Dana Mathewson

Many of us have understood the title of this article, even though we may not have articulated it. In this National Review article, Kevin D. Williamson lays it all out, chapter and verse, for us all to see. I will quote parts of it, but you really should read the whole thing, because he does an excellent job of it.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg did a great many interesting and impressive things in her life, but she never did the one thing she probably really should have done: run for office. Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t an associate justice of the Supreme Court — not really: She was a legislator in judicial drag.

You need not take my word on this: Ask her admirers. "Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a vision for America,” Linda Hirshman argues in the Washington Post. What was her vision? "To make America fairer, to make justice bigger.” That is not a job for a judge — that is a job for a legislator. The job of making law properly belongs to — some people find this part hard to handle — lawmakers. Making law is not the job of the judge. The job of the judge is to see that the law is followed and applied in a given case. It does not matter if the law is unfair or if the law is unjust — that is not the judge’s concern. If you have a vision for America, and desire to make the law more fair or more just, then there is a place for you: Congress. That is where the laws are made.

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Justice Ginsburg’s using her position to try to impose a feminist vision on federal policy ought to be recognized for what it was: an abuse of power. If you want to rewrite the law along feminist lines, that’s a perfectly honorable project — run for Congress.

The real fissure running through the Supreme Court is not between so-called liberals and notional conservatives, but between those who believe that judges are superlegislators empowered to impose their own vision on society and those who believe that judges are constrained by what the law actually says.

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Ginsburg’s legacy is not a body of legal opinions but a deformed and disfigured judiciary, one in which the American people have — with good reason — lost some measure of faith. Setting that right will be the work of a generation. And that work begins with understanding that a judge’s concern is not justice or fairness or progress but the law, and that people who want to change the law should run for office.

The entire article is here: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/ruth-bader-ginsburg-didnt-understand-her-job/ and I recommend it highly!

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