This is what Florida's legislators did. By Election Day, they had put in place a number of laws to regulate the messiness that invariably results when 6 million people go to thousands of polling places to cast ballots that are then counted in a variety of ways by hundreds of different officials. But the laws were there to regulate it. And under the law, George Bush won Florida. This is not to say that he won in the sense of cosmic certainty, under the aspect of eternity, in the sight of an all-knowing being.
Cosmic certainty is denied to human beings.
Four justices of the Florida Supreme Court changed those laws last week, long after the election was over. They are not supposed to do this. Judges aren't supposed to write law because they aren't responsible to us in the same way legislators are. And when they do, it is no trifling matter. It is an assault on the barriers that free people construct to separate themselves from chaos.