Lessig "Code 2.0" - Quote #1

Page 167 - "I fear this [allowing legislation to answer the constitutional questions related to new technology] not because I fear legislatures, but because in our day constitutional discourse at the level of the legislature is a very thin sort of discourse...We have been trapped by a mode of reasoning that pretends that all the important questions have already been answered, that our job now is simply to translate them for modern times. As a result, we do not quite know how to proceed when we think the answers are not already there. As nations across the world struggle to express and embrace constitutional values, we, with the oldest written constitutional tradition, have lost the practice of embracing, articulating and deciding on constitutional values."

Lessig seems to be suggesting that courts and lawyers are better at constitutional questions and discourse than the citizenry and the legislators (acting on their behalf). It's an interesting and often polarizing question about who should be defining and defending our national values, so called "liberal judges" or the "hard working blue collar, regular guy". I agree with Lessig that as a nation we have slipped into a dependancy on government to protect us and make our hard decisions for us. In many ways, this is how the courts have been allowed to interpret and translate our values into the ways they exist for us today. This could be described as a general laziness on behalf of the average citizen. If this laziness and dependancy is true, then then truly interesting questions are, how can technology be leveraged to create a more engage and informed citizenry, ensuring that the people are defining the values and prioritizing them, instead of lawyers and judges.