Calling someone "Marxist" is a frequent form of political name-calling, usually with no basis in fact. However, I would like to discuss the serious possibility that the Supreme Court has gone Marxist.
Let me begin by stating two facts. The first fact is that I consider Marx to have been a serious philosopher. The second fact is that when I say this, I am referring to Groucho Marx, not to Karl.
My most recent book, "Beyond Capitalism: A Classless Society With (Mostly) Free Markets," strongly criticizes Karl Marx's vision of a classless society and his recommended means of getting to it.
I am all too familiar with the practice of calling someone with whom you disagree a Marxist (in the Karl sense). A few people commenting on my columns do this.
Although my college students generally considered me pretty conservative, at least one claimed that I was a Communist. Perhaps the student based the claim on the fact that for many years I subscribed to and read Правда (Pravda), the daily newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
But unlike many people, I don't limit myself to reading only publications I tend to agree with. Reading the slanted reports in Pravda, which, ironically in English means "truth," helped me understand what was going on in the USSR.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) was a leading comedian and actor, a member of the famous Marx Brothers team (along with Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, and Gummo). His principle contribution to serious philosophy consisted of one remark: "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
This comment showed deep thinking worthy of a philosopher.
But for purposes of discussing the Supreme Court, another thing Groucho Marx said is more relevant: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them .... well, I have others."
I have frequently quoted this when discussing political campaigns and politicians. I even came up with a generalization that I modestly named "deLespinasse's Law": In politics, people often invoke principles in an unprincipled way.
That is, when following a principle allows acting the way the politician wants to, that politician invokes that principle; but when that same principle stands in the way of doing what that politician wants to, well, he or she has other principles.
This inconsistency may be tolerable for politicians, of whom we do not expect much. But this is not how courts of law are supposed to behave. We expect judges to apply principles in a principled, consistent way.
Today's Supreme Court members, of course, all have principles, though they do not all agree on just what those principles are. Some believe in basing decisions on what the Constitution originally meant, others on a strict adherence to the Constitution's text, and still others believe in a "living" Constitution to handle the changing circumstances of our dynamic society.
There is no problem with having justices who disagree with each other about principles. Indeed, good decisions will often result from compromises reached between the different approaches suggested by each justice's principles.
But when individual justices ignore their own principles when they would require deciding a case the way they do not want to do, they are behaving like Marxists (again, following Groucho's approach).
And I am afraid that a number of recent decisions look as if many of the justices have done exactly that: "textualists" ignoring the Constitution's clear words, "originalists" backing decisions that would have horrified the Founding Fathers, and the like.
There is a big difference between deciding cases based on consistent principles and deciding cases because it's the outcome they want and then selecting or inventing useful principles to justify the decision.
If the Supreme Court is deciding cases because its justices think they are setting good policy, this is terribly alarming. Policies should be determined by people accountable to voters, which federal judges are not.
Are we moving toward a judicial dictatorship?
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1966 and has been a National Merit Scholar, an NDEA Fellow, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Fellow in Law and Political Science at the Harvard Law School. His college textbook, "Thinking About Politics: American Government in Associational Perspective," was published in 1981. His most recent book is "The Case of the Racist Choir Conductor: Struggling With America's Original Sin." His columns have appeared in newspapers in Michigan, Oregon and other states. Read more of his reports — Click Here Now.