A "Sick" Political-Legal System

Let's take a momentary break from John Roberts tea leaf reading prognosticating (never have I read so much, but learned so little about a person), and instead contemplate the broader situation.

How could we have developed a political-legal system in which a single man has so much apparent power to determine the fundamental principles and legal rules that will govern our individual, social, political, and economic lives?

What political or legal theory could justify or legitimate vesting so much power in a single judge in our liberal democracy of 300 million people?

Why are we collectively (liberals and conservatives, including President Bush) in the helpless position of hoping that the views of this one person won't be too contrary or harmful to our understandings of the law?

Skip the reasons for judicial review and explanations about the contemporary 5-4 alignment, and never mind saying that judges don't decide everything--yes, yes, yes--we know all that. Those points, correct as they may be, distract us from seeing the situation as it is: a single judge, a single man, will have immense power over us all (as did the woman he will be replacing).

Although is impossible to tell whether our political-legal system is suffering from a really bad case of the flu that we cannot seem to shake, or from terminal cancer, it seems clear that the system is sick. If you think this is an exaggeration, recall that five years ago five judges picked the President. I have made an attempt to diagnose some of the factors that have led to this condition, but it is beyond my ken. What I do know is that our political-legal system is in a terrible state.

Now, back to reading those Roberts tea leaves...