News+and+politics religion philosophy the cynic librarian: "High Politics"

Monday, July 10, 2006

"High Politics"

What is the borderline between law and politics? Where does the law begin/end and politics begin/end? Is this a dead issue given the constitution or must we reinvigorate those concepts with new blood--perhaps questioning and modifying the constitution to fir the times.

More interesting from my persepctive is what is the relationship between politics/law and ethics? ... [partially xposted@Unclaimed Territory]

In an email discussion of Hamdan between Cass Sunstein and Marty Lederman, Sandy Levinson makes the following statement:

Sunstein also suggests that all of us must accept some reasonably strong version of the law/politics distinction. As Jack Balkin and I have argued, this may make sense if we are talking about "low politics," i.e., tailoring one's position precisely to fite the political interests of one's political preferences in the next election. But it makes very little sense if we are talking about "high politics," i.e., basic visionis [sic] of how best to structure the political order, especially with regard to an issue like the conflicts between natinal security, civil liberties, and basic issues of separation of powers. [my emphasis]

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