Daily Inspiration Quote by Michael Kinsley

Conservatives love the phrase "judicial activism" the way drivers love "reckless pedestrians": it names the obstacle, not the behavior. Michael Kinsley’s line works because it pretends to grant a point ("Of course") while quietly stripping it of sincerity. That opening is a smirk in four syllables. It signals that what follows isn’t a debate over constitutional theory, but a diagnosis of a political habit: outrage at judges is often less about method than about outcomes.

The subtext is transactional. When conservatives denounce "activist judges", they’re frequently condemning decisions that move policy leftward (abortion rights, civil rights enforcement, limits on religion in public schools). But the same movement has championed aggressive courts when they deliver conservative goals: expanding gun rights, constraining federal agencies, curbing affirmative action, or reshaping campaign finance. Kinsley isn’t claiming hypocrisy as a moral failing so much as revealing it as a structural feature of partisan rhetoric. "Activism" becomes a delegitimizing label: a way to turn a disagreement about values into an accusation of institutional misconduct.

Context matters because Kinsley came up in an era when judicial battles became a proxy war for legislative gridlock. Courts were where controversial questions went when Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t act, and "activism" became the shorthand for "the other side is cheating". The brilliance of the line is its economy: it frames a whole culture-war script - judges as villains, neutrality as branding, power as the actual prize - in a single, dry aside.