[ml/nj]

All that's nice, but then "Honest Abe" came around.

ML/NJ

[Jim W N]

It seems as simple as a law that says it is illegal to cross the line of an intersection when the light is red. You go by what the lawmakers intended. But pretty soon, somebody says that they really didn't mean "red" specifically, but any color "like" red and pretty soon you have moral judgments stating the horrors of using red as a color.

Thus the Constitution has been wrested and rendered ineffective by our judicial activist judges.

[RobbyS]

The Constitution is not a statement of general principles but a framework work for the federal government. The Bill of Rights specificly limit the authority of the central government. The problem is the way that legal positivism has displaced the old natural law approach. Every judge on the Supreme Court, even the Originalists, think like Justice Holmes. The idea is that the law must be reinterpreted to meet the needs of a changing society. Holmes was willing to let legislatures make the changes rather than judges, but as an atheist—and a man whose psyche had been shocked profoundly by the events of the Civil War—he lacked faith in anything except power. Justice White spoke of Roe, v. Wade as a raw exercise of judicial power. That is the way that judges think today. Take the case of the judge in Wisconsin, who did not hesitate to suspend the operation of a legislative act even though it involved her intervention in the operation of the legislature. The motto today is: See what you can get rid of.

[shibumi]

In all sincerity, I want to say “Thanks!”

It’s great to see that there is someone in the blogosphere who is proud enough of his work and respectful enough of his fellow FReepers to post his essays in full right here.

(Now, I may actually go and read the whole thing!)

[RoadTest]

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security.” —James Madison, letter to Henry Lee, 1824

[Jacquerie]

I'm a big fan of Randy Barnett. His Restoring the Lost Constitution should be read and quoted by every Freeper.

Barnett shreds the Left.