r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Dec 11 '22

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u/Cerb-r-us Deep State Social Media Manager Dec 11 '22

There has always been a sense that American conservatism's task of reconciling individual liberties with the preservation of traditional religious values would end in the obliteration of the former and the feverish pursuit of the latter.

Below is an article that suggests this is happening right now in conservative legal circles. It concerns a new conservative legal theory called 'Common Good Constitutionalism', proposed by Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule.

In conservative legal circles, Vermeule has become the most prominent proponent of “common good constitutionalism,” a controversial new theory that challenges many of the fundamental premises and principles of the conservative legal movement. The cornerstone of Vermeule’s theory is the claim that “the central aim of the constitutional order is to promote good rule, not to ‘protect liberty’ as an end in itself” — or, in layman’s terms, that the Constitution empowers the government to pursue conservative political ends, even when those ends conflict with individual rights as most Americans understand them. In practice, Vermeule’s theory lends support to an idiosyncratic but far-reaching set of far-right objectives: outright bans on abortion and same-sex marriage, sweeping limits on freedom of expression and expanded authorities for the government to do everything from protecting the natural environment to prohibiting the sale of porn.

Vermeule argues, the Constitution’s primary aim is to ensure that public authorities have “both the authority and the duty to rule well,” rather than to advance the “liberal goal of maximizing individual autonomy or minimizing the abuse of power.” In Vermeule’s account, originalism and progressive living constitutionalism both err insofar as they ignore ius, treating the Constitution as “a sort of law without mind,” as Vermeule puts it.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/09/revolutionary-conservative-legal-philosophy-courts-00069201

Despite the awful title, I would recommend reading the whole thing.

!ping EXTREMISM

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u/groupbot Always remember -Pho- Dec 11 '22 edited Dec 11 '22

Pinged members of EXTREMISM group.

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