David S. wrote:
I think you are unnecessarily confusing issues. For instance, you may be right that the Supreme Court justices may decide a case based upon prevailing political conditions, but that is a different point than if you want to discuss how a political order should deal with dissent, the case law is an excellent place to start.
Yoshie F. wrote:
It is certainly possible that socialists can learn much from the case law in the USA. But socialists first need to figure out what our philosophy of justice in particular and political philosophy in general is.
========================== The jurisprudence will tell you less how to protect dissent than how to limit it, as I suggested. Constitutions and laws - and the political and legal philosophy on which they rest - are never an adequate defence against the abuse of power in societies and organizations, including on the left. Provision is always made for democratic rights to be limited or suspended in extraordinary circumstances, and as that determination is made by those in power, abuse is inevitable. The 1936 Stalin Constitution is the most frequently cited egregious example of the gap between democratic theory and practice on the left, but anyone who has been involved in organizational politics at any level knows what a thin reed the inherited norms and laws can when there are big issues, especially ones of power, at stake. Study of the law will not make it better because the law, above all, is a reflection of power relations. The only real defence against the exercise of arbitrary power is a politically aware and active population (and, within organizations, the membership), and while this may be a truism for most on the left, the historical record unfortunately shows mass participation (other than of the rote kind) is limited to the formative stages of an organization or social order (eg. the "heroic period" of a revolution) or a deep crisis. Otherwise, people retreat into their own private pursuits and leave the governing to others, which leaves them vulnerable to encroachments on their rights. That justifies the existence of civil liberties lawyers, and their necessary reliance on the case law, but we shouldn't venerate the latter which is, after all, only an imperfect tool at their disposal.
