a professional environmentalists take on Hunter Biden laptop

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

wayne, if you’re ok with liberals deciding “what the constitution really means” when they’re in power,, that means conservatives get to do the same when they’re in power. Right? You’re ok with that? Not me.

Safer to stick with what the founders wanted, that’s the best guarantee that we the people get the protections that have been created for us. I’m don’t want Ihan Omar or that Santos jerk changing it to suit their sick desires.

If a big majority wants a specific change, there is a mechanism to do just that, which has been utilized many times. It’s called adding amendments.

What you call going backwards,,can also be called playing by the rules, instead of making them up as we go along.

The constitution is t frozen in time forever. Are you mit aware it can be amended? but we have to follow the rules in order to change it. that’s a good thing. in my opinion.

That’s not how it works.
Let’s look at the 14th amendment, The plain text reading would be that anything characterized as an "insurrection or rebellion" would disqualify an official.
You think we should go with that, or is it the framers' intention reading which would be that obviously this was enacted in the wake of the Civil War, so the type of "insurrection or rebellion" the 14A's framers were referring to was something akin to the Confederacy's prosecution of the Civil War, which January 6 was not.
Legal scholarship really can't tell you anything useful to decide a case like this. We already know that this provision was enacted in response to the Civil War- the legislative history is going to be all about DQ'ing people who participated in it.
And you certainly aren't going to find any conclusive evidence of what they thought about "lesser" forms of insurrection or rebellion, because they weren't thinking about that. They were thinking about DQ'ing participants in the Civil War.

This is one of the reasons why Originalism doesn't work the way its proponents claim. A LOT of interpretation issues just involve situations where one canon points one way and another canon points another way. And you have to pick.
And someone won’t like it.
That’s the way it works.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

That’s not how it works.
Let’s look at the 14th amendment, The plain text reading would be that anything characterized as an "insurrection or rebellion" would disqualify an official.
You think we should go with that, or is it the framers' intention reading which would be that obviously this was enacted in the wake of the Civil War, so the type of "insurrection or rebellion" the 14A's framers were referring to was something akin to the Confederacy's prosecution of the Civil War, which January 6 was not.
Legal scholarship really can't tell you anything useful to decide a case like this. We already know that this provision was enacted in response to the Civil War- the legislative history is going to be all about DQ'ing people who participated in it.
And you certainly aren't going to find any conclusive evidence of what they thought about "lesser" forms of insurrection or rebellion, because they weren't thinking about that. They were thinking about DQ'ing participants in the Civil War.

This is one of the reasons why Originalism doesn't work the way its proponents claim. A LOT of interpretation issues just involve situations where one canon points one way and another canon points another way. And you have to pick.
And someone won’t like it.
That’s the way it works.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

A textual originalist would not have the problem that you represent. He would not base the proper interpretation on "anything characterized" as an "insurrection or rebellion". He would refer to the definition of those words that existed at the time the amendment was written. One of the tricks that Progressives use to twist and torture the Constitution in order to justify the passing of something that is actually unconstitutional is to use current shades of words that were not contemplated at the time the Amendment was created. This is also one of the reasons why they claim that the Constitution is too difficult to interpret.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

A textual originalist would not have the problem that you represent. He would not base the proper interpretation on "anything characterized" as an "insurrection or rebellion". He would refer to the definition of those words that existed at the time the amendment was written. One of the tricks that Progressives use to twist and torture the Constitution in order to justify the passing of something that is actually unconstitutional is to use current shades of words that were not contemplated at the time the Amendment was created. This is also one of the reasons why they claim that the Constitution is too difficult to interpret.

So anyone who participated would be disqualified.

That illustrates the fundamental problem with originalism. Either the theory produces unacceptable results that subvert the constitutional principles it purports to uphold, or history loses relevance because abstract principles are applied to contemporary circumstances unknown at the time the relevant provisions were ratified. Either way, originalism doesn’t work.

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device