From: dev@clydesdale.ecn.purdue.edu (Larry Weeks)
Subject: Re: Necessary and Proper
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 15:20:37 GMT

lkk@panix.com (Larry Kolodney) once wrote: 
> The question remains: So what? Why should we, as late 20th century
> Americans, give the slightest weight to the interpretations of the
> constitution by a group of aristocratic men who lived 200 years ago?
>
> [ ... ] to tell us how to interpret *OUR* constitution. The fact
> that we still debate constitutional meanings surely demonstrates
> that those meanings are *not* self-evident.

It is not *our* constitution. It is the constitution of the United
States of the late 1700s, as envisioned by those who wrote it. You
people have been beating the animal for 200 years, until now it's
such a bloody pulp that we can't tell if it was a gazelle or an
elephant.

"That over there, that *might* be a leg... yeah, we need a leg, so
 that's a leg."

It doesn't mean what you want it to mean. The meaning of the words
*are* rather self-evident if you are rational about it. They were
written by men who had just fought a revolution, who feared an
all-powerful central government, who wanted to create a nation of
semi-sovereign republics sharing a republican federal government, who
wanted to create a limited government with enumerated powers. That is
what they wrote. The U.S. Constitution is the constitution of a
limited federal republic. It does not describe the constitution of
our current government, except in a very superficial way.

As for the debates on meaning... what they demonstrate is quite
laughable. They demonstrate that people can't read English. You all
*know* it doesn't mean what you want it to mean, so you argue and
cloud the document in foolish complexities. Lawyers need to be
"specially trained" to see the "true meaning" of the document. What
a joke.

> We have plenty of smart, very thoughtful, learned jurists who are
> alive and breathing and (most importantly) live in late 20th century
> America, a country about which the founding fathers could scarcely
> fathom, let alone have very much insight. So why the appeal of
> original intent jurisprudence?

Hey, I agree. I think we have many thoughtful, learned jurists. But we
are beating a dead horse. You people can't have your cake and eat it
too. You're trying to legitimize your political goals by *somehow*
finding support in the Constitution. It is a travesty. Make a new one.
Use those smart, thoughtful, learned jurists. Create a constitution
which describes late 20th century American government. Stop leaning on
the crutch of the old constitution so you can claim legitimacy. The
U.S. Constitution of 1787 is just a historical document. It means
nothing today. It doesn't restrain the government. If the government
wants to do something, some "learned jurist" will find *some* way to
twist the language to support it. That's not learned. It's asinine.
The Constitution *has no meaning* today. Why are you trying to act
like it does?

> IMHO, appeals to purported original intent in constitutional
> interpretation reflect in their authors a deep discomfort with the
> existential choices of modern life.

On the other hand, there are those who think that the text should be
enforced because they don't want an all-powerful central government.
Some people are not comfortable concentrating more and more power
into a single governmental body. Some people feel that beating the
dead horse is just a mockery. And some of us get a good laugh out of
it all, especially those comical Court rulings which are *so*
reaching in trying to reconcile the government's actions with the
Constitution. The government will do what it will, no matter what the
nation's constitution says...

This is truly a post-constitutional era, and I wish people would stop
pretending otherwise. All you kids can go about your little games,
"the general welfare clause, if you turn it this way, and apply HeNe
radiation to it, DOES mean that the government can legislate however
it wants to, and spend money on whatever it wants to! See!" And now,
we all feel happy because we stretched the parchment some more, and
can go on pretending that it means something for convenience's sake.

Really, it's pretty funny in a sad sort of way. IMHO, original intent
people have a better grasp on reality than the children playing this
game.

Larry
--
Larry Weeks        | "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for
dev@ecn.purdue.edu |  good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke
-------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a
 child." -- M. Tullius Cicero
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