The myth of strict constructionism

[imported_luckyme]

Strict Constructionism seems to suffer from the same flawed premise as txag007's 'literal' reading of the bible. It's something that can be claimed but it's not something that can be done. IOW, it's a belief in a concept that can't exist in practice.

Scalia gave this example to try and prove the concept of 'reasonable' interpretation ( which obviously is a wide door already )- "he used a cane" should be taken as "he walks with a cane." Well, that seems reasonable, unless the phrase arose in a discussion of wife-beating or reaching for high apples or dalliance in the Oval Office or.. ( it’s intended to be a very simplistic example).

Not post-modernist nonsense, but simply that everything is contextual and there is no way a generalist document like a constitution could possibly have a clear comment on every conceivable specific circumstance. The choice isn’t between interpretation and no interpretation, the choice is just which political slant you want on the interpretation. This isn’t in the political forum because I’m not interested in any political side of it I just hoped for some critique of my thinking in this area.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind.

[Superfluous Man]

If you actually believe "strict constructionism" as Scalia implements it is anything other than "I'll do whatever the hell I feel like to bring my dreams of a statist theocracy to fruition," then I have a bridge to sell you.

[imported_luckyme]

I take that as "strict constructionism is a myth". ?? ( I wasn't concerned with the specific politics and you may be right on your take on those).

luckyme,
If I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

[benkahuna]

Taking any writing out of its cultural, historical context is likely to cause incongruency. If you read legal disclaimers, they cover a pretty wide range of contingencies making literal interpretations fairly easy to obtain, but any word that is subjective causes problems, even if its vague in the specific legal definition of a term.

There are definitely documents that work better literally than others.