"We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature’s judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens."
*The mutable will of our citizens.*
The recognition of mutability is a rebuke of the Federalist Society ouija board game of 'originalism'. In which jurists divine the spectral …
"We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature’s judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens."
*The mutable will of our citizens.*
The recognition of mutability is a rebuke of the Federalist Society ouija board game of 'originalism'. In which jurists divine the spectral hand of Founders long dead now authorizing antidemocratic decisions.
The Founders' intent was to have their agreed legal framework for good governance facilitate progress towards their aspirational assertion of radical equality. By coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. Even providing the procedure by which we can amend the Constitution itself.
The Constitution - an ever evolving document that is alive and available for modification as the world changes around it. Not an iron clad impenetrable jumble of words from men 200+ years dead - who would be incredulous that their descendants wouldn't want to adjust to the times.
"Originalism" feels like a religious attitude. Something set in stone that doesn't age well. In fact, it becomes antique, irrelevant and potentially dangerous. Even religions evolve. They adapt or they are discarded.
"Originalism" feels like a religious attitude. Something set in stone that doesn't age well. . . Even religions evolve. They adapt or they are discarded."
Exactly. Originalism is a scheme without legal precedent or authority. Pushed by Catholic extremist Leonard Leo who must've taken a intro to literature class where someone mentioned 'author's intent' - a strategy long debunked by those involved in interpreting historic and literary texts - and decided to use it for his own political and mercenary purposes.
Yes, religious law is always in dispute by religious authorities. The extremists who claim it is fixed violate their own traditions. In Judaism as Hillel said "Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself. The rest is commentary. Go study." Even the Sabbath liturgy includes a section on protocols for interpretation. But in extremist circles it's primarily rote memorization /repetition.
lin-, here in Southern Baptist Texas (and Oklahoma), all Southern Baptist children have Bible memorization competitions called Bible Drills. There are multiple levels of competition.
My favorite episode of The West Wing show the danger of rote application of ancient laws to today’s people.
Memorization is a good start. But only a start. When we moved from NYC to Carlinville, Illinois (where public school children were given Bibles and taken to an infamously antisemitic Oberammergau passion play) my partner, who taught Milton's Paradise Lost thought, at least they'll have a good grounding in the Bible. Nope. Back in NYC, at Fordham, he hoped the same of lock step parochial school students. No luck. The Jesuits would be ashamed.
lin-, I was raised on Teilhard de Chardin’s discussions of theology. My mom, who introduced me to them, once attended Oklahoma Baptist University, which required 2 religion classes for graduation (she was Catholic and St. Gregory’s university didn’t offer a Biology degree). After she converted the professor to Catholicism, the allowed her to take her second course at St. Gregory’s—the Jesuits would have been proud.
I had the same rabbi as Ruth Bader (Ginsburg.) He had a long career. And was involved in education and civil rights. These things stick. For better or worse.
Civic and moral duty seems to be a family tradition. Have you thought of writing your mother's story? Maybe for a local historical society? Or the National Museum of African American History? Maybe you already have done? In these days when religion is put to the worst uses, it is good to be reminded of stories like your mother's.
lin! -- Thanks for the link to one of my favorite (maybe my favorite) scenes in "West Wing". WW was and still is my favorite all-time television series. If you or anyone knows how it can be watched now, please advise. (But I'll investigate.)
One of my All-Time Favorites, too. Try Googling West Wing. There are lots of choices, some free like on youtube.
Also, try your local libraries. If they don't have it in their collection or via streaming, they should be able to get it for you on Inter-Library Loan.
There are DVD's of the series around, for purchase on amazon and on ebay - some fairly inexpensive.
Martin Sheen is a Dayton, OH guy and a big supporter of Sherrod Brown. I heard Brown tell a story on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program the night he won the Primary that Sheen was fired from his first job at a Dayton golf course for trying to unionize his fellow caddies. My kind of guy!
Originalism is only a ploy to gain or remain in power and control. If Scotus truly believes in originalism the Thomas couple's marriage would be nullified and they would be in jail. If you believe in originalism then the insurrectionist and his sycophants would receive the same treatment as Guy Fawkes. You would think originalism and controlling women are anachronisms but a reminder - more people of color (men in particular) are joining the Maga Party and white women by a slight majority voted Trump. You get what you vote for...until you no longer have a vote.
