How rights went wrong : why our obsession with rights is tearing America apart
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how the explosion of rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice"-- Provided by publisher.

Rights are a sacred part of American identity-- and also are the source of some of our greatest divisions. A system of legal absolutism distorts our law, debases our politics, and exacerbates our differences rather than helping to bridge them. Greene believes that the Founders preferred to leave rights to legislatures and juries, not judges. It is because of the Founders' own racial discrimination-- and subsequent missteps by the Supreme Court-- that courts gained such outsized power over Americans' rights. Greene shows how we can recover America's original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century. -- adapted from jacket