Is law inherently liberal?

I've thought about this before of course, but it just pooped into my head again reading Dahlia Lithwick's latest article on the failed Miers nomination.

The line that triggered it was, while writing about Bush's 'coded' message to the faithfull about Miers' supposed stand on abortion, she wrote;

"The code also didn't suffice because the right had heard the same coded promises about Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter—and had dejectedly watched them go on to uphold Roe."

And it hit me as I wondered again *why* O'Conner, Kennedy and Souter leaned towards the left over time. Of course not all justices have, and even some liberal one's have leaned to the right throughout the history of the court, but they all trend towards the middle, and for the most part from right to left, as it were.

It's not just a trend, I think it's more then human nature, in fact I think law, in and of itself, is liberal. It's supposed to give a voice to those that lack it, it's supposed to lift the oppressed and downtrodden. That's the whole point of civlized law, to give the weak a voice and self determination.

Of couse there are abberations, but not many. Rehnquist changed over time, and while he didn't go liberal technicaly he did trend away from federal authority, in a lesser sense championing the perceived weaker states being oppressed by the federal government. Sad that we'll lack that form now on.

I think given enough time even Scalia will trend that way as well. He's too smart to be an ideologue forever. Thomas, however, I don't think is smart enough to grow and evolve. Best we can hope for with him is profound mediocrity.

Roberts is already close to where Rehnquist wound up in the end, so it's even more likely he trends liberal over time. Becasue law comes down to personal choice, self determination, master of your domain, so to speak. And that includes, in the end, allowing people to do things you may not moraly agree with, to a point that civilized society would allow at any rate, so that you have the same freedom as they.

And that, my friends, is liberal, and why it dosn't really matter that much in the long run who you appoint. As long as they're sharp enough to see the truth, they will over time trend liberal, because law itself is liberal in it's conception. Certainly not always in it's application, but we're talking freedom based laws here.

There are a number of underlying parralels in liberalism and conservatism, the problem is splitting them on the few differences, the major one being religious and moralistic attitudes that advocate and excuse restrictions on personal freedoms because for no other reason then they are a perceived affront to one persons personal belifes.

There are people of all stripes on both sides. Black, white, brown, Christian, Jew, Muslim, male, female, gay, straight, urban poor and rural salt of the Earth, certainly no one credd, ethnicity of moral belief system is exclusive in every aspect, and yet we continue to define ourselves in just such a way.

In the end, conservatism will either wane and evolve to the left because it has to to conform with civlized interpretation of law, or it will forcably dominate. Personaly, I'd rather be liberal, heh.