People are characterizing the recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court as partisan, yet we should not lump partisanship in with ideology.

Partisanship – cheap and paltry – is primarily concerned with the achievement and maintenance of power. Ideology, however, is concerned with ideas. Rather than disparaging the U.S. Supreme Court, we are well advised to consider what Jefferson had to say in his first inaugural address:

“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: We are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

We aren’t always going to be “blessed” with 9-0 decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, part of the reason we have nine justices is to encourage the free range of ideas in casting opinion in the framework of the Constitution. Ideology, while often predictable, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even if you disagree with it.

Andrew MacDonald

Hampden