In the October 24, 2003 Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger writes eloquently of how judicial activism has led to increasingly bitter feelings that may end in violence (my boldface):

This week President Bush said he would sign into law an act banning partial-birth abortion, which the Senate enacted the day before by a vote of 64-34, enough to override a filibuster. The American Civil Liberties Union said it would go to court, on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, to thwart the new law. The ACLU noted it has convinced courts to overturn such bans voted by legislatures in Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

...

I think many people who don't get paid for waging politics are becoming quite frustrated with dysfunctional legislatures that are now polarized -- as in Congress or in California -- essentially along the cultural faultlines created by 30 years of allowing judges to preempt the broader community's ability to discover, or reexamine, its social beliefs. These legislators have become little more than clerks to judges and the complainants in their courts -- the law as not much more than a brief. When this happens, citizens lose their status as voters or electors and become mere courtroom spectators. How can this be good?

Continuing to use the courts in this way -- the ACLU boasting it will get a court to overthrow a law passed by Congress or any legislature -- and then demanding that large portions of American society simply shut up and swallow it is a recipe for a kind of war much more serious than the mere chattering crossfire of talk shows.

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