In a response to charges that conservatives lost their federalism principles in the Schiavo case, Stephen Bainbridge suggests that federalism isn’t really much of a principle among social conservatives that federalism principles should be weighed against other competing concerns:
I see federalism and limited government as means to an end, while [Glenn Reynolds] seems to see them as ends in and of themselves. I find his to be a fairly typical worldview among libertarians, who make a fetish out of federalism and small government without regard to whether they actually contribute towards the public good in a given case.
Will Baude responds:
Well, yes. A commitment to federalism is unlikely to do much work if one employs it only when it would be useful in an individual case. What one has then is not a commitment to federalism but a commitment to using every rhetorical argument and political strategem available to get one’s way.
. . .
[T]his is a perfectly sensible way to think– that structure should always be subordinated to the immediate payoff– but it isn’t a particularly federalist way to think. Indeed, since ‘federalism’ is invoked only where the case-specific substantive result is desired isn’t even using federalism “as (a) means to an end”; it’s using federalism as a talking point.
In a way, the Schiavo case reminds me of debates over Bush v. Gore. The political implications of different jurisprudential views reversed their usual polarity for a few weeks, and it was like watching a legal version of Freaky Friday.
UPDATE: Stephen Bainbridge responds that I have misrepresented his position in a post you can access here; in response, I have updated my post above using the strikethrough. After reading through the various posts, I think I had misinterpreted Stephen’s dismissive attitude toward libertarians as being dismissive of those who consistently follow principles. Rereading Stephen’s past posts, however, especially this one, makes me realize that he had intended it to be critical of those who do not weigh one principle against other competing principles. I didn’t recognize that the first time around; my apologies for the misunderstanding.
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