Counterpoint
In "Based on recent rulings, it's the court's liberal wing that's rigid" (June 29), D.J. Tice observed that the liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court constitute a more lockstep group than the conservatives do.
I think he's right -- but Tice presented this as a criticism of the liberals.
In fact, it's the final refuge for what is good about America. I have a theory about this; it's going to sound a bit arrogant. The United States truly is a nation under God. Its existence is a kind of miracle -- several miracles, in fact.
The first was that Washington's army would have been destroyed by the British in New York but for a freak thunderstorm that rolled in out of nowhere. The second was that our Constitution was crafted by a group of intelligent and insightful political philosophers. The third was that, in their wisdom, the founders made the term of a Supreme Court justice for life.
Here's the arrogant part: Liberalism is correct and conservatism is wrong.
It's not so clear as that, though. Mathematics distinguishes clearly between correct and incorrect. Two plus two is four -- not three or five, regardless of what anybody thinks. Science is almost as clear. The Earth is not at the center of the universe, even though at one time it was dangerous or even lethal to say so. Galileo would attest to that.
Global climate change is another case in point. I bring that up here only to point out that we still have issues where the truth (whatever that is) comes down in the end to a question of science, yet the debate is largely political.
