Dworkin on the “Crippling Burden” of the Constitution
STEVE KOGAN writes:
Ronald Dworkin has had a long career in legal studies as a liberal-left philosopher of politics and law. His bibliography is extensive, and his NYU faculty profile states that he is “probably one of two or three contemporary authors whom legal scholars will be reading 200 years from now.” It is a fitting prophecy for this craftsman of exaggeration.
Dworkin’s recent essay “Why the Mandate is Constitutional,” is, as the expression goes, a piece of work. The reader is confronted with the following hyperbole at the opening of the piece:
The Supreme Court’s hearings in the health care case, US Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, over a nearly unprecedented three days of oral argument in late March, generated all the attention, passion, theater, and constant media and editorial coverage of a national election or a Super Bowl. Nothing in our history has more dramatically illustrated the unique role of courtroom drama in American government and politics as well as entertainment. (more…)

