14 thoughts on “The Letter Of The Law”

  1. I noticed a few days ago this in a Gorsuch majority opinion:

    Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the contracts are valid under the arbitration law. “As a matter of policy these questions are surely debatable. But as a matter of law the answer is clear,” Gorsuch wrote.

    Can you imagine such unwoke-ness???

    1. The commenters over there, oy vey.

      If you don’t like the law, change the law. Don’t just ignore it. You aren’t going to like where we wind up that way.

  2. “The terms of the debate have shifted,” Clement says. “You don’t want to walk into the court without a textualist argument.”

    Scary to contemplate the philosophy that relies on arguments that have nothing to do with the law winning cases in court. But then again, Cultural Marxists need to make the law meaningless, arbitrary, and selective in who it applies to in order to seize control of the country, punish their enemies, and reward their friends. Bonus: by destroying our institutions it makes it easier for the populace to accept re-imagining them via a Year Zero.

    Without corruption of our institutions like this, how could Progressives jail people like Dinesh d’souza?

    1. To paraphrase the Treasure of the Sierra Madre: “Laws? We don’t need no steenking laws!”
      Remember that a Lynch Mob is very, very democratic. If the “majority” wants a hanging they get it, laws be damned.

      1. “Remember that a Lynch Mob is very, very democratic. If the “majority” wants a hanging they get it, laws be damned.”

        Well said…and as I am sure you know the founders intended us to be a Democratic Republic, not a Democracy.

      2. It was the Democrat’s lynch mobs repeatedly hospitalizing people from coast to coast that made me vote for Trump rather than not vote at all.

        1. November 2016, I was uncertain of Trump. But I was very certain of 2 points:
          – Hillary Must Nor be allowed to continue the democrat path of corruption.
          – If Trump put so much as a toe past the line he’d have people from his party pulling him back as the media fired on him from the other side. But any improprieties by Hilary would be covered up or celebrated by her party and the media.

  3. Laws that mean what they say, and must say what they mean? What next? A Constitution that means what it says, and says what it means? A Federal government that works within Consitutional limits? Separation of powers? No wonder such views are beyond the pale to some — the slippery slope they offer leads dangerously close to freedom.

    1. Jeff,

      You’ve nailed it. What I find when talking to left-leaners is that they are so unaware of the intellectual basis of freedom and the Constitution that to educate them would take more time than they wish to spend.

      What’s even worse, when you do start to explain the intellectual basis you begin with one concept which they reject out of hand because, in taking that one concept alone, it seems impractical – won’t work.

      The ideas have to be taken as a whole and that requires a lot of work……

      ..or a decent school system.

      1. I like to start with 2 simple concepts that seem to fit very well with leftoid talking points, until you start considering implications. Then they lead straight to American thought:

        – Rule of law, that the law applies equally to the common man, the legislator, and those who apply the law. No special law for select groups, no “pigs” more “equal” than the rest of us.

        – The concept of an economy where exchange of value is governed by mutual consent. Presuming their concept of consent isn’t critically broken, this leads to a repudiation of socialism.

  4. In addition to the total lack of knowledge and understanding of the concepts in our Constitution and of the benefits of the free market and how it’s supposed to work, the lefty’s, here in the US, have forgotten what it can be like when these freedoms are gone. They didn’t live in a place where freedom is highly restricted, where general safety is assured (except lefty strongholds like Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit) and where goods and services are readily available.

    They think all that we have is the Norm and can be toyed with.

    It is not the Norm…it is the result of the very system they do not understand and which they wish to destroy.

    1. Chesterton’s “parable of the fence” is one which the culture needs to understand and embrace if it is to survive.

      “In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

      “This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.”

      1. While an excellent parable for those concerned with maintaining a society, we have to remember that progressivism is built upon the philosophy of Deconstruction, which delegitimizes societal norms, institutions, and customs.

        When the goal is to tear down society so that we can start from scratch it doesn’t objectively matter why the fence was built. What matters is that fence was illegitimate to begin with and needs to be torn down.

Comments are closed.