There Is No Such Thing as ‘Settled Law’
Much of the debate over so-called “birthright citizenship” is over interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US constitution. Most of the people currently in power claim that the text means every baby born to every foreign national on American soil is an automatic US citizen. Others—like myself—believe that this interpretation is dubious and has always been a matter of debate.
In commentary on this topic, however, one often encounters assertions to the effect that rulings by the US Supreme Court provide the “definitive” or “final” interpretation. Or, put another way, there is an idea that once SCOTUS makes a ruling on something, then the ruling is “settled law.” Even worse, some people think that once the Supreme Court has ruled on something, there is no point discussing it or challenging the currently popular interpretation of the law.
In truth, there is no such thing as settled law and the US Supreme court’s interpretations are hardly definitive. In politics nothing is ever settled or permanent. No cause is ever won or lost permanently. Beyond the short term, everything is up for grabs.
This is true in the courts as everywhere else. At any given time, the court’s rulings reflect modern ideologies and political realities. As these change, so do the court’s rulings. Indeed, court’s often “discover” that the rulings of past courts were somehow completely wrong, and the court then moves in a nearly opposite direction. The back-and-forth on Roe v. Wade is just one example.
So much for “settled” law.
The Mythology of the Supreme Court
These misconceptions about the Supreme Court’s “definitive” rulings often stem from the idea that the US Supreme Court’s bases its rulings on an apolitical deliberative process independent of political pressures and ideologies.
This has never been true. Like all institutions of the US government, whether we’re talking about Congress, or the Federal Reserve, or the Supreme Court, the SCOTUS is a thoroughly political institution overseen by a group of political appointees who are biased by specific political ideologies.
For more on this mythology of the Supreme Court, see here.
How is it that a new crop of judges can come to entirely new and different conclusions that are virtually the opposite of the rulings that preceded them? The answe
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
