Supreme Court

The primary difference between a "conservative" justice and a "liberal" justice is that a conservative justice is more likely to defer to the will of the people as it is represented in Congress and the various state legislatures. Which is to say, they tend to have a narrower interpretation of the Constitution. Liberal justices are more inclined to overturn laws in deference to the shifting attitudes and temperaments of society. When a "conservative" court rules in favor of a law or legislature, it is upholding the will of the majority of an electorate as it is expressed in the law. If that law is found to be burdensome or onerous, those dissafected by it can petition for its change or removal. If, on the otherhand, a new "right" is discovered, public discourse is shut off and the issue is removed from public debate. Those discomfitted by the ruling have no recourse except by amending the Constitution; which is to say, they have no recourse. Every issue removed from public debate shrinks the horizon of political discourse and by extension, democracy. This is the irony of the liberal desire to expand democracy through the courts. They would destroy liberty in order to expand it.