Re: [asa] dawkins and unbelief (again)

At 06:53 PM 4/2/2007, David Opderbeck wrote:

>@ Derrida is the darling of those who want to
>fool some useful idiots into believing that the
>Constitution is a "living document".
>
>I don't think the Warren Court was much into
>poststructualism. To the contrary, the legal
>realists and instrumentalists who displaced turn
>of the century formalism in statutory and
>constitutional interpretation were rationalists
>and libertarians who were heavily influenced by
>Dewey and his ilk. It is actually pretty
>difficult, if not impossible, to hold to
>constitutional formalism and libertarian pragmatism at the same time.

@ It's not impossible at all. It's done with
constitutional openness and the competition principle.

" .... Sophisticated originalists (prominently,
Princeton professor Keith Whittington) have
emphasized that constitutionalism is not merely a
matter of interpretation .... It is rather a
matter of construction. Arguments that count
often have to do with structure rather than
semantics; with purposes and consequences as
essential inputs into ascertaining constitutional meaning. ...

...Originalists have thoroughly discredited the
idea of an aspirational, “Living” Constitution.
Progressives have made a persuasive case for
pragmatic, consequentialist reasoning in
constitutional construction. The point of
contention is not about constitutional pragmatism
per se but about its purpose and objectives.
Purpose and objectives are what the progressives have wrong.

They peddle a moribund, European social model. On
their account, all law is politics, and a
presumption for competition is no more plausible,
constitutionally speaking, than a presumption for
collectivism. Only then do they mobilize
pragmatism­to escape the socialist implications
of their theory and to render it politically palatable.

Originalist pragmatism, in contrast, takes its
bearings and objectives from the constitutional
architecture. The Constitution cannot work
without pragmatism and consequentialism. But one
must make those dispositions work for, not
against, the Constitution. The New Deal opposed
pragmatism to constitutionalism, and the modern
progressive project is to keep the two asunder.
To reinvent a pragmatic originalism is the
challenge for constitutional theorists, and
justices, in the decades ahead.
.."
<http://federalismproject.org/depository/FederalistOutlook232.pdf>http://federalismproject.org/depository/FederalistOutlook232.pdf.

And the reason why Derrida is one of the darlings
of those who want to undermine what
intellectually honest people know is the easily
discernable intent of the Framers - (we have the
Federalist Papers, after all) - is the fact that,
like them, he wanted to believe that any text is
subject to as many interpretations and
deconstructions as there are elites to make
them. Such "thinking" is convenient for central
planners to embrace, since the Constitution of
the United States, and other founding documents,
stand in the way of the repressive social
engineering plans they want to ENFORCE on the rest of us.

~ Janice ... picturing one of these elite clowns
on his way to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize from
another one of the incestuous,
self-congratulatory organizations that hand out
meaningless awards and trophies to those who
covet and lobby to obtain such
things. http://www.photopile.com/photos/dead/auctions/286556.jpg

>
>On 4/2/07, Janice Matchett
><<mailto:janmatch@earthlink.net>janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>At 05:30 PM 4/2/2007, David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>>As the trajectory from Dawkins to Campolo to
>>Robert Mugabe, that perhaps is itself a bit of
>>postmodern textual criticism, but I don't think
>>even Derrida could have come up with that one.
>
>
>@ Derrida is the darling of those who want to
>fool some useful idiots into believing that the
>Constitution is a "living document".
>
>I can name names there, too, and do that "trajectory" for you if you like. :)
>
>~ Janice

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Received on Tue Apr 3 11:56:10 2007