US Members: Are you a strict or loose constructionist?

Some of the Founding Fathers were concerned that by even having a Bill of Rights, it might imply to some people that rights not enumerated in the Constitution were not protected by it. There was no way they could possibly list out every right in the document. Hence why they opposed the Bill of Rights and instead wanted a more general protection listed. But some states refused to ratify the Constitution unless there were a Bill of Rights so as a compromise the 9th Amendment was added just to make it clear that that the Constitution protected far more than what it enumerated. Of course there was no idea how this would be enforced when this was written, since the Supreme Court hadn't yet established itself as an interpreting body.

A 'strict constructionist' is a historical revisionist, plain and simple. Conservatives on the Supreme Court have been selective about what they interpret exclusively vs inclusively and it has always been for political convenience on their behalf.

 

It's a living document, meaning that it can be interpreted in more than one way and can change over time.

 

The society of the Founding Fathers had pretty different values from ours. Do you honestly expect all of them to be that ahead of their time?And calling people genocidal is quite an accusation. Like I said, I'm kind of on the fence here, mainly because I'm not a reactionary conservative. I prefer slow change since people tend to freak out when things change suddenly. It's not like my opinion on this is completely and utterly set in stone! :lol: (Seriously though, calm down.)

 

I'm plenty calm.

So, as you are not aware, the term "strict constructionist" means exactly that they were ahead of our time, and that we should follow exactly the constitution in exactly the way they purportedly followed it. That's definitional.

i don't think calling the U.S. government genocidal in its treatment of the people who were here before is in any way controversial.

 

I can see the pros of being a strict constructionist in limited circumstances. I think we all fear having the most powerful government on the face of the planet turn against its own citizens :lol:.

However, I always like people who are "conservative" and are adamantly strict constructionists to specifically state why they want the Constitution to be interpreted "as written." One of the biggest, most often overlooked, issues that can come with strict constructionism is forgetting that, for the majority of Constitution's history, the Bill of Rights only applied at the federal level. It took Supreme Court decisions to slowly expand the Bill of Rights to apply at the state and local level. In 1833, just a few decades after the Bill of Rights was ratified, the Supreme Court ruled in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government. The legal method of incorporating the Bill of Rights came through the most unlikely of sources, the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Through loose constructionistism, the Supreme Court throughout the 20th (and even 21st) Century slowly ruled that, due to the 14th Amendment, states were bound to give the same Bill of Rights protection that the Bill of Rights

Ironic for some conservatives who despise the 14th Amendment, it has served as a vehicle to enshrine many liberties at the state and local level (while many state constitutions are similar/nearly identical to the federal Constitution, not all of them had the same basic rights that were spelled out in the Constitution). Heck, the Second Amendment wasn't really incorporated against the states (meaning the states were bound by the Second Amendment) until 2010 in McDonald v. Chicago.

Now, you may say, "well duh, the Founding Fathers obviously meant for the Bill of Rights to apply to everyone, in any situation (e.g. regardless of whether it's the state or police, or FBI, they need a damn warrant)." However, that was not the case in practice and SCOTUS did not even think that was the case in its infancy; plus, it was not spelled out clearly in the Constitution. If we were to immediately switch to a true "strict" interpretation of the Constitution, I suspect most would be shocked at the changes that would happen in our country.

Also, I'm not picking on you, AnGentleman; it's just that your post was the first one that caught my eye :lol:.

 

No, but I expect them to be humane. They weren't. Not to the degree required for us to be now worshiping the historical ground they walked on without questioning what it is about their perspective that shaped their views on what rights people have against the State, or the degree to which that experience was grounded in a context totally alien from the conditions that prevail now.

I am interested to know how you would describe our relationship to our native population then. I'm also interested to know how you would describe military intervention against slave revolts.

Slow change is ideological cruelty.

 

Yeah, I definitely see your point.

People tend to be resistant to sudden changes, don't they? Honestly, though, it depends on the situation. (And to be honest, I don't quite get what you mean by that. It's a cruel ideology? Cruel against ideology?)

Okay, perhaps I didn't think this one through very well. Loose constructionists are sounding better by the second. Well, I learned something today. (By the way,I'm having some formatting issues, so I just bolded my responses there.)