Putin is everywhere. We ignore the Ukraine connection to Gaza at our peril. Doesn’t anyone remember Stalin? Doesn’t anyone think of the Koch family fortune coming from work for both Hitler and Stalin in the 1930’s? Is MTG ready for the police state she is heading toward? Is she capable of reading “Moscow 1937”? Where are the photos of the Politburo in session that show bodies whose heads have been airbrushed off when the owner of the body was “eliminated” from the Politburo?
I got that! Glad you are. Keep going Virginia - we need hard hitting facts. The problem is that those who need to hear the facts won't listen or care, but please persist!
Steve, I will persist. I am reliving 1942 and am even more scared now than I was then. I know Hitler/Putin/Stalin/Trump/ from many angles. The lust for power at any cost to other humans has to be controlled whenever it raises its ugly head. We may lose our chance to realize our potential to boost the UN, born in San Francisco, housed in NYC and help Ukraine realize its dream of being free of Putin. We must vote blue as we haven’t since the mid-1960’s (civil rights and LBJ, poor, school teacher in Texas before he got to Congress).
Your comment about LBJ is very telling. I did not think it at the time but in retrospect I consider him to be one of America's transactional Presidents. His legacy may want to be considered like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Civil Rights and Voting Rights were his legacy - all undone by SCOTUS and the Maga Party... history will be unkind to this generation. As to Ukraine - the Putin wing of what used to be the GOP - now Maga - should be brought up on charges of violating the Logan Act.
Yet……doesn’t the old law the AZ Supreme Court harken back to hold the key?: “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.” I repeat: “In order to SAVE HER LIFE”. Okay, that could encompass a lot of interpretation. Do not doctors performing abortions believe they are “Saving” the Woman’s Life? I could see that as YES. If a woman is forced to have an unwanted child it will indeed “kill her life”, mostly because it kills her choice to decide absolutely what happens to HER OWN body. It makes her NOT a free and equal member of society. Time for the ERA Amendment to pass.
What of the woman who looks in her doctor’s eyes and states “I will kill myself if I can’t have an abortion.” Is the doctor then to make the determination that this abortion will be done to save her life? What would the court have to say in this scenario? There are still no clear guidelines. and . . .
What/who in the world designates a woman as a second class citizen such that an amendment needs to be passed to make her “equal” to men?!?! (envision me shouting this question). I agree that this amendment needs to be passed ASAP, should have been passed eons ago, but its passage never should be necessary to make women “equal”. Indeed, IMHO women are actually superior to men in most ways.
And a forced pregnancy, in a situation where a woman knows she does not have the necessary resources to raise that child, results in a child growing up without their basic physical and emotional needs met. That child is at risk for dropping out of school and becoming involved in antisocial behaviors. That child becomes our future.
As we are hearing from physicians and patients across the country. The courts and legislatures have not provided any legal guidance or definition for identifying exactly when a woman is on the verge of death and so when an abortion becomes legal. Of course they can't, which is why it is very bad law.
I think I understand your point and there is no end of evidence to support it. And the hypocrisy. ie Jim Crow voter registration literacy tests. Registration is supposed to facilitate voting but White Supremacists used it to deny Black persons their constitutional right to equal representation.
But laws cannot be written so as to effectively legislate and adjudicate all existing circumstances, let alone potential circumstances. I think The Founders translated The Scientific Method into an agreed legal framework for good governance. The laws as hypotheses to be tested, observed, and revised. I think they were sincere in their aspirations.
I think the Republican Party has become entirely insincere. Since at least Newt Gingrich's emphasis on rhetoric unmoored from reality. And with the advent of such as Rand Paul and Taylor Greene, the party has become dangerously frivolous. Using the protocols of government, only to obstruct government.
Leonard Leo's Becket Law speech and William Barr's Notre Dame speech exemplify the fallacious rhetoric of American religious extremism. And the extremists working to repurpose a democratic republic as a clerical fascist state.
Lin, this is a good point, and I appreciate you making it. It is easy to fall into cynicism about the vagueness of rule making. A component of rule making is that the parties are intended to act in good faith. Yet humans fall into goalpost-moving behavior when they are not acting in good faith, but righteously insist they are. We, again, are in such a moment.
