BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Our latest SCOTUS associate justice–along with 99% of Republican justices appointed or elected to state and federal benches since January, 2016–refers to her judicial philosophy as “originalism” or “textualism.” Actually, Dinosaurism would be a far more honest and accurate description.
So, precisely what is this “originalism” and “textualism” these supposedly “unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan and objective” justices and judges claim as the foundation upon which they construct their decisions? Well, in their Alice in Wonderland of fact vs. fiction, it’s a postulation by “conservative” judicial swamis that they possess the otherworldly gift of being able to divine what the Founding Fathers, the framers of the Constitution, INTENDED–unvarying, unalterable, and applicable into infinity–when they “worded” said Constitution.
Hard to believe? How ’bout astonishingly OUTRAGEOUS … or, better yet, unimaginably LAUGHABLE?!
Allow me, if you will, to humiliate these “originalists” and “textualists” with a few FACTS surrounding the lives, times and tenets of these seeming limitlessly clairvoyant mid- to late-18th century “framous” Founding Fathers of ours and the preposterous absurdity of any such present day legally defensible linkage:
1) They communicated with one another or others–WHEREVER they might be–solely via word of mouth or handwritten message carried on foot, via horseback or the grace of a prevailing wind.
2) They believed that the only folks who should be allowed to vote were the landed gentry; that a woman’s place was solely in the home, and that they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere NEAR a voting place … EVER; that black people were less than human and could legally–and unashamedly–be bought and sold; and if you weren’t of white western European extraction, you were no more than a “savage.”
3) The number of “public” libraries at the time could be counted on two hands, contained few books, and were dedicated almost exclusively to the “propagation of the gospel.”
4) It would be nearly 100 years beyond their time that the telephone, telegraph and radio would come into existence.
5) That same 100 years would pass before “germs” were discovered.
6) Words and phrases like “computer,” “smart phone,” “internet,” “world wide web,” “Google,” “Facebook,” “information technology,” “Instagram,” “Twitter,” and “Email” weren’t even in the IMAGINATIONS of the Founding Fathers, let alone inhabited their vocabularies or even the human LANGUAGE!
7) Some 75 years would pass before Americans took up BATHING.
8) The Electoral College through which we STILL select our President has ALWAYS had little if ANYTHING to do with “democracy” and, for the last 225 years or so, ZERO relevance or rationale with respect to its original purpose or INTENT.
So, if a SCOTUS justice–or any other judge in the good ole USA–says he or she is or will be invoking his or her opinions based upon an “originalist” or “textualist” judicial philosophy, i.e., according to what they ascertain to have been the INTENT (read: telepathy) of the Founding Fathers, methinks they should be reflecting upon what the framers actually DID, and the times in which they actually LIVED, rather than what said SCOTUS justices and assorted judges IMAGINE said framers were SOOTHSAYING in matters regarding human rights, equality and “democracy”–or any OTHER legal matter. More importantly, you really have to question said justices’ and judges’ judicial impartiality, ethics, and intelligence to begin with. In other words, their OWN draconianly dinosaurial INTENT!