It cracks me up when I hear progressives decry the overruling of previously decided Supreme Court cases. Since when do progressives care about precedent? Their aim is to remake society, by hook or by crook. What progressives dislike is not the overruling of cases, but the overruling of cases they like, such as Roe v. Wade (1973). Progressives, as the name implies, believe in progress, including legal progress. They view law as a progression, however gradual, toward equality. They don't view law as a compromise between plural and conflicting values; there is, in their view, only one value (equality), and movement must be made toward it at all times. When the Supreme Court overrules a case that progressives like, it frustrates (and in some cases infuriates) them, for it appears to be regress rather than progress. Change, to a progressive, is a ratchet. It goes in one direction only. They hate when their goals are thwarted (which is why they call conservatives "reactionaries"), and they become enraged when movement is away from rather than toward their goals.
It's also amusing to hear progressives accuse conservatives of hypocrisy or inconsistency whenever so-called conservative justices overrule a previously decided case. There is nothing in the nature of conservatism that precludes overruling. The doctrine of stare decisis ("let the thing stand") has weight in judicial deliberations, but the weight is not infinite. Sometimes the right thing to do is to overrule a case—when the case is clearly mistaken as a matter of constitutional law. Old mistakes are still mistakes, after all. Yes, people rely in good faith on old mistakes, and that good-faith reliance must be taken into account; but it is not the only thing to be taken into account. The main task of a Supreme Court justice, in the conservative view, is to get things right. In the recent First Amendment case involving political speech, the Court got things right.
Addendum: I didn't hear one word of complaint from progressives when, in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court overruled Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which had been the law of the land for nearly a generation. What does that say about progressives' attitude toward precedent? It says to me that precedent doesn't matter one bit to them. All that matters is getting the right results (by their lights). So the full progressive position on precedent is this: (1) We don't give a damn about precedent, but (2) conservatives must uphold precedent come what may! It would be funny if it weren't so hypocritical.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 