Willie Budd

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Wed Sep 16 19:56:21 PDT 1998


Michael Pollack says that the Lewinsky Affair--excuse the pun--shows that the problem with American politics is that we have too much legalism, construed as excessive respect for and recourse to law, and too little politics, understood as real debate of ideological differences that matter. As a JD and judicial clerk I have a special interest in the matter, of course, but while I agree with the second part (too little politics), I disagree with the first. Legalism--ordering our affairs by reference to law--is an inevitable concomitant of living in a large, highly heterogenous, and exceedingly diverse nation where most people are strangers and have little in common with the values of of others. There's no other peacable way to resolve disputes, given the extent of the differences amonst us, than by recourse to law. Nor will this change after the social revolution, because the diversity will remain. Socialism will remove only class conflict from the picture. It will not create a community of shared values. --jks



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