From Clinton To Biden, To Retire Just In Time

STEPHEN BREYER — THE AUTHORITY OF THE COURT AND THE PERIL OF POLITICS — 2021

This little pamphlet — because it is a pamphlet in the good old Enlightenment style in France or Europe, Catherine’s Russia included, in the 18th century, like with Voltaire and a few others — tells in its title the real stuff that you will read. It deals with the concept of authority for the Supreme Court and how it conquered it and how it can be maintained. Then it does speak of the peril of politics as if politics had to be dangerous. He does not realize that politics is the tip of an enormous iceberg which is called social ideology, social awareness, social consciousness, social struggling. It has little to do with class struggle, the old Marxist concept, but it has to do with societal questions like gender, sexuality, the control of one’s body (too often reduced to abortion, though it should be centered on contraception and preventing pregnancy, hence family planning), and a few other fundamental questions like race relations, education, the right to be informed on all subjects and to be able to access all information on all those subjects, and that is a lot more than just the famous freedom of speech. There is no freedom of speech if you do not have access to all the information around the topics you want to speak about, and that’s…