#151: Originalist vs Living Document Justices

October 13, 2020

This is a follow-up on my last post which dealt with RBG.

Over the last hundred years or so, a meme has gradually taken root in public consciousness that there are two legitimate “philosophies” of jurisprudence which members of the SCOTUS may have, an “Originalist” or a “Living Document” philosophy.

The Constitution of the U.S. is its fundamental governing document which over-rides all legislation, federal or local. The Supreme Court of the U.S. is the institution charged with adjudicating potential conflicts between legislation and the Constitution.

“Originalists” believe that the document should be read literally for the meaning intended by the writers; “Living Document” types believe that what was written then must be “interpreted” in terms of current social and political “realities.” The first believe that what is written means what it says, the second that what is written means whatever we want it to.

Getting the lay public to accept this concept was the first victory in a war to nullify the Constitution.

The second victory was getting the lay public to accept the idea that the two “philosophies” should be “balanced” on the court.

As in my prior post, my central point here is that a commitment to the “Living Document” view of the Constitution must be a disqualification for serving on the SCOTUS. The reason is that a Living Document candidate for membership on the court is nothing other than a “Manchurian” Candidate, an attempt at a hostile insertion into the Court intent on the Court’s nullification.

How do we know this?

We must ask ourselves what it is precisely that makes liberals fight so ferociously and vulgarly for Living Document justices?

The answer is so very simple, yet it reveals all.

They want Living Document justices because their initiatives fail the constitutional test in an originalist court.

That is, their initiatives are unconstitutional when the Constitution is read literally.

It follows that what liberals need and want are justices who are willing to IGNORE the constitution.

Some may argue that this is unfair, since they do not intend to “ignore,” they just want to “read the text within the modern context.” But this argument, if it is one, is either naive or disingenuous. Once the literal is left behind, the door is open to whatever the imagination can conjure, and sometimes the imagination is servant to a political agenda.

In the view of liberals, the Constitution is no more than an inconvenient, quaint, antiquated legacy which cannot be removed, and thus must be “worked around.”

Living Document justices are constitutional “work arounds.”

That great Constitutional law professor, Obama, implied as much in his statement to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2014: “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century.” And in this view, he was merely expressing the general feeling among liberals at large.

Living Document justices are anti-constitutional, and thus should never be admitted to the Court.