Justice O'Connor & The Polis

"It is wrong, I think, to say that every little issue in our common life has been politicized. The fact is, every little issue has been removed from the legitimate realm of the community, the polis, and has been elevated to the status of something to be decided from on high. This withering of a common, local civic life has been going on for quite some time, but the Supreme Court has assisted in the destruction, and Justice O'Connor has played a large role in that assistance. The Court seems to be animated by a fear of the political: a fear that people will be arguing somewhere, their tempers hot, and coming to conclusions that some among them may abhor. So the Court steps in to help."

This short piece, from Touchstone Magazine, concludes:

Someday, when people feel again that hunger for freedom and not childish license, and when they learn once more that reasoned argument is not the same as the mercurial dallying with minutiae; and when they see that the most important province of the political does not even rise to the level of a law, but concerns the customs and celebrations and mutual expectations of a community, a polis; in that day of politics and not tyrannics, we will have a lot to answer for. History will be severe with Justice O'Connor.