No, no, NO.

Democracy is not a task best left to the experts. If you want civic debate to be handled by professionals, educate our citizens to be civic professionals. Handing the reins of democracy over to an elite cadre isn't a dream: it's an oligarchic nightmare.

(PS: Rich from Brooklyn, I'm agreeing with you, but I'm a left-leaning thinker. You might want to check your assumptions about us.)

Political and emotional "noise" is what gave us Obamacare and it seems transparent and constitutional "intelligence" will defeat it.

Where was the silent Justice Kagan? Oh, yeah... if she was not sitting in judgement of Obamcare she would be Solicitor General arguing FOR Obamacare. No conflict of interest there.

"What if these folks were running the show"
Ah, the joys of unaccountable oligarchy.
These intelligent folks are "supposed" to base decisions on the US Constitution and if they were "running the show" it would be unconstitutional. Chicken and egg time for frustrated utopians and totalitarians.
Over a billion Chinese can't be wrong even if nobody asked them their opinion.

Perhaps Dred Scott and Fred Korematsu may have choice words for "intelligent" and "liberal" Supreme Court Justices to the melody of "It's a Wonderful World" before we turn absolute power over to them and ditch the US Constitution that they and oh, yeah..the President and Congress took an oath to defend.

John,
I enjoy and often agree with your essays but you've gone too far with this one. Yes, we should learn from the Supreme Court hearings this week. But what we saw was a small group of people applying significant intellect and care to an issue. There's a lot we can learn from this but we must be careful not to make much of it.
This was an example of our government in action but it is hardly a great symbol of Democracy. In fact, it was a couple highly educated lawyers in conversation with a branch of the government made up of a handful of highly educated lawyers who were not elected and serve with insulation from the public guaranteed by life terms.
More importantly, the Supreme Court has the luxury of approaching this issue in a very limited way. The Court is focusing on Constitutionality. At no point is the Court expected to weigh in on whether the Health Care legislation is good, effective, or popular. That is not their job. It is the job of Congress and the President to give us good legislation and to a large extent they failed. (Anyone objectively looking at the health care act would agree this is not good legislation even though they may agree with some of the objectives and outcomes.) But Congress and the President had to operate in the real world where things like voters, illness, insurance companies, existing programs and campaign contributions all matter. The Supreme Court gets the easy part. After the legislation is written they need to determine its Constitutionality. And having that discussion with a small group of intelligent, similarly educated and well connected individuals is a whole lot easier than everything else our Democracy must accomplish.

Oh John:

I listened to your wish for a group of people, like the Supreme Court, to rule our "democracy".

Ah! you revealed your left leaning passions.

It seems emanating from left leaning thinkers is this dream of the benevolent ruler, King Arthur and the round table, committee of elite thinkers that will take care of us all.

A complete distrust for the common person and his gut, his practical evaluation and how it evolves into the "wisdom of the crowd", more the better.

Overall, over time, over enough people I say that the crowd has been superior to any group of “A” school graduates in governing our country, protecting our rights, and choosing the correct economical path.
It’s not pretty, innovation and creativity never is but freedom, and democracy does work the best by far.
Have faith in common people they are much smarter then you think.