The solution is to pass better laws and not rely on the court. The Arizona legislature can and should fix the law. In the meantime, Arizona residents are already gearing up to pass a constitutional amendment to grant abortion freedom.
You cannot entirely separate the legislature and the judiciary. Whether state or federal the courts decide whether the laws passed by the legislature are constitutional.
It is my considered opinion that the matter of abortion should have never been made into a political medicine ball. What is happening today is topsy-turvy. And where it is today is where it will be fifty years from now. In the public sphere, we toss into the dust bin matters we don't like or that we determine to be too difficult to handle. And, they stay there. The bin isn't emptied and its contents smell to high-heaven. The movement of becoming a mostly secular society pushes aside the moral consequences of public law. Most of you will read as so much blather what I say next: "Take God, the Creator of life, out of the equation and we get what we are getting." A 'satisfactory' answer will never be found in the hallowed halls of the SCOTUS, the U. S. Congress, in State legislatures. Of course, all of this is my considered opinion!
“The Founders' intent was to have their agreed legal framework for good governance facilitate progress towards their aspirational assertion of radical equality. By coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. Even providing the procedure by which we can amend the Constitution itself.”
This is a beautifully stated, straightforward and clear statement of the essence of our constitution. It should be read out loud at the opening of every day in both houses of congress. It should be read out loud before the Justices at the opening of every day of decision-making. It should be incorporated into the oath of office taken by POTUS and every elected official.
"We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature’s judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens."
*The mutable will of our citizens.*
The recognition of mutability is a rebuke of the Federalist Society ouija board game of 'originalism'. In which jurists divine the spectral hand of Founders long dead now authorizing antidemocratic decisions.
The Founders' intent was to have their agreed legal framework for good governance facilitate progress towards their aspirational assertion of radical equality. By coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. Even providing the procedure by which we can amend the Constitution itself.
Yes lin*!
The Constitution - an ever evolving document that is alive and available for modification as the world changes around it. Not an iron clad impenetrable jumble of words from men 200+ years dead - who would be incredulous that their descendants wouldn't want to adjust to the times.
"Originalism" feels like a religious attitude. Something set in stone that doesn't age well. In fact, it becomes antique, irrelevant and potentially dangerous. Even religions evolve. They adapt or they are discarded.
"Originalism" feels like a religious attitude. Something set in stone that doesn't age well. . . Even religions evolve. They adapt or they are discarded."
Exactly. Originalism is a scheme without legal precedent or authority. Pushed by Catholic extremist Leonard Leo who must've taken a intro to literature class where someone mentioned 'author's intent' - a strategy long debunked by those involved in interpreting historic and literary texts - and decided to use it for his own political and mercenary purposes.
Yes, religious law is always in dispute by religious authorities. The extremists who claim it is fixed violate their own traditions. In Judaism as Hillel said "Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself. The rest is commentary. Go study." Even the Sabbath liturgy includes a section on protocols for interpretation. But in extremist circles it's primarily rote memorization /repetition.
lin-, here in Southern Baptist Texas (and Oklahoma), all Southern Baptist children have Bible memorization competitions called Bible Drills. There are multiple levels of competition.
My favorite episode of The West Wing show the danger of rote application of ancient laws to today’s people.
https://sbtexas.com/event/national-bible-drill-dallas/
https://youtu.be/S1-ip47WYWc?si=a08DpzDNRkJS784u
Memorization is a good start. But only a start. When we moved from NYC to Carlinville, Illinois (where public school children were given Bibles and taken to an infamously antisemitic Oberammergau passion play) my partner, who taught Milton's Paradise Lost thought, at least they'll have a good grounding in the Bible. Nope. Back in NYC, at Fordham, he hoped the same of lock step parochial school students. No luck. The Jesuits would be ashamed.
lin-, I was raised on Teilhard de Chardin’s discussions of theology. My mom, who introduced me to them, once attended Oklahoma Baptist University, which required 2 religion classes for graduation (she was Catholic and St. Gregory’s university didn’t offer a Biology degree). After she converted the professor to Catholicism, the allowed her to take her second course at St. Gregory’s—the Jesuits would have been proud.
ThankYou.
I had the same rabbi as Ruth Bader (Ginsburg.) He had a long career. And was involved in education and civil rights. These things stick. For better or worse.
