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I recently raised my tenant's rent from 1200 to 1400 a month. He told me that we had another 8 months on the contract. I replied we have a living contract.
You and other opponents of originalist judges keep attributing things to the Constitution it never said. Often the opposite of what it said. No wonder you're upset.
The people who wrote and ratified the Constitution did it to create the Federal govt and to LIMIT it to only certain powers - powers that states and lower governments could not handle at all. If people wanted the Fed to have more powers, they could amend the document with a cumbersome process involving many state governments.
Originalist judges are judges who believe it should be kept that way.
Liberal are people who believe the Fed should have much more power, and shouldn't have to ask the states for them, but just take them if they feel it would do people good.
The Constitution was meant to bring the States together to cooperate on certain matters that the States by themselves could not perform. In doing so, the Constitution has two primary goals, as far as I can understand:
1. Limit the power of the new general (federal) government, and
2. Protect the inalienable rights of the States and their individual peoples
So, sure, sometimes so-called "originalist" jurists do not get every decision correct, in our varying opinions.
However, I will take a judge who at least strives to decide based on the original intent of the Constitution over a judge who always believes that the Constitution is a "living" document.
I believe that in every case in which a Constitutional issue is decided the Courts should refer back to the two primary goals of the Constitution.
I wonder if a progressive would like a conservative judge who wants a living constitution and then can justify any republican dream by bending the meaning of the constitution to support said dream.
Why, then, did the Framers omit Locke's right to property from the Constitution, and why were free men without property denied the vote?
I had always assumed for some reason that 'property' was changed to 'pursuit of happiness' in the Declaration in order to avoid a problematic discussion of slavery. But a quick search didn't turn up evidence of that for me. According to this Locke did use the phrase 'pursuit of happiness.'
In any case my answer to your questions would be that Locke (and Adam Smith) were inspirational for the Founders, but not necessarily responsible for the nuts and bolts of the Constitution.
Judges like Gorsuch are referred to as "originalist". This means they favor interpreting the Constitution as closely as they can get to what the people who wrote and ratified it, meant. And they tend to decide what it means, by looking at the text of the document, much more than what subsequent judges have claimed it means.
They have a great advantage, in that the meaning of the Constitution changes much less over time, then under judges who feel it should change with changing times. If people want to change what it means, they can amend it by using the procedures it contains. And if they don't amend it, that means they don't want its meaning to change. Not in sufficient quantities to justify the change.
Changing the Constitution by imagining it means something different from what it says, is called "rule of men" as opposed to "rule of law". Indeed, having a Constitution that automatically "changes with changing times", is to do away with the reasons for having a written Constitution in the first place. This becomes important when people have long-range projects or businesses. They need to run their affairs according to known rules, so they'll be able to take into account how courts will later treat what the business does, rather than by rules that might change to something completely different later on.
The originalists are generally hated by the left, since the Constitution is a conservative document designed to prevent people from expanding the government and give it unlimited authority. Originalists won't let the leftists pretend the various passages mean something other than what they actually say.
They prevent the leftists from inserting things that aren't there (imagining it calls out a general right to privacy that abortion can hide behind, exceptions to the 2nd amendment's ban on govt having any say in who can own and carry weapons, strange additions to the Commerce Clause and Welfare Clause that authorize govt to regulate far more than the Framers intended etc.), or ignoring things that ARE in the Constitution (bans on govt influencing people's practice of their own religion etc.).
This prevents leftists from pursuing their main agenda, which is expanding government and giving it more and more control over people's own private lives. Limiting government this way (as the Framers intended), leaves people far more freedom to make their own decisions and live by the results, instead of relying on govt to do it for them.
Hopefully President Trump will appoint such originalists to the Supreme Court and lower courts, to overrule the big-govt leftists (in both parties) and start getting government back to the limited size the Constitution requires.
Because we're a damn REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY as so foolishly and inaccurately is proclaimed among the left!
Ruled by law not the majority.
Whether we follow the constitution or not is not up for vote.
Where does it say in the original Constitution that women cannot vote?
It doesn't say they can and because of that, they were denied the right to vote until the 19th amendment in 1920, pure originalists look to what the founding fathers had in mind, so I'm not sure they believe the 19th amendment is even legitimate
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboteer
Where does it say in the original Constitution that only men can own guns?
Clause 15 & 16: Regulation of the Militia The term “militia of the United States” was defined to comprehend “all able-bodied male citizens of the United States and all other able-bodied males who have . . . declared their intention to become citizens of the United States,” between the ages of eighteen and forty-five.
Remember Heller?
QUOTE=Roboteer;47779530] (in response to: Originalism is a construct of the 1980s) Correct. The 1780's. Or 1789, to be exact.[/quote] "The first appearance of the term “originalism” in Westlaw’s database of legal periodicals is found in an article by Paul Brest in 1981...Brest’s neologism caught on, and the words “originalism” and “originalist” appear frequently from 1981 onward.5"http://scholarship.law.georgetown.ed...context=facpub
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboteer
The people who wrote and ratified the Constitution did it to create the Federal govt and to LIMIT it to only certain powers - powers that states and lower governments could not handle at all. .
So, if the Constitution specified that flogging, burning at the stake or drowning constitute cruel and unusual punishment, an Originalist would argue that having the flesh flayed from your body, or being put in a pit venomous snakes would be permissible because the founders didn't prohibit it. That is basically what you are arguing for when you support a bizarre idea that in 2017 judges have a ouija board and can divine what the founding fathers 'meant'. And for the most part the perversion known as originalism has not given us more rights but it's done very well by corporations.
I wonder if a progressive would like a conservative judge who wants a living constitution and then can justify any republican dream by bending the meaning of the constitution to support said dream.
that's not how it works. A judge who sees the constitution as a 'living document' sees it in the context of today's society. Originalists take far bigger leaps of faith in their rulings than other judges Antonin Scalia was only an ‘originalist’ when it was convenient
I recently raised my tenant's rent from 1200 to 1400 a month. He told me that we had another 8 months on the contract. I replied we have a living contract.
too bad you didn't look up what the term means before writing about it
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