I'd be interested in someone unpacking the link between Catholicism and conservative/"originalist" jurisprudence. Barrett, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kavanaugh are all Catholic, and Gorsuch grew up with it and is now Episcopalian. Scalia as well, obviously. Maybe it's just the pro-life stuff but there seems to be more to it. I was raised in it and sort of consider myself "culturally Catholic" (if that is a thing) but don't get the connection.

Biden is Catholic

Augustus wrote:I'd be interested in someone unpacking the link between Catholicism and conservative/"originalist" jurisprudence. Barrett, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kavanaugh are all Catholic, and Gorsuch grew up with it and is now Episcopalian. Scalia as well, obviously. Maybe it's just the pro-life stuff but there seems to be more to it. I was raised in it and sort of consider myself "culturally Catholic" (if that is a thing) but don't get the connection.

I think the connection is pretty obvious. They view the Constitution just like they view the Bible.

CalvinBall wrote:Biden is Catholic

Joe has a cross

I need to understand the 'origionalist' thinking a bit more. I have heard it described as a 'dead document' view. That would seem to be saddled with a whole host of its own problems, primarily things that the constitution does not address explicitly. So looking at it like that, I clearly do not understand the origionalist view. If its not in the document it is illegal? Does not exist? Is free market? All that seems borderline dangerous.

I guess in my experience most Catholics don't really read the Bible-certainly not much compared to Protestants-and the Church has generally rejected a literalist view of it. And again, if it were as simple as taking the Bible literally, why aren't we seeing more evangelical Christians in the federal judiciary? Also, Catholics as a voting bloc are pretty swingy and not particularly conservative. Is it something about reading Aquinas and Augustine in these elite Catholic prep schools?

Barrett her view pretty succinctly :

"I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn't change over time, and it's not up to me to update it"

I am at an intellectual disadvantage so I cannot debate her (or anyone else on the issue) but that view seems incredibly short-sighted and, candidly, a bit spineless.

It is a non-answer. She will interpret in whatever her worldview informs her to.

The kidnapping plot considered nabbing Northam in VA per WaPo

CITIZEN'S ARREST GET IT RIGHT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Cut cable shuts down Virginia's online voter registration system on the last day to register for the general election.

traderdave wrote:Barrett her view pretty succinctly :

"I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn't change over time, and it's not up to me to update it"

I am at an intellectual disadvantage so I cannot debate her (or anyone else on the issue) but that view seems incredibly short-sighted and, candidly, a bit spineless.

It's an approach that gives them the results they like. I just don't understand why people pretend judicial philosophy matters at all. It's also bad history and even worse philosophy--the Constitution was a political document, and much was left open to interpretation on purpose. Furthermore, who exactly are the "people" who ratified it? Did they all interpret it the same way?

Maybe the link between conservatives on the court and Catholicism is casuistry.

TenuredVulture wrote:

traderdave wrote:Barrett her view pretty succinctly :

"I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn't change over time, and it's not up to me to update it"

I am at an intellectual disadvantage so I cannot debate her (or anyone else on the issue) but that view seems incredibly short-sighted and, candidly, a bit spineless.

It's an approach that gives them the results they like. I just don't understand why people pretend judicial philosophy matters at all. It's also bad history and even worse philosophy--the Constitution was a political document, and much was left open to interpretation on purpose. Furthermore, who exactly are the "people" who ratified it? Did they all interpret it the same way?

Maybe the link between conservatives on the court and Catholicism is casuistry.

Yeah this is what I'm getting at-it's how many angels on the head of a pin stuff

Flip it and argue that the framers only meant to protect muskets with the 2nd amendment.

i was gonna go with the 'well regulated militia' part as text.

but what did the framers actually mean?

LOL

@stevenmazie
NEW at SCOTUS: Trump administration returns to the Supreme Court with an emergency request to keep the president's financial records out of the hands of a NY grand jury.

thephan wrote:I need to understand the 'origionalist' thinking a bit more. I have heard it described as a 'dead document' view. That would seem to be saddled with a whole host of its own problems, primarily things that the constitution does not address explicitly. So looking at it like that, I clearly do not understand the origionalist view. If its not in the document it is illegal? Does not exist? Is free market? All that seems borderline dangerous.

The theory of originalism is that the words need to be interpreted as the people that ratified the document would have understood them, and applied to the modern event in question. So it’s not “oh they didn’t have anything but muskets so that’s all that is legal” it’s how you think they would have applied their understanding of the right to bear arms to the concept of a the government restricting use of semiautomatics etc

It sounds great until you apply it. Imagine if we ratified the 2nd amendment today exactly as it reads now. People would be having the same debate about exactly what those words mean. There wasn’t a uniform understanding of those words back then just like there isn’t now. It’s nonsense and guesswork at best based on incomplete context from centuries ago.

Scalia proved with his Heller opinion 20 years ago that it’s all a sham and just a way for a judge to get their own views across while pretending they are using some sort of coherent philosophy.

Augustus wrote:I was raised in it and sort of consider myself "culturally Catholic" (if that is a thing)

It is now because I consider myself the same thing!

I would say the connection is the argument from authority. If you are strict adherent the faith is naturally prescriptive: the pope, the Scriptures, and canon law say this, and that is what must be. There is a sort of Catholic common law tradition that follows from "doctors of the Church" (St. Paul, down through St. Augustine and St. Thomas Acquinas) and I think that is the source. Unlike, say, the Jewish tradition, which while it is similarly scholarly in its reliance on venerated texts (the Torah, the Talamud, etc.), is also very much about debate even at that level, which therefore both simultaneously sets up and questions auctoritas.

The only time I was ever charmed by Scalia was when my wife fell into a strange little scholarly hole where she was writing an article and found a kind of donut hole in English grammar, and this somehow led to research on the particular point in question, on which Scalia was actually questioned by some intrepid critic who read one of his decisions, felt he had made the same error, and wrote him to call him out on. His response was amusing.

The whole concept of simply “following the law” is bullshit anyway and, frankly, not worthy of invocation by someone as high up the judiciary food chain as ACB. If the laws were so obvious there would scarcely be any need for judges at all, let alone Supreme Court justices. Everyone would know exactly what the laws meant and how they applied in each situation. And TV is right, too, that laws (and contracts, too, for that matter) are often deliberately drafted vaguely as a means of compromise.

Now that I think about it, it sounds like a good area for robots!