[E. Pluribus Unum]

That was fifteen minutes ago. The law is a living organism that evolves constantly. Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts say so.

[ClearCase_guy]

Yes. It’s all about the double standards now. Tasers are only deadly when its convenient.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

I'm bothered a lot less by Gorsuch than Roberts. Gorsuch is a textualist, as was Scalia. That's a form of originalism, but it's not the same thing in every situation. And in a few cases, that distinction can matter a lot.

Best example is school segregation. An originalist might focus on the "original understanding" of the 14th Amendment, and say that it did not include outlawing segregated schools. They'd have come out the other way on Brown v. Board of Education, and affirmed Plessy v. Ferguson.

A textualist would focus on the language of the Amendment itself, and say "regardless of what they may have originally meant or intended at the time, the words 'equal protection of the laws' do not permit legal distinctions based on race.

I'm sure some may quibbble with the idea that originalists would be against Brown, and they may be right. I'm just illustrating the difference between focusing on the intent of a law, versus the words themselves.

I was worried about Gorsuch on the LGBT case for that reason. It's not that he's a closet leftist. He's just a hardline textualist. 95 times out of 100, that's good for us.