My mom also marched (the only white person in the group) to integrate the Oklahoma City schools. She considered it her moral duty.
Civic and moral duty seems to be a family tradition. Have you thought of writing your mother's story? Maybe for a local historical society? Or the National Museum of African American History? Maybe you already have done? In these days when religion is put to the worst uses, it is good to be reminded of stories like your mother's.
lin! -- Thanks for the link to one of my favorite (maybe my favorite) scenes in "West Wing". WW was and still is my favorite all-time television series. If you or anyone knows how it can be watched now, please advise. (But I'll investigate.)
One of my All-Time Favorites, too. Try Googling West Wing. There are lots of choices, some free like on youtube.
Also, try your local libraries. If they don't have it in their collection or via streaming, they should be able to get it for you on Inter-Library Loan.
There are DVD's of the series around, for purchase on amazon and on ebay - some fairly inexpensive.
Martin Sheen is a Dayton, OH guy and a big supporter of Sherrod Brown. I heard Brown tell a story on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program the night he won the Primary that Sheen was fired from his first job at a Dayton golf course for trying to unionize his fellow caddies. My kind of guy!
Thanks, Angela. (I'm on it now.) I just finished watching a YouTube collection of top 10 Jed Bartlett scenes. Very powerful!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XShV1LDRW4o
Good Luck! Please see my edited addition about Martin Sheen that I just remembered.
The West Wing is on Prime Video, but regretfully not available for us in Canada to watch.
Originalism is only a ploy to gain or remain in power and control. If Scotus truly believes in originalism the Thomas couple's marriage would be nullified and they would be in jail. If you believe in originalism then the insurrectionist and his sycophants would receive the same treatment as Guy Fawkes. You would think originalism and controlling women are anachronisms but a reminder - more people of color (men in particular) are joining the Maga Party and white women by a slight majority voted Trump. You get what you vote for...until you no longer have a vote.
Thank you for the reminder of what a Trump vote means in addition to more Putin in Congress.
The Putin Maga alliance in the halls of congress is there for all to see, but unlike you, few choose to see it. Lemmings anyone?
Putin is everywhere. We ignore the Ukraine connection to Gaza at our peril. Doesn’t anyone remember Stalin? Doesn’t anyone think of the Koch family fortune coming from work for both Hitler and Stalin in the 1930’s? Is MTG ready for the police state she is heading toward? Is she capable of reading “Moscow 1937”? Where are the photos of the Politburo in session that show bodies whose heads have been airbrushed off when the owner of the body was “eliminated” from the Politburo?
Thank you, Steve. I am centered on Trump/Putin.
I got that! Glad you are. Keep going Virginia - we need hard hitting facts. The problem is that those who need to hear the facts won't listen or care, but please persist!
Steve, I will persist. I am reliving 1942 and am even more scared now than I was then. I know Hitler/Putin/Stalin/Trump/ from many angles. The lust for power at any cost to other humans has to be controlled whenever it raises its ugly head. We may lose our chance to realize our potential to boost the UN, born in San Francisco, housed in NYC and help Ukraine realize its dream of being free of Putin. We must vote blue as we haven’t since the mid-1960’s (civil rights and LBJ, poor, school teacher in Texas before he got to Congress).
Your comment about LBJ is very telling. I did not think it at the time but in retrospect I consider him to be one of America's transactional Presidents. His legacy may want to be considered like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Civil Rights and Voting Rights were his legacy - all undone by SCOTUS and the Maga Party... history will be unkind to this generation. As to Ukraine - the Putin wing of what used to be the GOP - now Maga - should be brought up on charges of violating the Logan Act.
Well stated. Change with the times. What a strange idea. Anyone want to buy an AK 47?
Yet……doesn’t the old law the AZ Supreme Court harken back to hold the key?: “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.” I repeat: “In order to SAVE HER LIFE”. Okay, that could encompass a lot of interpretation. Do not doctors performing abortions believe they are “Saving” the Woman’s Life? I could see that as YES. If a woman is forced to have an unwanted child it will indeed “kill her life”, mostly because it kills her choice to decide absolutely what happens to HER OWN body. It makes her NOT a free and equal member of society. Time for the ERA Amendment to pass.
