But for the judiciary, many of the liberties we take for granted wouldn't exist. It's easy to sneer at "activist judges" when you don't like how the rule, but never forget how brilliant the multi-branch system of government is.
True. Then again, a lot of evil has been done by the judiciary. Particularly with the supreme court, you have a small number of unelected decision makers who wield an enormous amount of power.
> It's easy to sneer at "activist judges" when you don't like how the rule,
Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. "activist judges" is a loaded pejorative, but in the right context it labels a real corruption of our system that we should be wary of.
A true "activist judge" is one who gives the government new powers not explicitly granted by the US Constitution -- whether by allowing a new law to stand that doesn't pass Constitutional muster, or by creating new concepts out of thin air.
The Legislative body is where we want our laws to be constructed, since those guys are the easiest to control through democracy. We don't want that law making function to leak all over the system like into the judiciary and the bureaucracy of the executive branch where we don't have good mechanisms to track and control.
Remember such detestations as the Child Online Protection Act? Which, after being struck down, and the Supreme Court agreeing with the ruling, a John Ashcroft led Department of Justice continued to use tax payer money to push back through the courts?
I suspect that the differences between functional and dysfunctional governments, elected or not, lie largely in their legal and court systems.