[lbo-talk] Kagan hearings

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Fri Jul 2 09:13:41 PDT 2010


Since he was appointed by Reagan in 1986, Scalia has been the most high-profile advocate of a school of jurisprudence known as originalism. Originalists hold that the words of the constitution mean what they meant when they were written and adopted into the text; judges must remain faithful to those original meanings, even if they run counter to contemporary manners and mores.

^^^^^^ CB: To get an idea how much this is bullshit, consider the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, the orignal meaning of its words when they were written and adopted into the text of the Constitution, and the anti-affirmative action reverse discrimination doctrine.

When the words, "no state shall deny any person equal protection" of the laws were written, everybody knew the "persons" to whom equal protection had to be given were Black people who had just been emancipated from slavery. Fast forward to the late 1970's to present and the Supreme Court, using the reverse discrimination ( against white people) doctrine, starts to make affirmative action _for_ Black people unconstitutional under this very equal protection clause language.. Has Scalia popped up with the original meaning of the words idea and said the reverse disicrimination doctrine is wrong because it doesn't adhere to the original meaning of the words in the 14th Amendment. No .



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