Though people on both sides deplore them, these annual summer brawls over Supreme Court nominees can be valuable exercises in civic education. The Robert Borkathon of 1987 forced millions of Americans to think about the role of a constitution in a democracy: the proper way to interpret 200-year-old phrases, the conflict between majority rule and individual freedom, and so on.
This summer President Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas has unexpectedly plunged the nation even deeper into the pool of first principles. America finds itself debating natural law. An enthusiasm for something called "natural law" is one of the repeated themes in...
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