Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
"As the Founders intended" is the laziest of lazy arguments. Which founders? The signers of the Declaration, Articles of Confederation, or Constitution? Because that's a lotta folks who never agreed on much. How about every Congress that's amended the Constitution? All founders
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The quote you started this post with is not any quote of mine in this thread. I am not a subscriber to original intent. In the past, on this forum, I have argued against depending on original intent as the means to interpret the Constitution. In my opinion, judicial review, judicial "interpretation," or even academic and popular interpretation should strictly be based on the original text, with some occasional clarifying supportive nods to intent, but not relying solely on the conflicting opinions of intent to support an interpretation of the Constitution.
What we have been steered into discussing here, which deflects from the subject of this thread, is the empirical "rightness" or "wrongness" of majority opinion and majority power. I claim that we give, in our democratic process, the majority the right to decide. But that is strictly an instrumental process which expedites the function of government. It is not some guarantee that majority opinion is "right" in any way other than through the wielding of power through superior numbers.
The notion that a majority believes we are "on the right track" is nothing more than an instance of might makes right.
How that might is accrued depends on the ability of power seekers to influence the majority. When there is a contest between those who hold the political power we have by majority given them, the message of the power mongers can be, and usually is, full of deceptions, exaggerations, misdirection, bribes through promises of all sorts of largesse given or transferred to the voters, and outright lies. When majority opinion relies on political rhetoric and promises, it has no claim to some noble ideological or justicial rightness, just the raw power of numbers.
As for your question of "which founders"--the majority.