Two thoughts:
What of the woman who looks in her doctor’s eyes and states “I will kill myself if I can’t have an abortion.” Is the doctor then to make the determination that this abortion will be done to save her life? What would the court have to say in this scenario? There are still no clear guidelines. and . . .
What/who in the world designates a woman as a second class citizen such that an amendment needs to be passed to make her “equal” to men?!?! (envision me shouting this question). I agree that this amendment needs to be passed ASAP, should have been passed eons ago, but its passage never should be necessary to make women “equal”. Indeed, IMHO women are actually superior to men in most ways.
And a forced pregnancy, in a situation where a woman knows she does not have the necessary resources to raise that child, results in a child growing up without their basic physical and emotional needs met. That child is at risk for dropping out of school and becoming involved in antisocial behaviors. That child becomes our future.
As we are hearing from physicians and patients across the country. The courts and legislatures have not provided any legal guidance or definition for identifying exactly when a woman is on the verge of death and so when an abortion becomes legal. Of course they can't, which is why it is very bad law.
Lin…same for any of the other “exceptions” such as rape and incest…..too many barriers to “prove” the offense was committed.
Intentional vagueness to allow the goalpost to keep moving.
I think I understand your point and there is no end of evidence to support it. And the hypocrisy. ie Jim Crow voter registration literacy tests. Registration is supposed to facilitate voting but White Supremacists used it to deny Black persons their constitutional right to equal representation.
But laws cannot be written so as to effectively legislate and adjudicate all existing circumstances, let alone potential circumstances. I think The Founders translated The Scientific Method into an agreed legal framework for good governance. The laws as hypotheses to be tested, observed, and revised. I think they were sincere in their aspirations.
I think the Republican Party has become entirely insincere. Since at least Newt Gingrich's emphasis on rhetoric unmoored from reality. And with the advent of such as Rand Paul and Taylor Greene, the party has become dangerously frivolous. Using the protocols of government, only to obstruct government.
Leonard Leo's Becket Law speech and William Barr's Notre Dame speech exemplify the fallacious rhetoric of American religious extremism. And the extremists working to repurpose a democratic republic as a clerical fascist state.
https://www.becketlaw.org/leonard-leo-speech-2017-canterbury-medal-gala/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics
Lin, this is a good point, and I appreciate you making it. It is easy to fall into cynicism about the vagueness of rule making. A component of rule making is that the parties are intended to act in good faith. Yet humans fall into goalpost-moving behavior when they are not acting in good faith, but righteously insist they are. We, again, are in such a moment.
The solution is to pass better laws and not rely on the court. The Arizona legislature can and should fix the law. In the meantime, Arizona residents are already gearing up to pass a constitutional amendment to grant abortion freedom.
The Arizona legislators should remove/kill the old 1864 law so it can never be used again.
Check Robert Hubbell today the AZ legislature recodified the law in the 1970’s
Thanks for this info. Much appreciated.
🤯🤯🤯
You cannot entirely separate the legislature and the judiciary. Whether state or federal the courts decide whether the laws passed by the legislature are constitutional.
That is great. However, the Arizona legislators must be voted out of office in November.
It is my considered opinion that the matter of abortion should have never been made into a political medicine ball. What is happening today is topsy-turvy. And where it is today is where it will be fifty years from now. In the public sphere, we toss into the dust bin matters we don't like or that we determine to be too difficult to handle. And, they stay there. The bin isn't emptied and its contents smell to high-heaven. The movement of becoming a mostly secular society pushes aside the moral consequences of public law. Most of you will read as so much blather what I say next: "Take God, the Creator of life, out of the equation and we get what we are getting." A 'satisfactory' answer will never be found in the hallowed halls of the SCOTUS, the U. S. Congress, in State legislatures. Of course, all of this is my considered opinion!
The moral consequences of public law dont depend on God.
Once again a prerequisite is a morally sound and well educated populace.
Lin- VERY eloquently parsed!
“The Founders' intent was to have their agreed legal framework for good governance facilitate progress towards their aspirational assertion of radical equality. By coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. Even providing the procedure by which we can amend the Constitution itself.”
This is a beautifully stated, straightforward and clear statement of the essence of our constitution. It should be read out loud at the opening of every day in both houses of congress. It should be read out loud before the Justices at the opening of every day of decision-making. It should be incorporated into the oath of office taken by POTUS and every elected official.
HaHa. Blush.
ThankYou.