My comment didn't take sides, but rather -- because I genuinely respect and am interested in your opinions -- asked you to clarify your apparent disagreement. What does my thinking about the meaning of the term have to do with that? (For what it's worth, however -- which I would estimate at approximately nothing -- I think of judicial activism as a court's reaching out for an ideologically desired result, in defiance of the accepted norms of judicial decisionmaking methodology. This is a purely subjective test, unlike Liptak's. For example, the Stevens decision this Term (8-1 majority, written by Roberts) striking down a federal criminal statute on First Amendment grounds, meets Liptak's definition of "activist," but in my view it was not -- because it involved a proper application of existing First Amendment doctrine. On the other hand, in my opinion, the decision (5-4, per Breyer) in Dolan v. United States, also this Term, excusing a prosecutor's and judge's disregard of the federal statute setting a limit on how long after sentencing a restitution obligation can be imposed on the defendant, was "activist," because the defendant clearly had the better of the argument on statutory construction (plain language, etc.) grounds, but the majority cited a half dozen disparate rationales, several of them totally nonsensical, to reach a result that favored the prosecutor and "victims." That one would not make Liptak's statistics. Nor do I consider "judicial activism" -- defined as Liptak does -- necessarily a bad thing. Overruling an erroneous precedent is good judicial work, not bad; not all precedent is a proper touchstone for future decisions. Need I mention anything beyond Brown v. Board and Lawrence v. Texas?) Ok, so now I answered you. Will you now explain what you meant, and the basis for it? Thanks.


Not challenging you (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 02:12:00 PM EST

Honestly asking you. For my part, I've brought up judicial activism I would say Oh, about a million times since I started posting at this blog.

As for "objective definitions" - well, that one was a little short of it. The major missing component? How cases are taken by the Court and how many.

How many cases did say, the Rehnquist Court and the Burger Courts and the Warren Court hear? How many of those represented opportunities to be "activist?" And how many such opportunities were taken? I think that is more important than the "objective" absolute numbers Liptak cites. The analysis is almost childish, but certainly amateurish.


"activist court" definition: (none / 0) (#8)
by cpinva on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 02:38:07 PM EST

one that decides cases differently than you would like.

of course, that's kind of a recent, decidedly more conservative definition. but, since they were the ones to start playing that game, it seems only fair.


: So true, that is the commonly held definition. (none / 0) (#15)
by Peter G on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 07:31:42 PM EST

But as I hope my attempted dialog with BTD shows, it is possible to have a serious discussion on the question. And if you have an understanding of judicial decisionmaking that is at all sophisticated, the question of "activism" suddenly becomes quite complicated indeed.

Examine your premise (none / 0) (#4)
by diogenes on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 01:37:25 PM EST

The article states that decisions favoring prosecutors are "conservative" whereas decisions favoring the rights of defendents are "liberal".
Remember the old adage that "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged."

The rule of law (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by jondee on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 02:34:47 PM EST

is supposed to viate against the visceral reactions of people who've been mugged. So-called conservatives - though Im still trying to figure out what the concrete things are that they want to conserve - seem to want to build careers on feeding and exploiting primitive visceral reactions.


self-righteous (none / 0) (#11)
by diogenes on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 06:38:56 PM EST

Why is it that those Americans who derive their self-esteem from moral causes never seem to live where their cause puts them at risk? Pacifists live between two oceans in Kansas or Berkeley, not in areas where invading armies will take their land and rape their family members. Those who have no visceral response to muggings generally live in comfortable suburbia rather than in crime-ridden inner cities.


: I drove a cab (5.00 / 3) (#14)
by jondee on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 07:08:28 PM EST

in the inner city for three years ( a job, which at the time, had a higher violent death rate than police officers and prison guards). I've seen it all. So, not to put too fine a point on it, you can take your talk radio "Berkley pacifist - Eastern liberal" b.s and stick it. Some people make a decision to strive to see the good that people are CAPABLE of and to keep foremost in their minds that the idea of institutionalizing the urge to achieve "closure" by dehumanizing others eventually leads to the dehumanization of everyone. Nobody said it was easy; easy would be to go back to the "Law west 'a the Pecos" known quantity that you guys seem to miss so much.

: ha! (none / 0) (#19)
by CST on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 08:46:11 AM EST

Yea cities - those wonderfully conservative votinh regions - you have clearly never watched election results roll in

I can understand that (none / 0) (#18)
by JamesTX on Sun Jul 25, 2010 at 09:42:31 PM EST

perspective, but it is really neither descriptively true nor does it carry any message of wisdom. It is the intolerance and unfairness of the laws which has empowered organized crime (now called gangs). The war on drugs with its Draconian interventions against powerless and relatively harmless citizens has created a system where those people have no hope, and thus must turn to illegal organizations and cultures for survival. It is the "tuff" approach which has created a tough enemy. That is the nature of life. When you treat people with cruelty and disregard, mechanisms of natural social selection act to turn the effected populations stronger, meaner, and more insensitive to reason. If the philosophy of government is that we are going to beat entire populations into submission sans reason and negotiation, then after a few years the only surviving elements of those populations are the ones who can take a beating and come back fighting.
