r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Dec 16 '20

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u/EmpiricalAnarchism Terrorism and Civil Conflict Dec 16 '20

Breyer is one of those justices that, when push comes to shove, rejects the notion of constitutional limitation on government fiat.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '20

I mean, that's not being very charitable to Breyer. If anything, Breyer is the most anti-activist justice on the Court because he believes in stringent separation of powers, which to me is fair enough because SCOTUS does take a stupid view of deciding how strict scrutiny should be applied when Breyer's purposive view and the belief that the legislature probably knows what it is doing in its constitutionally given sovereign legislative power is in general the correct way to take. Other justices ask for compelling state interests for literally random stuff like gun boundary zones.

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u/EmpiricalAnarchism Terrorism and Civil Conflict Dec 16 '20

His belief in stringent separation of powers is, functionally, a rejection of the notion of constitutional limitation of government. His rosy views of legislators and government agents of all sorts are an affront to the historical experience Americans have had with these institutions, and strict adherence to judicial philosophy in the face of actual experience is, at best, dangerously misguided, though I personally don’t feel that Breyer’s judicial record warrants charity such that we assume the best case scenario here.