madviking
north american scum
I don't get the fetishtization of categorizing Constitutional interpretations. People interpret it as they do.
The Art of Constitutional Interpretation
- Thread starter GhostWriter16
- Start date
What Traitorfish said, and I'm not really sure you've actually answered the pertinent questions here. You seem to be suggesting that despite ss 7 & 24, an interpretation that allowed non-whites to be disenfranchised would be fine. Indeed children are not included in 'people', but that speaks to how the phrase is informed by contemporary standards. It was intended for non-whites to vote as equally as it was intended for children to vote, so what we would consider a clearly accurate literal translation which allowed non-whites to vote, but not children, is most definitely not in keeping with the founding intention. Why should it be necessary to make it clear that non-whites are 'people' through an amendment? What if the amendment does not pass (again, noting the notorious difficulty in holding a successful referendum)?
I hinted at it in a post or two but didn't word it that way.
It's funny because this post is an excellent example for why textualist (or "strict" in your absurd newspeak) interpretations are completely crap. The text says "chosen by the people", so that includes everyone. By your own preferred textualist logic this means that women, minorities, children, felons, everyone should be eligible to vote. There is certainly no basis to exclude anyone because "the people" is clearly everyone in the country.
When you say this is absurd, I agree with you, but at that very moment you crossed the line from the letter of the constitution to its intent.
So please tone down your indignation a little when others do the same with other passages.
It helps to understand how people arrive at the conclusions they do. Especially SCOTUS judges, who I hope have to give more detailed reasonings for their judgments than "we interpreted it as we did".
Of course "strictly" and "loosely" are not categories, but judgments of their own.
Political conservatism, which religious conservatism coincides with, would seem a much more likely link.
A lot of it has to do with desired outcomes. A government that is strictly limited in what it can do is less likely to do things that religious conservatives don't want.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
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Found this from TJ:
"The government will certainly decide for itself on whose counsel they will settle the construction of the laws they are to execute. We are to look at the intention of the Legislature, and to carry it into execution while the lawyers are nibbling at the words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:168
"It was understood to be a rule of law that where the words of a statute admit of two constructions, the one just and the other unjust, the former is to be given them." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 1813. ME 13:326
"When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:418
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:59
"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449
http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff1020.htm
It sounds like TJ was one of those Constitutional constructivists but not necessarily a liberal.
Maybe TJ would have voted on this poll for the 3rd4th option?
"The government will certainly decide for itself on whose counsel they will settle the construction of the laws they are to execute. We are to look at the intention of the Legislature, and to carry it into execution while the lawyers are nibbling at the words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:168
"It was understood to be a rule of law that where the words of a statute admit of two constructions, the one just and the other unjust, the former is to be given them." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 1813. ME 13:326
"When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:418
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:59
"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449
http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff1020.htm
It sounds like TJ was one of those Constitutional constructivists but not necessarily a liberal.
Maybe TJ would have voted on this poll for the 3rd
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
It's the least ridiculous. They're ALL joke options.
4. Irrealism: on at least some Constitutional questions there is no Law.
(Just throwing it out there. I think I count myself a "Purposivist" in your sense.)
I think after you've adopted the literal-except-when-it-doesn't-suit-me mindset for one text, it's easy to do it for another.
Didn't know about this. I actually considered making a poll about this when the Obamacare constitutional ruling has a hot topic, but in the end I didn't think I knew enough about this to do it well enough for a decent OP. So we got this instead.
The irony that should never be overlooked is that for the most part whether a person is for "strict" or "loose" interpretation has nothing to do with interpretation, and all about desired outcomes. In the US the modern move to "texturalism" and "strict construction" is really about changing outcomes through the courts that they could not get through elections.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
I can't for the life of me figure out how the $45 I paid in highway tolls to travel from Baltimore to Boston was constitutional....
Not even kidding.
It's that much now? We are catching up to France then. My last trip there it cost us around 60 Euros to go from Paris to Aix en Provence in the south.
