David Shemano asks: > ... in reaching answers to your questions, do you care at all what the > Constitution actually says? Do you care how the Constitution is structured? > That it is possible that the text and structure may logically compel a result > that does not coincide with your policy preference, or even a result that may > seem formalistic and not make much sense to anyone?<
I do care what the constitution says, but I can't claim to be able to talk about the details of that subject in an intelligent way. Instead, I rely on the kindness of strangers... In any event, as anyone who's studied political history knows, the actual interpretations that seem (to a naive audience) to jump full-blown from the SCOTUS are not logically compelled by the text of the U.S. constitution. This can be seen by the fact that the SCOTUS sometimes interprets exactly the same document in completely different ways, sometimes completely reversing previous decisions by the Supremes. In fact, no conclusion is logically compelled by any text, unless that text involves the practice of pure logic. The constitution is not one of the latter. Instead, it is a statement of broad principles and some details, all concerning the real (empirical) world. (As a political document, produced by political compromises, we should not be surprised at all if the U.S. constitution is ambiguous on some or many matters.) Since the real world is messy and complex -- and quite different from the world when the constitution was written -- there can be at least a few different interpretations of the broad principles and details when applied to real-world situations. Not only that, but the so-called principles of the constitution can be extended to real-world situations which were never considered by the Founding Fathers (or rather, by the Federalist-packed constitutional convention). I doubt that James Madison considered the idea that a privately-owned limited-liability joint-stock corporation could be dubbed a "legal person," though (as in all cases concerning law) I could easily be wrong. I also doubt that Madison considered the possibility of the (blatantly partisan) Gore vs. Bush decision. (I also doubt that those who wrote the constitution believed that some people in later generations would treat them almost as demigods.) The fact that the U.S. constitution can be interpreted in a lot of ways is just one reason why the actual personalities appointed to the SCOTUS have an effect on how it is interpreted. That means that GOP presidents have a significant effect on interpretations of the constitution by appointing right-wingers like Scalito and Thomas, just as DP presidents have an impact by appointing corporate liberals. The constitution's interpretation thus varies with the political balance of power in society and how it's reflected in the political process. Of course, history works unevenly: the right-wing Supes that FDR faced in the early 1930s were a hangover from an earlier era, while those faced by Eisenhower were mostly a hangover from the New Deal. David writes: > I get no sense that those on the left have any real embarrassment > concerning their internal squabbles.< You haven't been paying enough attention. One epithet that's often used in political discussions is "sectarian" because it's generally agreed to be a bad thing. (Ironically, some use that epithet for sectarian ends, but that's another story.) It may be true that the Right has fewer internal/sectarian squabbles than the left does. After all, rather than embracing the democratic "one person, one vote" principle, the Right espouses the power of concentrated money. As far I know, the only big sectarian fight among rightists in recent history has been that with Ayn Rand's "collective," which did not let Big Money rule but ostensibly was supposed to be about reason. (Of course, it does depend on your interpretation of what's right-wing. Hitler's suppression of the SA might be seen as a sectarian act.) -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
