Thursday 2 February 2017

Can we learn from a Founding Father?

In the days following the elections in the United States, I revisited the Jefferson Memorial on the tidal basin in Washington DC. If you haven't been, I would encourage you to do so - it is an inspiring place.

With the announcement that President Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a so-called "conservative" (I say so-called, because I believe this peculiar ideology is actually revolutionary), I recalled what is displayed on that monument.

But first - how does the Daily Mail (well the Guardian, Washington Post & New York Times might seek to misrepresent him!!!) explain his ideological position?

- Originalism -
Like Scalia, Gorsuch favors what is known as originalism -- the idea that judges should interpret the US Constitution by reverting to how it was understood at the time it was written, with no modern filters.
it's no surprise that he was backed by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, which both work behind the scenes to see a conservative evolution of US law.
So what did Jefferson write?

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."






But what did he know? He was merely one of the Founding Fathers.

You might be interested in the following book - in which the writer, a legal scholar and lawyer who has appeared before the Supreme Court seeks "to show that for the last several decades conservatives have dramatically changed constitutional law to further their ideological agenda."



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