Some readers of this blog may have noticed a recent tendency to talk about “instrumentalist” approaches to the law. My offline focus lately has been on the methods and principles that lie behind the judiciary’s apparent turn against…well, against any sensible approach to deciding cases moored to a historical understanding of law and the Constitution.
In trying to understand what has happened, I recognized a pattern. Protestations regarding “original intent” amongst their leaders notwithstanding, judges have turned away from the conception and concepts of Law upon which this country was founded and built. They — and we — have longed for simpler times.
