The End of Democracy?: The Celebrated First Things Debate With Arguments Pro and Con and "the Anatomy of a Controversy"

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For people who follow such matters, the intellectual firefight over a 1996 symposium appearing in the conservative monthly journal First Things provided an endless stream of controversy and, perhaps, amusement. The participants--among them Robert Bork and Charles Colson--offered their views on what conservatives commonly call "judicial imperialism." Put another way, they asked whether the judicial branch of government has imperiled representative democracy by subsuming legislative authority. The writers came dangerously close to calling the U.S. government illegitimate--so close, in fact, that several of their critics accused them of fomenting revolution. The End of Democracy? collects the original symposium, all of the important responses to it--including contributions appearing in a variety of journals and by authors such as William J. Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and William Kristol--and an epilogue by First Things editor Richard John Neuhaus. Wannabe political theorists will devour this book, as will anyone who enjoys internecine warfare on the right.

From Kirkus Reviews
A one-stop opportunity to assess in the round a durable dispute on the political right, set off by a symposium in last November's edition of First Things. The journal featured a symposium devoted to the issues of whether America's judiciary has usurped the democratic political process and what could or should be done about it. The collection (whose contributors included the heavyweight likes of Hadley Arkes, Robert H. Bork, Charles Colson, and Robert P. George) touched off an immediate furor that has yet to abate among conservative intellectuals and their principal journals (such as the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary). This volume encompasses all of the original articles, several of which assert that citizens repelled by the activist excesses of ultraliberal courts that purportedly find hitherto unsuspected rights in the US Constitution would be justified in considering civil disobedience or outright resistance to their government. There is also a representative sample of the impassioned responses these essays evoked (inter alia, from William J. Bennett, Midge Decter, Gertrude Himmelfarb, William Kristol, and Norman Podhoretz). Finally, there is a longish last word entitled ``The Anatomy of a Controversy'' from Richard John Neuhaus, the Catholic priest who serves as editor in chief of First Things. Although American Tories share common concerns about bedrock matters like abortion, death (assisted suicide, euthanasia), and marriage (among homosexuals), the magazine's compilation suggests that they're a diverse and fractious lot given to spirited argument on ends versus means as well as the socioeconomic and moral or religious underpinnings of their political faith. In short, an instructive and ready reference to the debate on judicial restraint being conducted by the right wing of the domestic electorate--without benefit of coverage by the mainstream press. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


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American conservatism's most ferocious internecine controversy erupted when the journal First Things published a symposium on "the judicial usurpation of politics", boldly raising the question "whether we have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime". A far-flung debate ensued, engaging scores of contestants in countless journals and newspapers. This new volume collects for the first time the original symposium and the most important responses, with a new 90-page essay by First Things' Richard John Neuhaus, "The Anatomy of a Controversy". The End of Democracy? places in the reader's hands everything he needs for a command of the salient constitutional debate of the decade. In addition, an exhaustive bibliography lists virtually every article published about or in response to the First Things symposium. Contributors include Hadley Arkes, William Bennett, Robert Bork, Robert P. George, Mary Ann Glendon, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Russell Hittinger, and George Weigel.


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