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> A group of holy men came together to produce a perfect piece of secular scripture whose meaning "originalists" try to extract from outdated verbiage. Anywhere
by mopsi 6y ago
> A group of holy men came together to produce a perfect piece of secular scripture whose meaning "originalists" try to extract from outdated verbiage. Anywhere else in the world, having to rely on 250-year-old legal code for important present-day judicial decisions would be considered a deep failure of lawmaking.
The core idea behind originalism is that agreements should be interpreted as they were understood at the time, and if something is impractical in modern day, then it should be changed through the legislative process with amendments.
"Living Constitution" is far more speculative and magical. Somehow new meanings are discovered that no-one in the previous 250 years had seen in the text nor voted for. This undermines democracy.
- throw0101a 6y agoI find originalism kind of like the Protestant notion of sola scriptura: no where in the (Christian) Bible does it say that only the Bible can be the only way source of authority. No where in the US Constitution does it say originalism should be used. > Somehow new meanings are discovered that no-one in the previous 250 years had seen in the text nor voted for. Some argue that the (supposed) individual right of the 2A is like this: no where did it appear in legal discussions until 1960. Then the NRA (but not the pre-1977 NRA) started pushing it more. Looking in as a Canadian from the outside: it sure seems like things can be discovered or realized in a way they never were before.