Conservative Court?

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

A few questions:
 
        (1) How do we identify  conserative or liberal social policy without 
first analyzing the  concepts themselves. 
 
        (2) If the answer is look  to the wider culture, how do we know how 
conservativism or liberalism is  constructed in the wider culture without first 
analyzing the concepts  themselves?
 
        (3) Do we simply identify  certain issues in the wider culture as 
those "considered" conservative or  liberal?  Conservatives believe X, Y, & Z 
while liberals believes A, B,  & C. If so, our conclusions might vary widely from 
what upon reflection we  might consider the most persuasive cocneptions 
understanding of these  terms.
 
        (4) Since there are  different strains of conservativism and 
liberalism what are we studying when we  identify certain issues as one or the other 
tout  court? 
 
        (5) Are the above questions  simply irrelevant because all political 
science wants is some procedure to  identify what is ordinarily called 
"conservative" or "liberal" to assess  judicial trends--how we can predict judicial 
decisions--whether there's an  interesting relationship between theses 
empirical conclusions and a  conceptual or philosophical conception of these terms at 
all?
 
Bobby
 
Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
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