The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Constitutional disobedience, revisited

In the end, the damned thing is so far out it’s beyond saving, really, I suppose.

So I guess the trick is not to care what it really says or what it really means.

That seems to be the bottom line you get to once you get a better understanding what it really says and really means.

And that’s why only the political right even pretends, any more, to think highly of it.

But Seidman is still wrong about the moral of the tale.

The rest of us just need to nod appreciatively in firm agreement when liberals talk nonsense about the damned thing in defense of, say, application to the states of a Sixth Amendment positive right to counsel or the solid grounding of Social Security in the general welfare (tax and spend) clause.

Because the ordinary run of Americans who know nothing about it and care less wouldn't like frank disobedience, even if only disobedience can get them the outcomes they want in substantive political terms.

Not that the classe politique cares very much what they want, in any case.

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