Liberalism at odds with democratic government

Modern liberalism is fundamentally at odds with democratic government because it demands results that ordinary people would not freely choose. Liberals must govern, therefore, through institutions that are largely insulated from the popular will. The most important institutions for liberals’ purposes are the judiciary and the bureaucracies.

In his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln asserted: "The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." Lincoln was thinking of Dred Scott. Today, however, his observation is even more pertinent, as we have resigned into the hands of the federal judiciary ever more vital questions affecting the whole people. We have in very significant measure ceased to be our own rulers.

The Supreme Court, without authorization from any law, has changed our policies and our culture. That process continues as the lower federal courts are following the Supreme Court’s example. The courts, without the authorization from law, are taking out of the hands of the American people the most basic moral and cultural decisions. [Robert Bork, 1995]

The most recent example of what Judge Bork describes is a federal judge ordering the military to accept out-of-the-closet homosexuals.