[Arthur Wildfire! March]

My layman’s view is different; it is the intention behind the meaning that counts. For example, our Founding Fathers wrote in the preamble to “Provide for ... the General Welfare.” Their intention was not to create Social Security. It was just in the preamble. Maybe people back then could have interpreted that “providing for the general welfare” means a Federal charity, but the location of the words [preamble] was never intended to hold any weight of law, right?

We have an airforce even though the meaning of “airforce” didn’t exist. It was the intention of defense that allowed a reasonable interpretation.

And then there’s the Commerce Clause. Our Founders never indended for the Commerce Clause to restrict personal freedoms. They just wanted smooth trade. Fuzzy memory alert: didn’t Justice Marshall respected the intention of the commerce clause more than the meaning? His court settled Commerce interpretation for some time in a reasonable way if I recall reading. But the courts later used a jackhammer to bust through our freedoms with loose interpretations.

[Abd al-Rahiim]

I'm not saying that original intent isn't a branch within originalism. I'm merely pointing out that the dominant strand of originalism is original meaning. As Justice Scalia has said, "You will never hear me refer to original intent, because as I say I am first of all a textualist, and secondly an originalist. If you are a textualist, you don't care about the intent, and I don't care if the framers of the Constitution had some secret meaning in mind when they adopted its words."

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