You have the wrong “P” word. Its not “popularity” that matters in the least, its “precedent.” In my vocabulary "Precedent" is an obscene word. It means not having to think for yourself. It means that mistakes get amplified because subsequent minds merely accept what previous minds thought, rather than working through the permutations themselves.
Wong Kim Ark is now the precedent for "Anchor Babies", and only a fool would believe that Congress wanted people sneaking across the border in violation of our law, and being gifted with American citizenship, something LEGAL immigrants have to work for and show cause.
This is why I have no respect for the Legal system's methodology. It invites mistake, and then compounds the problem by enforcing those same mistakes on subsequent iterations.
And there is nothing the least bit “false” about the authority of the legislative and judicial branches to interpret and implement the provisions of the Constitution.
I am not saying their POWER is false, I'm saying their understanding and KNOWLEDGE are false. You are looking at the wrong usage of the word "Authority." In the context of the "False Authority" fallacy, it means someone who has no actual knowledge whereof they speak. Yes, they have power, but they are IGNORANT, and determined to remain that way because of PRECEDENT. The standard legal excuse for not thinking for yourself.
To be fair, "Precedent is actually *TWO* fallacies. It is both the fallacy of false authority, and it is also the fallacy of "tu qouque." (You also.) It means you'll do one case a certain way, because a similar case was done that way previously. It's basically a "If Johnny only got 20 spats, I should only get 20 spats. It's only fair." That is the "tu quoque" aspect.
Neither aspect of Precedent corrects errors, in fact, it contributes to errors.
That’s the way our system works.
Another way of saying "We have always done things that way. "
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as a “rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.”
This concept can be greatly simplified by use of the word "Ruts."
You are also entitled to your own private vocabulary but that doesn’t alter the fact that in the larger context, the English, then the British then the American judicial systems are based on precedent.
I guess you don’t see the Constitution as written as precedential since that word is “obscene” to you. I guess that makes you one of those “constitution as a living document-types.” Originalism is about adhering to precedent.
“The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765–1769. The work is divided into four volumes, on the rights of persons, the rights of things, of private wrongs and of public wrongs.
The Commentaries were long regarded as the leading work on the development of English law and played a role in the development of the American legal system. They were in fact the first methodical treatise on the common law suitable for a lay readership since at least the Middle Ages. The common law of England has relied on precedent more than statute and codifications and has been far less amenable than the civil law, developed from the Roman law, to the needs of a treatise. The Commentaries were influential largely because they were in fact readable, and because they met a need. The work is as much an apologia for the legal system of the time as it is an explanation; even when the law was obscure, Blackstone sought to make it seem rational, just, and inevitable that things should be how they were.
The Commentaries are often quoted as the definitive pre-Revolutionary source of common law by United States courts. Opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States quote from Blackstone’s work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or farther (for example, when discussing the intent of the Framers of the Constitution). The book was famously used as the key in Benedict Arnold’s book cipher, which he used to communicate secretly with his conspirator John André during their plot to betray the Continental Army during the American Revolution.”—Wikipedia
Unlike you, I do not lump 535 members of Congress and the entire U.S. judiciary together as “ignorant” just because they don’t agree with my position on an issue. I think THAT is ignorant.