The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

I've developed a really silly habit. I keep running off to see Huey Lewis and the News concerts. By last August I'd seen ten since the year began. The tally is now up to 18, having seen two more in Mississippi over fall break in October, a few in Tahoe right after New Year's, and three over Presidents' Day weekend in Atlantic City. I say it's silly because it sounds silly, but in reality I think it's anything but. The concerts are consistently enjoyable, a reliable comfort to me as the rest of my life is turned upside down during this Great Change, and they've presented marvellous excuses to travel, particularly to places I might not have had the opportunity to visit. I am, to borrow a word I read in a Michael Palin book, a dromomaniac - a person with an intense enthusiasm for travel. I'm good at it too*, knowing how to squeeze novelty and adventure from even the shortest of journeys.

(*In the interest of full disclosure, however, I should acknowledge a slight snafu with my luggage during my last adventure. I did remember to load my suitcase into my car, but unfortunately not until AFTER I had already driven 7.5 hours. Of course, to be fair, I've travelled for years and years, miles and miles, traversing continents without incident. It was only a three-day weekend roadtrip after writing a moot court brief that finally became my undoing.)

My trip to Mississippi, for example, was far more memorable than it was short. I took barely more than a weekend to fly to the Gulf Coast, a place I'd never been to before. I got to see New Orleans for the first time, taking a peaceful walk along the banks of the Mississippi. I'd never seen the river up close before, not even last summer when I drove across it over some bridge near the quad cities. Walking along a quiet riverbank of romantic American lore in the misty rain I could finally see what all the fuss had been about.

For a short trip there was a lot to get out of it, even when it was almost over. On the flight returning to Boston the person across the aisle from me and I struck up a conversation that lasted the entire flight and the T ride back into the city. What was it that was so engaging a subject for two heretofor complete strangers? Constitutional interpretation, of course.

He (to oversimplify) is a libertarian. I myself am not. Although I'm wary of tyrranical aspects of government (e.g., Patriot Act) I tend to believe that government can be an efficient way for society to organize itself to achieve common goals (e.g., roads). But it became apparent during the course of the conversation that despite our different attitudes toward the process of government, we were both decent people who wanted decent things for ourselves and our neighbors. We simply had different opinions on how best to achieve them.

I was reminded of the conversation the other day at school. Two professors gave a talk on the state of judicial nominations. Are the filibusters preventing votes on their confirmation constitutional? Just? Reasonable? Wise? What about the recess appointments? One of the speakers was a visiting professor who used to work in the Clinton administration. The other, my property professor, is a libertarian founder of the Federalist Society and a former clerk to Antonin Scalia. His particular viewpoints rarely appear during his lectures on property law, but this forum presented the opportunity for them to emerge. After the presentation ended I hung around while he answered questions and then related my conversation from the flight back from Mississippi.

I was curious to know how libertarians see the world, I said, even if I don't necessarily agree with major tenets to their viewpoint. To be honest, I admitted, I probably bought into (nearly) everything that the other professor and the Clinton Administration had advocated. I have little problem with government being potent enough to achieve good ends in society that I doubt could be achieved without it. Of course, there's no point in plying society with short term benefits if the governmental process of achieving them isn't sustainable. This is not to say that left to their own devices a suite of liberal policies would bring down the Nation, but rather that due dilligence requires listening to different voices who also care about the governing process. If the goal is to have government be a positive agent in and of society then it's integral to recognize that others may have insight about how best that can be achieved. For it's one thing if we all believe in good ends for ourselves and our neighbors and merely disagree about the best process for attaining them. It's another when we disagree about the desired ends and then use the process as a weapon for getting only those we want.