In fairness, in the modern era, partisanship has been a requirement to be on the Court. Every justice on the court is either liberal or conservative. They would not have been nominated otherwise.
Don't misunderstand me, I agree that maybe partisanship shouldn't be a requirement. I'm just saying that from a pragmatic perspective, it is a requirement. You, unfortunately, can't get nominated if you are not partisan. Even if you could, you certainly would come up against stiff headwinds in the confirmation process. It's just easier to be partisan and have half of those votes on your side no matter what.
One of the founding principle of the American Republic was that the government is not the country. "We the people" and all that. Many would argue that to be a "true" American patriot one should be highly skeptical of government with skepticism increasing the farther removed it is from your local community.
skepticism is healthy, dogmatism, not so much. yes, let's keep federal power in check (because it's too tempting to abuse and degenerate into authoritarianism), but no, let's not live in fear of it either.
yes, people do take that mental shortcut from time to time, but it's because the legal system is supposed to reflect our collective moral code. when it doesn't, we should fix the legal code to match.
but listening to the kavanaugh hearing yesterday, it looks like things will get worse before they get better. kavanaugh was unfortunately partisan in his rebuttal, but the appalling part is that no one--especially not politicians--is discussing partisanship as a legitimate reason for disqualification. no matter your politics, you do not want partisanship in the courts.
> "I blame compulsory state schooling for exacerbating the issue of blindly trusting the government"
this is too simplistically ideological. are you really completely against patriotism? while schools do contribute to teaching deference, it's because communities believe in living together harmoniously and benefit from such social norms.
what we really need is to apply better incentives to the legal system, which has long been insulated from popular influence due to the danger of partisanship mentioned above. as in the current medical system, lawyers make more money from increased amounts of conflict and more complicated laws. we need to flip that around so that the legal system makes a living form simplifying the legal system and reducing conflict.
and more to the point, we need to realize that there is no "law-abiding citizen". we all break the law from time to time and it doesn't mean we're all criminals. if anything, we need to address rampant cheating in schools, because that's disturbingly accepted shortcut to success. let's hold each other to a higher, more honorable standard.