Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Luckily because parties in power change we seem to attain a balance between Originalists and Non-Originalists.
Balance applies to things that are in some way measurable. Principles are not quantifiable. There is no balance between good and evil. Between correct and incorrect. There may be variations of each, but no balance between them.
Textual Originalists and Progressives have different ideological and legal views of the Constitution. There is no middle ground of judicial "interpretation" between them. The most obvious and critical difference is that the Originalist views the Constitution as immutable written law whose text is changeable only by amendment and which must be interpreted by the original meanings of its words, whereas a Progressive views the Constitution, at best, as an artificial quasi-directional context from which any interpretation which satisfies a personal notion of some form of justice supercedes any impediment that words in a text might impose.
In effect, the originalist holds the Constitution as the law of the land, and a Progressive views the Constitution as an obstacle to good and efficient government. An Originalist understands the Constitution basically as the legal limitation and description of government power. A Progressive is antithetical to the notion that good and efficient government should be limited.
Any so-called balancing interpretations of those two separate views will necessarily chip away a the original notion of the Constitution being the law of the land and a limitation on government. And with every new case which leads to a "balancing" effect, ever more of the original notion is destroyed, until, eventually it no longer, in any practical sense, exists.
The same process can be said in attempts to "balance" good and evil or right and wrong. Eventually, with every balancing act, the original concepts will be erased.
Of course those who think that they have the only definition allowable have concerns, but things average out just like the weather.
The weather is quantifiable. Average weather is a mathematical balancing of observed patterns. And that "average" changes as patterns change. So an "average" temperature merely describes what is, not what it should or must be. In that respect, there is no real and permanent "middle," there are only different numbers on a changing spectrum, each with its own value.
My concern is that the far reaches of politics on both sides have an inordinate amount of power. I think there are several reasons for this, our electoral process and the effect of the media at a minimum.
The extremists on both sides should have an effect but it should be moderated by the moderate politicians in the middle.
There is no "middle." What you call the middle is a position which once established will be held to as fast as any other position. In a sense, all positions are "extreme." They are extremely what they are. Those you refer to as "the far reaches on both sides" consider themselves to be no more extreme than your "middle." If they have a notion of the "middle," they consider themselves to be the true middle--all others being extreme, or wrong, or stupid.
The notion of an extreme position is a preferential point of view, and it does not lead to rational discussion. Discussions or debates not based on any common principles lead to foaming at the mouth rants based on myopic opinions. Or to incoherent and prejudicial Supreme Court decisions.
Claiming to be a "centrist" or in the "moderate" middle is a rhetorical trick to paint opponents as extreme.
I compare the federal government to a giant sphere rolling along, for most of our government's existence it was pushed along by the people in the middle and it's path was altered to left and right by people pushing from the sides. We seem to now have reached a time where everyone has moved to the left or right and few are left to push us along.
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If it were a giant sphere, the surface on which it roles along would have no center. There would be no "middle" for people to inhabit. And the universe through which it rolled would have no left or right. Those are relative terms.
And the time which we have now reached is one in which we are divided by classical views and post modern ones--the classic view being that there is objective reality, and the post modern view that realities are merely fictions or social constructs.
Our Progressive jurists are closer to the post modern view than to the classical, and the Originalists, vice versa. That is one of the reasons that the Constitution, for a Progressive, is a fiction to be molded into whatever the current social constructs decree.